DZ-83: A Very Thematic Stand-up Special!

Listen if you want to understand how stand-up comedians grip audiences and build emotional arcs (and what narrative tools screenwriters can borrow from comedy)!

Standup comedians can keep audiences gripped to their every word for over an hour, and often bring them to emotional climaxes by the end. So how do they do it and what tools can apply to scripted narratives?

For this deep dive into standup, Stu and Chas are joined by the super-talented comic and podcaster Alice Fraser. Which is rather fortuitous. Because not only are we schooled on comedy techniques, but because Alice also has a Masters in Narrative Rhetoric.

So as we dive in to NANETTE by Hannah Gadsby, BABY COBRA by Ali Wong and IT’S THE FIREWORKS TALKING by Daniel Kitson (with more than a passing reference to Alice’s own show SAVAGE and INSIDE by Bo Burnham), we analyse narrative structure, transitions, set-ups and pay-offs used by stand-ups…

But we end up focusing on exploring thematic tools - particularly the Aristotelean concepts of the rhetorical triangle:

- logos (how the story is told); - ethos (who the storyteller is); and - pathos (how the audience emotionally engages).

With these powers combined, storytellers of all kinds can produce work of thematic power and resonance. Or just funny.

And in backmatter, we discuss adapting Savage for the recorded stage with Alice!

This episode brought to you by ScriptUp – https://www.scriptupstudio.com – use promo code DZ10 to get 10% off.

Enjoy!

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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→ Read the transcript for this episode.

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"If you introduce this idea in a harmless form, then they're willing to swallow it later. When, if you presented it raw out front, they would recoil." — Alice Fraser @ 00:11:22

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CHAPTERS

• 00:00:00 – Q: What can screenwriters learn from the storytelling techniques used by stand-up comedians?
• 00:03:25 – Alice Fraser on Comedy
• 00:07:54 – › Comedy as a tool for confronting difficult emotional truths
• 00:12:03 – › Presence, politics, and visual storytelling in BABY COBRA and NANETTE
• 00:15:44 – › How format shapes stand-up structure across cultures
• 00:22:33 – Comedy tools to be explored
• 00:26:21 – NANETTE by Hannah Gadsby
• 00:29:03 – › Ethos, logos, pathos as structural framework for comedy
• 00:34:04 – › Unifying themes and audience-driven meaning in stand-up
• 00:41:38 – › Joke structure as incomplete story and the fugue form
• 00:45:15 – › Jokes as distance, intimacy, and audience manipulation
• 00:48:47 – Transitions in and out of theme
• 00:52:39 – › American vs. British structural approaches to stand-up narrative
• 00:58:42 – › Catharsis mechanics and the retrospective reframe
• 01:05:51 – › Tension as meta-commentary on gender and unresolved pain
• 01:08:32 – BABY COBRA by Ali Wong
• 01:13:02 – › Club bits vs. connective tissue in long-form comedy structure
• 01:20:05 – › Reprise as structural skeleton: the trunk and branch model
• 01:29:26 – › Audience participation, the Betty Crocker principle, and earned subtext
• 01:34:39 – › Heightened dialogue and visual imagery conjured through language
• 01:37:57 – IT'S THE FIREWORKS TALKING by Daniel Kitson
• 01:42:47 – › What stand-up reveals about art that moves audiences
• 01:49:02 – › Language as colour grading and hyper-real specificity
• 01:55:30 – › Status shifts as a structural tool in comedy and drama
• 02:00:06 – › Character voice as persona and the narrator's ethos
• 02:04:45 – Key Learnings
• 02:07:41 – › Layering emotional groundwork for recontextualization
• 02:14:39 – Backmatter - Adapting SAVAGE
• 02:17:03 – › Performing tension for unseen audiences
• 02:22:53 – › Wide shots, private moments, and embodied scripts
• 02:24:35 – › Adapting the illusion of intimacy to screen
• 02:28:17 – › Narrator versus character and the writer's persona

FILMS

• NANETTE (2017) — (w) Hannah Gadsby (d) Madeleine Parry, Jon Olb
• BABY COBRA (2016) — (w) Ali Wong (d) Jay Karas
• INSIDE (2021) — (w) Bo Burnham
• IT'S THE FIREWORKS TALKING (2007) — (w) Daniel Kitson

LINKS

• Listen: Alice Fraser's Savage Part 1
• Listen: Alice Fraser's Savage Part 2
• Watch: Alice Fraser's Savage on Amazon
• Listen: Hannah Gadsby on the Working it Out podcast with Mike Birbiglia
• Listen: Daniel Kitson's It's The Fireworks Talking (2007)
• Sponsor: Script Up! Use promo code DZ10 to get 10% off

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We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2021/dz-83/