808 - Comedy is serious money: Tom interviews Alfie Noakes - Screw The Commute

808 – Comedy is serious money: Tom interviews Alfie Noakes

I'm here with Alfie Noakes and he's going to tell you how to make stand up comedy an actual moneymaking career, even though he was never a comedian himself. How about that? Now, in a former life, Alfie was a film journalist and a documentary maker, and he wrote and directed films on artists as diverse as Jennifer Lopez and all the way to Metallica. And here's the thing. Richard Gere really does not like him, but Jack Black really does.

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[01:43] Tom's introduction to Alfie Noakes

[07:22] Greatest run-ins with famous people and having kids

[09:45] We Are Funny Project

[15:04] If you're afraid to do it, you MUST do it

[18:19] How the training works

[22:38] Sponsor message

[24:47] A typical day for Alfie

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Episode 808 – Alfie Noakes
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 882 Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Alfie Noakes and he's going to tell you how to make stand up comedy an actual moneymaking career, even though he was never a comedian himself. How about that? Now, in a former life, Alfie was a film journalist and a documentary maker, and he wrote and directed films on artists as diverse as Jennifer Lopez and all the way to Metallica. And here's the thing. Richard Gere really does not like him, but Jack Black really does. And we want to hear about that in a minute. All right. Check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and grab a copy of my automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. You will thank me for it because I want you to spend some time with your prospects and working on products and services and taking care of customers and not fighting with your computer. And literally one just one of the tips in this book has saved me. We estimated 8 million keystrokes over the years, so that's hundreds of hours of fooling with your computer where you could be making money. And also pick up a copy of our podcast app that's now in the App store at screwthecommute.com/app.

[00:01:44] All right. Let's bring on the main event. Alfie Noakes is a London based comedy coach and promoter. He is the creator of the We Are Funny Project and Alfie has written and presented a series of online courses designed to support anyone who wants to have a go at standup and all the way from their first gig to reaching for the paid circuit and bagging and agent and like to punch a lot of agents rather than bag them sometimes. But Alfie is a potent champion of standup as an art form and encourages people to feel the fear and still give it a go. And there's a lot of transferable skills in what he teaches, all while having a lot of laughs. So, Alfie, are you ready to screw?

[00:02:29] I'm ready. Thanks for having me, Tom.

[00:02:31] Good to have you, man. Good to meet you. You're apparently a big shot in in the UK for sure. And we're going to help you be a big shot. Here in the US. There's only one important thing I want to know about, and that's The Leslie Crowther Show.

[00:02:46] You get that the price is right?

[00:02:48] I don't know. That's. That's IMDb. First thing I saw about you online.

[00:02:54] I really at a loss. I don't see the connection between me and the Leslie Crowther show.

[00:02:59] You're.

[00:02:59] Oh, I'll tell you. I'll tell you what the possible connection is. So you're not the guy that plays bass guitar for 40 years, right?

[00:03:11] No, definitely not. I think I mean, I began working in television 30 years ago, and I think Leslie Crowther was already dead by that point. So I'm highly confident it wasn't me. If not, he died within a few years of me beginning. Oh, that's a.

[00:03:26] That's a man. Yeah.

[00:03:27] Yeah. Leslie Crowther, he hosted I'm sure it's an American format. The Price is Right. He hosted the British version of it.

[00:03:33] Oh, I see. But so there's an Alfie Noakes that's listed there. Is it doing five episodes? And when I look deeper on the name Alfie Noakes, there is a guy that played the bass guitar for 35 years, so.

[00:03:48] Well, this is news to me, fascinating as it is. The fact is Alfie Noakes is my stage name. It's not my birth name. It's actually lifted from a Derek and Clive sketch, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The comedy greats did a sketch which was Alfie Noakes. So that's where my name came came from. I'm amazed at Bass player for Leslie Crowther came up before Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Yeah, we live and we learn. And I've learned something today.

[00:04:15] Thank you, Tom.

[00:04:16] Check it out when you when you get off of here. So.

[00:04:19] So I do have credits on the IMDb, though, I believe.

[00:04:22] Yeah, but it's probably under your your real name, right?

[00:04:26] You're correct. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:27] Entirely correct. Yeah.

[00:04:29] If you search Alfie Noakes on IMDb, this is what you come up with.

[00:04:33] Okay. Thank you for the lesson.

[00:04:35] This thing with Richard Gere. What did you do to the poor guy? I mean, after he spent all that time with that hooker, you know, in one of his most famous movies? What did you do to him?

[00:04:46] I thought you were talking about a real life incident. Never heard of. You're referring to, of course, the 1990 film Pretty Woman.

