A good topic is…

… about them!

What do people love to hear about? Themselves. Some people argue the sweetest sound is ones own name. Now I’m not sure if I completely agree with that, but I do know I like seeing my name written on a big cheque and isn’t that the same?

Now you obviously can’t literally talk about the people in your audience. Apart from doing a whole show based on crowd work.

But you can always ask yourself how you can make your topics accessible and relatable to your audience.

Ask yourself: Why should they care? How does my topic relate to my audience?

Why should a room full of teenagers care about your midlife crisis?

Why should an audience made up of car salespeople want to hear about your bicylce trip around Europe?

And I’m not talking about pandering to the audience. Don’t choose a topic just because you think the audience will like it.

There is a big difference between pandering and building a bridge between you and your audience, and then inviting them to cross it so they can enjoy your piece. But maybe you can link your midlife crisis to what their dad is going through?

Or you can talk about how you wished you had a car while cycling through Europe?

Build a bridge that connects their world to yours.

Make it accessible

And by accessible I don’t mean that you need to dumb it down or that you should refrain from talking about your favorite model train, your obsession with obscure Korean movies from the 70’s or that you shouldn’t go in an absurdist direction.

Sometimes the accessibility of a comedy piece can actually be that it is not accessible. But we can enjoy it because it’s not meant to be understood. It IS just weird.

Just give your audience an in.

A way for them to join you in your world.

Try to build a bridge, get them on your side, make them care.

Remind them of their own hobbies and how much they care about them.

Make it relatable

If you can’t make your material accessible, make yourself relatable. If people don’t care about the material they have to care about you and vice versa.

Best of all: They care about you AND the material.

So one advice could be to make it current, make it personal. An audience should have no problem answering this question: Why are you telling us this?

And by making your material relatable (Oh! It’s about US!) or personal (He’s telling us about himself!) and current (Ah, it just happened to him! Or: I just read about this in the newspaper today!) you already have an answer to this question.

Now this is all just intended to get your audience emotionally invested. Think about it: Why is “Man and Woman” such a well trodden topic?

Because the audience is already emotionally involved.

I mean what makes you more interested? Rice or… sex?

Exactly!

Can you make people care about rice? Absolutely. But you do have to make them care.

Sex? Not so much. Most people are already disposed to like thinking about sex.
And if there is already some emotional investment you have a lot of advantages: You don’t have to do any heavy lifting before you can delve in. You can concentrate on making it funny instead of having to get your audience on board or explain things they don’t know nothing about.

Remember: When a person is thinking, they aren’t laughing.

And the less an audience has to think, the more they can simply enjoy themselves. But again I’m not talking about dumbing down your comedy but instead spend time on making sure your comedy us as accessible as you can (and want).

Write what you know

Does this advice really hold up? Yes and no. Write what you know, as far as I understand it, is all about authenticity. That the audience believes you when you talk about something and accepts it coming from you.

But there is nothing keeping you from doing something until the audience accepts it from you. Until it actually is authentic coming from you.

Or as George Burns put it brilliantly:

“The key to success is sincerity. If you can fake that you’ve got it made.”

Checklist

- Do you care about it?
- Does the audience care about it?
- Can you make them care about it?
- Can you make them care about you?

And finally: Can you make it funny?

Because honestly that’s all that a comedy piece needs as its reason for existing: It being funny.