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Dear John

How can I make my act appeal to all ages?

Question:
I usually perform on the pubs circuit but also do gigs with kids in the audience. My set isn't X-rated but it was not written with kids in mind and has taken time to get right. How can I make it work for younger and mixed audiences?

Answer:
I'm delighted to hear that after working for such a long time you've finally got your show 'right' - you'll have to tell the rest of us how to achieve that, because I've met people who have been in the business more than 40 years who are still working on their act. Funnily enough, they are some of the biggest names in the business because the truth is that the day you stop trying to get better is the day you start to get worse. Standing still isn't an option in showbusiness. But although it's almost impossible to create an act that works for every single audience equally well, if you can get your stuff to work in front of the 'most honest audience in the world' which is what kids tend to be, you'll certainly have a great deal more confidence when dealing with even the rowdiest adult crowd.

Here is some advice from two people who have managed to do that over and over again.

What the experts say:

Potty Patrick

While his alter-ego may well be 'potty', we have nothing but respect for Patrick Jacob's years of experience working with family audiences alongside the likes of Sooty and Garfield in venues ranging from the West End to liners such as the QE2 and the Canberra. Patrick has performed in Switzerland, Scandinavia and Italy as well as at hundreds of kids' parties around the UK. He is also the performer of choice for many celebrity parents when they host their own children's parties.

Obviously you'll be aware that you need to make sure your material is child friendly, so no swearing or adult topics - but what you might not be so aware of is that this rule is for the parents' benefits more than the kids. Even if the adult stuff is going over the kids heads, you're making the mums and dads uncomfortable - they don't want to be asked difficult questions later - and ultimately it's the parents who are paying your bills, so the customer is always right.

A young audience is going to participate whether you like it or not, so you might as well work audience participation to your advantage. You don't have to be the king or queen of the ad lib - standard call and response material works very well. If you've got songs in the act make sure you have one or two that the audience are going to know and be able to join in with.

You also need to be clear on what you want the audience to do - if you ask kids to put their hands up, remember that they can be very literal, you have to tell them to put their hands down again when you are finished otherwise there will be one or two hands remaining up ten minutes later.

Two words of caution on audience participation - be wary of getting kids or adults from the audience up on stage if you're not very confident on stage yourself yet. And when you do pick someone to get up on stage, remember that the noisy kid in the audience may suddenly clam up on you when they are in the spotlight and if they do it's you who will look unprofessional, not them. A tip I've found works is to get the child and their parent involved in whatever onstage business you need them for, so you can leave the parenting up to the parent and focus on doing your act as best you can.

Howard Read

Howard Read and his animated friend Little Howard have been storming the club and festival circuit for some time and have notched up many TV appearances. He is an award-winning stand-up comic, writer and animator. His latest UK tour includes performances of both The Little Howard Appeal and Little Howard's Kids' Show.

Having worked on the stand-up circuit, I was used to audiences shouting back at me but what I have learned from working with younger audiences is that they shout for different reasons.

Basically shouting is what kids do - they don't know they are not supposed to and the majority of the shouting is just them joining in, as opposed to the adult heckler who is usually shouting to show they are cleverer than you (or just hates your guts). That's why it's important to go with the flow with a young audience and if you are more used to an adult crowd, to switch off your instant putdown responses.

Often the kids will come out with something far funnier than anything I could have thought of and when this happens just join in with the laughter - it helps the show and doesn't reflect badly on you. My kids' show is based on material from my adult show and actually I use a lot more of the grown-up show than you might expect - kids can be a lot more sophisticated than you think and unlike adults, don't get resentful if something goes over their heads. They're used to not understanding everything. If I'm doing a joke that might not connect with all of the audience, then I follow it with something which definitely will.

Lastly, remember that kids respond to visuals, so if you usually pull a face when you do a gag, pull a bigger face and if you don't, consider doing so.

John sums up

Two firsts for the Dear John column this week. It is the first time we have specifically featured children's entertainment and the first time I have received far more useful material from both guests than could be fitted into the space available, principally because much of what they had to say about working with child audiences is just as relevant to working with every other kind of audience - don't worry, we will find ways to fit the rest into future columns. But one point both Patrick and Howard make, which is worth adding here, is that while you need to make sure your act is family-friendly for this kind of audience, that isn't the same as being bland or patronising. The art of adapting your act isn't to change who you are, it's to find the aspects of who you are that will work best for whatever audience is in front of you at that moment. And the only way to discover that is to keep trying out your act on as many different types of audience as possible.

* Patrick Jacobs can be contacted via www.pottypatrick.co.uk

* Howard Read (and Little Howard) are at www.howardread.com, where you'll find a full list of tour dates for both versions of his show.

* Feedback/queries are welcome to dearjohn@thestage.co.uk

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