[00:04:52] Exactly right. Yeah.

[00:04:54] No, the Richard Gere story goes back to I spent like a decade, more than a decade working as a film journalist. And in that time, I would do interviews with a lot of the stars. Back in the 90s, he was publicizing a film he made with Bruce Willis called The Jackal remake of The Day of the Jackal. Anyway, we opened the interview with my question, which was normally They're here. What's the film about? Who do you play? What's it like working with Bruce? You know, all these bog standard, boring questions. So we'd always try and open with something a little bit more entertaining to throw them a curve ball, grab their attention.

[00:05:26] So you ask them about The Leslie Crowther Show. Didn't you.

[00:05:30] Wonder if he would know.

[00:05:31] He was either?

[00:05:32] So we asked him, Is it true that you've got a gambling problem of which he looked completely gobsmacked and I've no idea what you're talking about. Why are you asking this? And I said, Well, I've heard that you really like to bet. Which is, of course, a homage to his close friendship to the Dalai Lama and Buddhism in general. And he laughed about as loud as you are now, and went on to tell me this is the worst interview he's ever had. And then I produced an interview with him several years later for the Jennifer Lopez film Shall We Dance? Him and Jennifer Lopez. And Jennifer was supposed to be part of our interview, but she didn't get on the plane to the UK, so I had to bombard my presenter with questions about Jennifer Lopez to Richard Gere so we could get her into the programme. And he accused me again of this being the worst interview he'd ever done. So two encounters with the man and he's ditched me two times.

[00:06:21] Which the.

[00:06:22] Entirely Buddhist of him.

[00:06:23] Yeah. The thing is, is I say be first or be last, but avoid the accursed middle. Right. So he's going to remember you forever.

[00:06:32] I imagine so. I hope.

[00:06:33] So.

[00:06:33] How about Jack Black? Why is he really like you?

[00:06:37] Oh, well.

[00:06:37] Again, back in the day, what was it? 2006 or thereabouts, when the King Kong film came out, the Peter Jackson film that Jack Black starred in. I came to New York to do the interviews, and every every journalist coming out was saying what a bad mood he was in and they weren't getting anything from him. So when I went in, I came in with super high energy, pointed out that I'm from, you know, the land of Led Zeppelin and the Stones and riffed on some music stuff with him, and he just came alive, you know, kind of animated him. I tapped into his his clear love and knowledge of classic British rock music. And as far as I can tell, I got the best interview out of him. Yeah, that's.

[00:07:10] That's what good.

[00:07:11] Interviews interviewers do, is they bring out the best in the guests. So I'm really going to try to do that for you.

[00:07:20] I hope you do so.

[00:07:22] So but you had a lot of run ins with famous people. So who are some of the greatest and who are some of the the ones you could have wish you'd avoided?

[00:07:32] I think my favorite amongst the favorites at least was Gary Oldman. I thought he was an absolute legend. Star class through and through. Sylvester Stallone also very classy act. Um, probably the least likable is almost no surprise to anybody would be Steven Seagal, I think. Um, particularly noxious person.

[00:07:53] Yeah, I get that. I can believe that for sure. You've had a great career in doing that. In fact, I think you were so impactful as a, as a young person, you ended up from making coffee to to, to being the producer of the of the show. But it always hasn't been smooth sailing. I know in 2008, you had a big setback. Tell us about that.

[00:08:19] Yeah. So when I found out I was going to be a father the last four, four of my last five shows I believe sent me over to the States to shoot them, which I absolutely loved. It was.

[00:08:27] A career.

[00:08:28] I was thinking you were going to say the last four of my for my five wives.

[00:08:32] But no.

[00:08:34] I've yet to have one of those wives. So no, the last I was finding, you know, my my career ambition to be making shows internationally was was happening. And then I found out I was going to be a father and that really wasn't going to be conducive. So I changed gear. I set up the most environmentally friendly car business in the world, like a contract car service, and then started signing up all the companies that operate in London. I was working at MTV around about the time I quit the industry and we got them as one of our first contracts, but that was in 2007, just in time for the global banking crisis of late 2007 2008. So that led to my bankruptcy. And obviously that's going to throw upheaval into anybody's life. So I was flying pretty high. I think I did the noble thing to try and be a responsible parent and yeah, kind of go quite far. And then in that time period, I was running an open mic night with a friend just as something of a hobby, and then a very quickly turned this kind of amateur operation into something a bit more professional. And that's where we have the We Are Funny project that I've been doing it for 13 years and we just celebrated ten years of this particular identity of We Are Funny project. Yeah.

