Narrative Lecture Series: Comedy & Slapstick - Tim Minchin, Ready For This? (plan)

Tim Minchin's 2009 Tour "Ready For This?" filmed at London's HMV Hammersmith Apollo. 

General overview - what kind of comedy?
A large mix of a lot of types.
Largely intellectual humour, touching on childish/playful and also schadenfreude (towards himself as well as others, mostly Americans) Also often controversial notably around atheism/religion and has songs on prejudice surrounding this and race. During his shows he also performs some stand up, mixed in and relating to his songs. He has traits of many comedian types, including observational comic, haiku, storyteller, and political rebel. Where he is a live performer he also sometimes touches on physical performance, adding small comical and often improvised movements to his act, as well as manipulating his voice, timing for impact. 

Where does the comedy come from?
Consists of many theories to why we laugh
Incongruity - what we expect vs what happens
Benign Violation -violations of morals, social and linguistic norms and dignity 
Release theory
certain songs are more particular to each 



Break down one scene (one song?) How does the comedy work? 

Dark Side

Storyteller, schadenfreude towards himself, performance comedy through his stage presence, actions, voice. Intellectual as it does all this through a song (written and composed by himself) 

Storm

 

Displays a small amount of performance comedy, in his actions. As well as intellectual, political (controversial around religion/disbelief in science), poking fun at strong (and narrow minded) beliefs (possibly? schadenfreude towards "Storm") Also taking the part of the storyteller, through song (intellectual).


Comedy is personal, what makes it funny to me? 
I think what attracts me to Tim Minchin's comedy is that it combines so many different types of comedy. He cleverly interweaves many types to give a flow to his live performances, bridging each song to lead on to the next with an anecdote or joke. He is outspoken, but not in an "in your face" way, but in a fun and semi-lighthearted way, and this means he is able to bring attention to some very important and sometimes controversial topics, such as religion, prejudiced and race, and even global warming and more personal troubles, including self esteem and dealing with grief. 

Illustrations
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51dUoBGrucL.jpg

Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQmJ_vxHB4