Many people believe comedians are born funny. Nothing is further from the truth. Some develop the skill as children as a method of dealing with school bullies, and the everyday anguish growing-up causes so many of us. Others began studying the subject after realising how powerful a tool it is in entertaining and delighting an audience.

1. Help solve other people’s problems, and you build an instant rapport with them. Here lies the basis on which being funny germinates, and then later grows.

There is little difference in people. Make fun of your own problems, and an audience will empathise, mainly because they have very similar problems to you. By helping them to come to terms with their own problems you help them in dealing with, what can be for them, a difficult dilemma they would, under normal circumstances, prefer not to think about.

2. For those doing the laughing, and for that matter comedians too, humour is a great escape from reality. The comedian befriends an audience, much as a circus clown does with children. Here lies another clue as to what humour is – not is not so much to do with the words used but with vocal expression, character exaggeration, comic timing, and pregnant pauses so full of meaning.

3. The next time you watch a favourite comedian note how they are not afraid to laugh at themselves. This is because humour is a universal human activity that allows the comedian to become a philosophical spectator of his or her own life in relation to those they have around them. Listen carefully to the content of comedy, and you may notice that the most popular topics often revolve around friends (including newly formed quasi friends found in the audience), and family.

4. The props used by the circus clown to humour children are not so effective with adults. Scene setting, such as a public bar, is tolerated but it is the comedian’s ‘unique’ personality that must shine through. Have you ever thought about how many top comedians have similar acts? Non. Success in humour is about being unique.

5. Being funny is seriously hard work. Many that fail at being funny do so because they don’t work hard enough at it. Comedy is no different to any other skill. The ‘fortunate few funny folk’ having all the lucky breaks is nonsense. Luck plays little part in whether or not you are likely to succeed as a comedian. It was Gary Player who said, "The more I practise the luckier I get". This is as true in comedy as it is in golf.

6. Good humour never stops growing. It is a baby conceived in the mind of the comedian, that is nurtured to adulthood, and often only dies with the demise of the creator.

The best comedians are constantly reworking their best material. They may be at the top of their profession but they never stop asking the question "How can I make this mediocre story better?" Theirs is a quest for perfection that never comes.

Writing good material sometimes requires an ability to let go of ‘the baby’. Comedians often fear culling their best stories, but have come to realise that effective comedy production requires an ability to prune to facilitate the promotion of new growth.

Funny people strive to be ever funnier. It is a lifelong apprenticeship that few have the resolve to complete.

7. What is, and what is not funny, fluctuates with the years, and is generally accepted as being a subjective test.

Quick-witted ‘one-liners’ are still in fashion, whereas jokes are not. The "These three men went into a pub…" type stories are currently out of vogue and will create a chorus of cringes, as many would-be comedians have found, unfortunately, too late to save their delicate feelings.

8. Producing funny material takes practise and is primarily a personal preference thereby creating the uniqueness I described earlier. Here are a few suggestions as to how you can go about creating your own unique repertoire.

I work on a simplistic definition of the psychology of humour as being ‘the study of the human mind and prediction of behaviour’.

To make a situation humorous the audience must first predict some outcome and then be humoured with a punch line that nudges them off the expected route.

The next time you watch or listen to a favourite comedian be much more analytical about what it is they are saying and try to work out why it is so funny. Let’s take a favourite comedian of mine, Woody Allen. Here is a short extract from one of his routines and I would like you to analyse the construction of his story:

"When I was little boy, I wanted a dog desperately, and we had no money. I was a tiny kid, and my parents couldn't get me a dog, 'cause we just didn't have the money, so they got me, instead of a dog - they told me it was a dog - they got me an ant. And I didn't know any better, y'know, I thought it was a dog, I was a dumb kid. Called it 'Spot'. I trained it, y'know. Coming home late one night, Sheldon Finklestein tried to bully me. Spot was with me. And I said "Kill!", and Sheldon stepped on my dog."

Think about some of the tips I have already provided. Take the full stops is Woody’s story as being the pauses I described. Does he build empathy by describing a situation that was similar to a problem you may once have had?

Is he making fun of his own problems?

Does he appear to be laughing at himself?

Is he a philosophical spectator of his own life in relation to those around him?

What relationship is he to the other characters in the story?

True comedy is the practically enacted theory of the absurdities so often found in human relationships and is usually related to a ‘twist’ in the story. This is what ‘funny’ is.

9. The ‘twist’ takes the story away from the norm (the predicted path), and makes it humorous. Woody’s dog becomes an ant. As the story unfolds Woody creates a movie in your mind. You are there with him as Finklestein tries to bully him and Spot is instructed to Kill!

Funny people have the ability to have ‘fun’ with literal meanings. It is said they see the funny side of everything. I agree they do, but only when they set the mind to the task. Comedians are performers. Meet them whilst doing the shopping with their spouse and kids and you will find they appear and sound no different to anyone else.

Yet something in that shopping centre may germinate the seed of an idea in the comedian’s mind that they will propagate for weeks to come and may eventually grow to maturity and bear fruit. For comedians, life is full of ‘waiting to be discovered’ humour.

Take any situation and think of alternative meanings to make it humorous. Here’s an example. "I was on my way to the shops and your dog went for me!" Think of alternate meaning to ‘your dog went for me’ i.e. the dog attempted to bite him, and reply "that’s impressive; it never went to the shops for me before!" The listener is nudged from the predicted path making the story humorous.

10. My final top tip on being funny is related to having the confidence to be funny. Confidence is a state of mind. It is what you believe. Your beliefs are mostly a matter of faith and apply in more areas than just the spiritual. Believe in yourself and it will strengthen your ability to make people laugh. Have that faith and you can realise your full potential. Stand-up, be funny and afterwards think carefully about how you can make your performance better the next time. Whatever you do – have fun doing it.