[00:09:45] So tell us, tell us what the goal of that is and what you do in that.

[00:09:49] Well, initially it was open mic nights, which is obviously just where anybody who wants to have a go at standup can come along. It's where people can kind of develop their skills as a stand up move towards the paid and pro circuit. But as time went on, I started producing workshops, live workshops, bringing in professional comedians, teaching different aspects of comedy emceeing, clowning, writing, comedy for radio, television, musical comedy. The list goes on. And obviously, by virtue of being the producer of those shows and the emcee of those workshops and the emcee on my own shows, I could take the ideas they given, particularly really what they said not to do. I would then go on stage and do to test their theory, and they were invariably correct. So I learnt a lot up close and personal from the tutors in workshops that I was producing. And then latterly I started teaching some of those workshops myself, coaching 1 to 1, some comedians that know me on the circuit here in London and obviously the Age of Zoom and the rest. I can be teaching students all over the world now from Singapore just tomorrow, I believe.

[00:10:50] The research I did on you, I saw where you said you're not a comedian, but sometimes you are listed on the Internet as a comedian, but you're you're really an MC and a comedy coach, right?

[00:11:05] Yeah, and a booker and a promoter. I mean, I've been I've emceed over a thousand shows. And when you're the emcee, obviously the host, you're doing the warmup.

[00:11:13] You're still doing warmup. Yeah.

[00:11:14] So you're doing doing basically stand up, but in short, short amounts. I'm not sure if you.

[00:11:20] Also get you get more time on stage as an MC than almost anybody. Yeah, possibly. Possibly including a headliner in a typical show. I'm on stage about 25 minutes. Exactly. Whereas the average open mic is on stage for five at least. That's the dynamic in London. Some are doing 10s, so I've had a lot more. Staged on the most comedians. But I don't sit around writing material, rehearsing it, bringing it to stage. I'm tend to be more improvisational leaning on stories I've told before that I've finessed and worked out.

[00:11:48] Yeah.

[00:11:49] And obviously a lot of crowd work.

[00:11:50] Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I'm not sure if you know it or not. I was a professional comedy writer for about six years.

[00:11:59] I didn't know that. No. Who were you writing for?

[00:12:01] Well, I was.

[00:12:01] Writing for myself and my employees because I had a crazy comedy entertainment company called Prank Masters. We custom designed practical jokes. And. Yes, and this is long before punked and all the stuff on TV. What people don't understand is that writing comedy is not that funny all the time, right? There's a lot of stuff that goes into it to to create the situations that evoke laughter in people. So but it was a blast. I mean, for six years, I, you know, all day long I'd be doing stuff that made people laugh. What I did is I took that which was just entertainment and I took it into the professional speaking arena where you could get way more money right off the bat. But the skills that I took from all I did over a thousand comic performances myself, when I took that into the speaking arena, I was all of a sudden, you know, right up at the top, right off the bat, because most of the other speakers were pitifully boring and just thought they were experts. And and they ignored the entertainment value that audiences demand nowadays.

[00:13:15] Now, there's a huge amount of overlap between, frankly, what I used to do being making documentaries, because you've got to take all the essential information, compact it divine, which is the most interesting, and then package it in the most interesting way and hook an audience interest to begin with, which is much what public speakers do you want to hook their interest to begin with? Raise a laugh as fast as you can to win their kind of affection as quickly as you can and then hold their attention. And frankly, you know, we know this is the social glue. One of the best ways of getting people to like you, whether that's one on one or in front of a crowd, is to make them laugh, to entertain them. So the skills of being able to write jokes and speak with confidence and hook and hold attention, these are skills that cross many borders, not just stand up comedy, but they are, of course, fundamental to stand up comedy.

[00:14:02] Yeah.

[00:14:03] And and one of the best ways is if you carefully do it, is to make fun of yourself. People really love that when you know they hate the people that get up there and lord themselves over you. Like there's there's so much better. This is in the speaking arena anyway. And and they love self-deprecating.

[00:14:22] Comedy goes a long way, particularly here in the UK. We have very little patience for what we call bigheaded people. That said, there is there's a concept in comedy which is status, whereas if you could come in at status, say if it's out of ten, the status of ten, I'd say people like Bill Hicks back in the day. There's a comedian here called Stewart Lee, Simon Evans here. These are high status comedians and you can be that if you're brilliant, if your comedy is that good, you can afford to almost speak down to your crowd from a lofty position.

[00:14:52] Yeah, I've seen the guy on TV. That's an English guy. I can't remember. He's usually on big stage. He's skinny guy, but yeah, he's. He's good at it. Now, how do you work with somebody that says, you know, and also I've heard you say that if you're afraid to do it, you must do it. Yeah, go into that a little bit for people.

