And the world laughs with you

Comedians - let  me just give you a note or two

Cheer up! You know in life… Cheer. Up.

And as you get older don't increasingly pat yourself on the back at your ability to resist a laugh, at your ability to become more straight-laced and straight-faced.

Stop trying to be better than the laugh.

Don't analyse peoples jokes and measure them guiltily against your own before you provide a measured laugh according to percentages .. in case anybody is looking. Because they are looking and your miserable sour face will express disapproval and ruin it for everybody else. 

Put aside any other thoughts and just  laugh at the joke. 

If you can't do that just smile. 

In time it will turn into a laugh.

It's just practice. You knew it once. You've just forgotten.

Before you know it, some chemicals you've long since betrayed as you've trotted out your tired circuit-friendly scripts will reappear.  

Who knows... you might think of some new ideas, and not feel obliged to deliver the same set 100 times a year.

Try and remember why you went into comedy.

Was it to be miserable and make others laugh?

Or was it to laugh and make others laugh?

Or was it a live and hope that others stuck around while you did it?

Don't measure your quality by your ability to deadpan.

Just have a laugh. Even at that competitor you hate.

If you are a panel show, don't let the camera catch you looking frosty when somebody else makes a joke, just play along.

If you're a musician supporting a comedian, don't let the fact that you've heard the joke a hundred times before bother you, just smile. Pretend you haven't heard it before. That's what people on the stage do. They pretend it's the first time.

You can't all be deadpan. You're not all Stewart Lee. You're not all Steven Wright.

Remember how the old fellas did it. They had a laugh and finished with a song.

It okay to laugh at your own jokes.

We know they're not that good and it really helps us out. 

It sort of gives us a starter for ten. A kick-start.

It's no good blaming the fact that we haven't drunk enough alcohol to make you funny, and then remembering how great the audience was in the second half compared to the first. It's the same audience, moron.

Lighten up... 

Comedians sometimes give laughing a bad name.

And if you're not one of those comedians, pass it on. 

I can't do this alone.