The Comedian

The comedian

One of the joys of running an Airbnb is the diversity of people you meet. This summer we have had a family from Bangkok, a couple from New Zealand and a woman from Chicago. Our guests have been without exception warm, friendly and a joy to talk to.

Recently we had couple from Belgium staying for two weeks. When they arrived, we dropped in to welcome them and were fascinated to learn that Nigel was a successful stand-up comic.

I love listening to good comedians, but I’ve never thought too much about what motivates them and how they develop their routines.

When Nigel heard that I was a writer, his first comment was that he couldn’t understand how anyone could write a book. He wrote continually but didn’t see how it was possible to put together enough writing to fill a novel.

That was the start of a fascinating conversation and eventually a wonderful friendship.

 As much as we couldn’t understand each other’s work, we came to see there are many similarities between the kind of writing I do and the work of a stand-up comedian.

Nigel’s job is to entertain people and make them laugh. But if he’s any good at his craft he also makes them think. Sounds familiar. When I write a book, I want my readers to be entertained and sometimes even laugh, but I really want to make them think.

Nigel did a short show at our local coffeehouse and soon had the audience roaring in laughter. Watching someone you know on stage is a different experience. I found myself cheering him on and hoping everything would go well. I worried how a guy from Belgium would be able to make rural Newfoundlanders laugh.

We talked about the show after and he said it was important to be relatable to your audience. It would be a hard job to win over a group of people in my village with stories about how difficult the traffic is in the city of Antwerp.

Watching Nigel at work, I thought that he was like someone you know who consistently comes up with funny ideas, but with Nigel the humour was relentless. Everything he said on stage was hilarious, it was like an exaggeration of the funniest person I know. I mentioned this to Nigel, and he said it wasn’t just about being funny, everything he said had to come together into a story. This was sounding more and more like my kind of writing.

I’m not sure if other comedians work the same way but he tries to write for a couple of hours every morning. It sounded to me like his writing was not specifically the lines and jokes he would use in performance, more his thoughts on what was interesting and funny in the world.

When he performs, he doesn’t know exactly what he is going to say. He has a show prepared to the extent that he has about ten things that he knows he will talk about.

This is where our worlds diverge. When I write, I’m trying to find the perfect combination of words to fit my thoughts into a book. When Nigel writes he’s finding the ideas that will lead to a specific performance that will never be repeated. My books find a final definitive form and his writing sets the stage for his art.

Nigel suggested to me that one of the most important things for a comic is to find the world fascinating. That’s the same for writers and it fascinated me how much I could learn from and be inspired by a comedian.