Do's and don'ts
Do: if you're in the middle of the Town square of a big European city and you want to attract attention then you'll probably just need to spread a blanket, place a loaf of bread, a huge cucumber, a packet of sausages and a scarf in each of the blanket's corners respectively, sit down in the middle and wait. Oh yes, getting half naked to put on a costume also helps.
Don't: start rigid as a bar of iron and create no connection with the audience. When you start then throw 4 jokes that somehow insult the audience or the audience's country. They need to love you before you can start poking them up. This is specially so if the first joke consists in a word play by means of which you say Ladies and Sluts instead of Ladies and Gentlemen.
Do: Accept the challenge of a teenager, don't be scared
Don't: Be anxious, teenagers smell it and will increase the challenge
Do: Put the teenager in the limelight, encourage him to ride the show, let him melt in self-consciousness, join the audience, make comments about his performance, then gain him back and make him feel good after he's learned the lesson.
Don't: make general comments about local politicians, that's simply demagogy.
Do: breath, wait, keep quiet, sometimes that's enough to make people stay.
Don't: keep pushing with words or attempts to be funny, that just pushes people away.
Do: make yourself very ridiculous both with your costume and attitude.
Don't: play the clever guy, they'll realize you're shitting your pants.
Do: try to pull people towards you at the beginning of the show, for this probably it helps to create a bond first instead of all the jokes aimed at the audience. Make them laugh at you first!
This are lessons from my new show mental kung-fu - a toolkit of self defense techniques brought to Germany from the southern regions of Europe in the face the Great Recession. The imminent invasion of the country by desperate south Europeans has driven the German authorities to recruit self defense specialists to contain the arrival. Among the techniques there are: 'Mental Kung-Fu' and 'Wurst und brot' (bread and sausage). Still working without music or sound effects other than my own voice.