[00:15:16] Well, it's the classic scenario, not just within comedy, but, you know, face the fear and do it anyway, I think is a very famous book from back in the day. If you're scared of heights, then maybe you should go up to a tall building, maybe just the third or fourth floor, and then build yourself up to something that's more challenging. But ultimately, when you face that challenge and beat it, then you have just built up your self esteem in some considerable fashion. You know, most people are kind of scared of the concept of having a go at stand up comedy. When you tell somebody you do stand up comedy, most people are super interested to hear about it and half of them are going to say, Oh, I could never do that. Right? But the fact is, they really could, because certainly anybody beginning in comedy is going to begin in an open mic room. And it's really quite important to understand that really nobody cares about how well you did other than yourself. So the first time you do comedy, you're probably not going to get that many laughs. If you get a few chuckles, you're doing okay. It's really just about passing that psychological barrier of showing yourself you can do it. And then having realized how much you enjoyed it, how many laughs you got from other comedians, how interesting this new community of people is. There's a lot to appeal there to get you coming back more and more, you know, as as with most things, the first time is the worst time. A little bit of practice, a little bit of insight, a little bit of guidance will get somebody considerably better relatively quickly. So, you know, at least get. Stuff he loves. And that's all again, it sets. So it's about building some self esteem very often.

[00:16:41] That's what I was thinking. I imagine some people aren't really the goal isn't to be a professional stand up comedian, but to overcome some hurdles in their own mentality.

[00:16:52] I see a huge range of people doing comedy. I mean, I really think it's one of the most diverse arenas around. I mean, I see people in their teenage years to people into their 70s and 80s, British, non-British, gay, straight. I mean, it's everybody. Every social class is likely to have a go at this. I see a lot of people coming in once they become empty nesters, for example, or in their 40s they're going through a divorce. They're not quite sure what to do and they've decided to give this a go and very quickly, they're part of the community. It's something that anybody who's reasonably adept with words, who's willing to challenge themselves, can have a go at and move forward relatively quickly. The opportunity to become professional is is slim. I mean, I need to be frank about that. The competition at the highest levels is fierce and it takes several years to get there. Um, but certainly be able to get the occasional paid gig is definitely within the domain of most people if they persevere and show a degree of skill. But it's as much as anything, it's a hobby. Somebody might choose just to go to the bar most nights. Some people might want to go to a bar that has a club on a show whether they can take part. So it's there for all layers of people. Some people just want it as a hobby. Some people just want to do it as a challenge for themselves. Some people want to do it with, you know, a hard nosed approach to I want to be on X television show in a few years time or have my own show. But over the 10,000 or so people that have performed on my stage, probably fewer than 100 have gone on to a professional comedy career.

[00:18:20] Well, see, if I had got a hold of him, I'd say yes, go through the training, get really good at it, and hell with stand up, because it's way, way easier to become a speaker. There's way more opportunity in every corporation on earth. As speakers in associate nations and the skills that you can take that that the kind of things you teach into the speaking arena or it's easier to sell and much bigger money right off the bat, you know, so so I highly encourage people to go through your training and things like that. So tell us about your training, how you have courses or you do one on one or how does it work?

[00:19:01] I do both. In fact, during the lockdown, obviously we had no shows or workshops to run, so I recorded two online courses, one specifically for newer comedians. And by that I mean people who would like to give comedy a go but have never had yet. They're yet to take the stage and also acts within maybe their first 100 gigs, which is typically within their first year. You know, very often they think, Oh, I'm too advanced for a course like that because I've done 50 gigs. I can assure them there is tons of information in there that they don't know. They don't know. And then I made one for made one for Mrs. How to Be a brilliant stand up comedy emcee, beautifully titled, which I think the clue's in the title. And then more recently I've done the advanced version for acts with more than a year under their belt that's stepping forward and stand up. And that's where I brought in all my movie knowledge. So I've created this system, the cinematic system of stand up, because it may very clear when I was coaching people 1 to 1, I, you know, I realized that there's so much overlap between cinema filmmaking and stand up. You know, each open mic comedian, they are their own producer, They are their own director. They come up with their own stories. They write the script, and they're their own leading role straight out of the gate. All those things are true. And then as they want to move more towards the paid and pro circuit, they'll have to navigate things like everything from hair and makeup to marketing publicity critics, reviewers, competitions ultimately try and get them to the point where they've got an agent looking after them. So I've used a lot of film metaphor to explain to comedians how they can increase the quality of their writing, their ideas, their performance. But also how to navigate the scene to that kind of greater paid and professional success. Hopefully keeping it interesting because most people like movies one way or another.

