Jamie Does the Stand-Up Europe Festival: After the Fest
Is comedy as simple as finding the easiest route to making someone laugh? This is what I began to wonder as I watched comedians from throughout Europe follow formulas to elicit laughter—set up an expectation and deliver a misdirect, add a little pun, throw in a cultural stereotype, and voila! Even still, Barcelona’s own Aurelio Lova delivered the most impressive performance with his straight-boy character, Hunter, which ends with a true feminist message as he layers the irony of fratty straight men claiming to be feminists and allies.
The Stand-Up Europe festival included about 100 comedians representing Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland, and more. It was an impressive show of young comedians passionate and eager to show what they’ve got. The structure was simple: two hours-long open mics to select the top 30 comedians, and another “Big Mic” to select the comedians to perform at the Main Event.
As a semi-pro comic, I expected to make it through each round with ease, but the pressure of competition reminded me of my anxiety with auditions and the feeling of being judged. My hypersensitivity to rejection seeped into my brain, growing a tree of self-doubt and a lack of confidence that shined through my performance at the Big Mic as I tried to do different material while many other comics repeated the same 4 minutes throughout the festival. Earlier in the evening, I had a killer headlining set at the Women’s Mic, and yet, the high from that faded as my hunger to eat pizza and smoke a joint grew.
I suddenly realize that the highs no longer outrank the lows of comedy for me; does this mean it’s time to quit? I don’t have the answer and neither do the organizers of Stand-Up Europe, who encouraged community while placing comedians in a competitive format. It can be hard to look your cohorts in the eye when you feel inadequate. No matter how much you remind yourself that everyone has a bad set, you can’t help but feel that your bad sets unfortunately happen to take place when it’s most important. You can’t help but wonder if you have what it takes. And simultaneously, you’re still happy for your friends, happy for the people who have worked just as hard (if not harder) and put the same pressure on themselves to showcase everything they had. But while they may thrive in the environment, you feel yourself waning.
With a bit more structures during workshops and panels, perhaps with experienced comedians, the educational aspect could have been stronger, although the clown workshop with Pedro Fabiao was one of the best I’ve ever attended. Comedians were encouraged to hang out together after the shows, which sometimes didn’t end until after 1 a.m. But despite my personal identity crises, I felt lucky to be surrounded by people who share a common passion. While for me it showed that I may not hold the same passion anymore, it reminded me what it looks like to love something: to hustle, eat, sleep, and breathe comedy. And if you want to be a comedian, that’s what you have to do.
I was also extremely impressed with the level of comedy. There were some impeccably written jokes, some of the tightest fives I’ve ever seen. One anonymous comedian dressed as inkkyPUNK, a strange-looking space alien with a unitard and a padded butt, as they performed an alternative character comedy set.
But by encouraging comics to repeat material, the magic tricks revealed themselves. Many of the jokes at the Big Mic were well-written, which is all good and well. But is this where comedy is going? Short sets with formulaic punchlines and structures seem to be taking over thanks to comedy’s social media epidemic. This may not be a bad thing — comedy nights are where people go to forget about the atrocities of the world. So they laugh, and it’s as simple as that. Luckily, there are a lot of laughs in Europe, so it’s time for the rest of the comedy world to pay attention. With eyes on Barcelona, according to several of the other participants, I’m proud to say we’re at the forefront of gaining recognition for the European comedy scene as a whole.
