Funny business: why Hong Kong’s stand-up comedy scene is no laughing matter

Making people laugh for a living is a tough gig. A South China Morning Post editor gets lessons from some of Hong Kong’s top stand-ups before taking to the stage

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Why you can trust SCMP

John Carney

Published: 2:45pm, 28 Nov 2020Updated: 11:55am, 3 Dec 2020

“So that’s the colour of adrenaline,” I concluded after my third trip to the urinal in an hour. “Maybe I should use that line in my routine?”

These are the thoughts that were running through my mind shortly before my stand-up comedy debut. At such moments, all that matters is being funny. And not pissing yourself. And being funny on a stage. And not pissing yourself on stage. For an unbroken stream of several minutes. In front of an actual audience.

Far from years of honing this sacred stagecraft in front of a bathroom mirror, hairbrush microphone in hand, that night’s bladder betrayals belied three – to be fair, three in-depth – stand-up comedy classes stewarded by regional veterans Andy Curtain, Vivek Mahbubani and Ben Quinlan, and held over three consecutive weeks at Hong Kong’s only full-time comedy club. In classic comedy style, The Riff opened its doors in California Tower, Lan Kwai Fong, in January, just before the coronavirus booed the whole citizenry off stage.

And before the virus, a year of protests, arrests and tear gas. If there were ever a right time to visit a comedy club, this was it. I was determined, whatever the viral fates had in store, that they would not intervene before I had thoroughly embarrassed myself in public.

Don’t take it too seriously. Don’t overthink it

Andy Curtain, comedian

I emerged from the restroom, uttered a few expletives and bounded on stage to drop my comedic gauntlet: “I was going to start by telling you all a joke about coronavirus. But you’d have to wait two weeks to see if you got it – and tonight I only have five minutes.”

People laughed. There was hope. I was going to be the next, well … the next famous comedian not to be accused of some lurid sexual impropriety. If nothing else, I would survive my first-ever set. I would have taken that all important, bladder-shattering first step.