•On Sunday 12th February Mark Thomas was joined by eleven enthusiastic young people from the Wakefield area for a stand-up comedy workshop at The Orangery!

Mark began by describing his beginnings in comedy, discussing the environment in which he was performing and the experiences which he drew from, stressing the importance of ‘the story’. 

•Afterwards, Pete Hirst and Mark engaged the group in a series of games as a warm up.

•When everyone was comfortable, people were separated into smaller groups to try out possible stories which could be used as a performance piece. Most told several and then their peers helped in choosing the best story.

Mark encouraged people to focus on details such as character and context to help improve the telling of their stories, leading to some great (though not completely complementary!) impressions of friends and family.

The stories continued to be worked on in groups, lead by Mark, making up twists of information to help make the stories more entertaining and ready for performance.

•Next, delivery was brought into focus. The entire group told their stories in various weird and wonderful ways to bring out the best way of telling and to make people comfortable with performing. There were exercises in expression, body language and building confidence.

Individuals took turns to perform one on one and for small groups too.

•At the end of the session, each person performed their story to the entire group with great success!