Alan's Time On The Feeling Funny Course

I recently took part in a course called Feeling Funny with The Comedy Trust. The aim of the project is to promote positive mental health and wellbeing and I can honestly say that it does exactly what it say’s on the tin.

The course I attended had 6 other people and we all had a bond right from the first meeting as we were all in the same boat none of us had ever done anything like this before.

The first meeting was very laid back the tutors where not expecting us to be a John Bishop or Jack Whitehall just yet which was very much welcomed by us all. The first thing they asked us to do as an ice breaker was to write down something we loved and something we hated and come up to the mic and talk about it just to get used to speaking through a mic.

Each of us in turn came to the mic to a round of applause from the others who were very supportive we only had to talk about things for a couple of minutes so it wasn’t to difficult to do. We finished the session by having a chat about our favourite comedians and what we liked about them.

Week 2 was again quite laid back we by this time had the seeds of what kind of comedy we wanted to use for the show again each of us went to the mic and performed what we had at that time and then Sam and Brendan would try to give us the best advice they could to help us develop our performance and our other performers would chip in with their ideas so it was a we are all in this together attitude.

By week 4 I had the set I wanted to perform and could remember it which is an important part of it and all I needed was a little polishing here and there.

Week 5 was a run through of our act as we were going live next week which was so far out of mine and others comfort zone.

Week 6 was performance time and I am not afraid to say I was very nervous, was my act funny enough? Would people laugh? Sam gave us a last minute pep talk and told us that we had done all the hard work writing and polishing our act. He also said to go out and enjoy the experience. The audience was full of our family and friends that we had invited as well as some of the people funding the course. So the audience were very supportive of all of us not just the person they came for.

After my performance I came of stage to a round of applause and cheering which made me feel like I was on top of the world a million miles away from where I had started in week 1.

Each of us had our own particular reasons to take part in this project mine was wanting to do something I maybe would never do in a month of Sundays and as the aim of the project was to promote good mental health and well-being and I work as a support worker and as such part of my job is to promote exactly the same things.

This made me want to try it out and see if I could recommend it to my service users and I am pleased to say I can without reservation.