Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article examines a particular genre of ‘road story’ favored by professional stand-up comics. ‘Road stories’ is a colloquial term used by comedians to describe the narratives they share with one another and sometimes others in order to pass the time, to relive an experience, or to enact the role of performer off stage. These stories represent an adaptation to a particular constraint faced by stand-up comics in their conversations with one another. There are strong mores within the community of professional comedians against telling ‘jokes’ anywhere but on the stage. This is a result of the widely held belief that only amateurs ‘try out’ material back stage. At the same time, stand-up comics have the desire to be perceived as funny by their peers. The road story genre allows comics to be funny without ‘doing material’. This paper describes a particular genre of these stories, ‘hell gigs’, in which stand-up comics recount their most difficult performances.
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