[00:20:47] Yeah, for sure.

[00:20:48] So do you keep it your your courses and training separate? For instance, in my speaking training, I separate the on stage performance from the business of speaking. So different courses. In other words, so do you combine them or do you separate them?

[00:21:06] Indeed, people have the choice for either or what? People can buy one course or buy a bundle of 2 or 3 of the courses, or they can buy one course and a bundle of 1 to 1 coaching to 4 or 6 sessions. With me, that's getting quite busy at the moment with the coaching. I think I've only got space for two more people each week as it stands. Um, but yeah, they can buy just a single course, they can buy a bundle of three courses whichever way they so like it, it can be just coaching and no online course at all. It depends what their personal needs and desires are.

[00:21:36] And how do you deliver? Is it Zoom?

[00:21:40] Yeah, the 1 to 1 coaching. Unless it's somebody I know personally here in London is done by Zoom. Typically I ask them to send me a video of a five minute set, possibly ten minutes. I'll spend about half.

[00:21:50] An hour with.

[00:21:53] Pardon me in.

[00:21:54] Front of a live audience. The video or.

[00:21:57] Ideally, But if somebody has never been up on stage before and they still want some coaching, then they can just do it, you know, with a hairbrush in their hand playing to the video camera in their bedroom. But typically I'll take about half an hour to break that set down, find out what's working, what isn't, what I would suggest to punch up and how what something why something might need to be dropped. Maybe it's a discussion. You know, it's an opinion, not a fact. And then I'll jump on a 75 minute zoom call with them, give them whatever comments, advice we have, Whichever discussion I suggest they then work on that for around about a month. And then we come back, you know, whenever it's ready for them. But typically about a month later and then we do it all over again with the set that's been improved based on what we did previously.

[00:22:38] Beautiful. Beautiful.

[00:22:40] All right. Well, we got to take a little sponsor break. When we come back, we'll ask Alfie what a typical day looks like for him and what the future holds. So, folks, about 25 years ago or so, I kind of turned the Internet marketing guru world on its head and that people at my level were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to teach what they knew to small business people. And I thought, you know, I know a lot of these people, they'd be hiding out in London if you gave them 50 grand up front, you'd never see them again. So I said, you know, that's too risky for small business people. So I turned it on its head and that I just charged an entry fee. And then I tied my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you have to net 200 grand. Well, 1800 students later over all this time, people really loved that idea because they knew I wouldn't disappear on them because I want my 50 grand. I want them to make their money. So it's been the longest running, most successful, most unique internet and digital marketing mentor program ever. And I triple dog dare anybody to put theirs up against mine. And nobody will do it because they'd be embarrassed because I'm a crazy fanatic.

[00:23:48] I could have quit doing this 23 years ago. So check it out at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com. It's all one on one. There's no group training. You're not lumped in with people more advanced or less advanced. You get total emphasis on you. From myself and my staff. You get a retreat weekend at the Great Internet Marketing Retreat Center in Virginia Beach, where you actually live in this big estate home with me and for immersion weekend. And you also get a scholarship to the only licensed digital marketing school in the country. It's dedicated to that topic in and you can either use it yourself or gift it to someone which would be the best gift on earth to a young person, because these four year colleges are just, you know, they'd be in jail if they weren't, you know, colleges, you know, for the way they're ripping off young people. So anyway, check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com.

[00:24:47] All right. Let's get back to the main event. We're here with Alfie Noakes, Mr. Big Shot from the UK in the field of comedy and and so glad you you're talking to us across the pond here Alfie. So what's a typical day look like for you?

[00:25:03] I don't believe there is anything quite like a typical day. Um, but we're recording this right now.

[00:25:09] Do you get up early?

[00:25:10] Do you have a morning routine? Do you? What do you eat? I mean, tell us about Alfie.

[00:25:15] I don't get up early, as you can obviously recognize. Comedy is a late night occupation, by and large, so I tend to go to bed late and get up relatively late. My first hour of the day is stretches and take a little walk outside. Just get things moving. I'll do a couple of hours on the computer, sending emails, catching up on emails, and then I will take a break and a meeting, most likely on most days. And then it's back to the computer for another wave until the evening times when I might be going to a friend's show. I might be checking out my own show, which is more commonly these days. Run by two emcees, Luke, Terry and Paul Little. Tend to front most of my shows these days while I focus on the on the teaching and the coaching side of things.

[00:25:58] Now they in the clubs there can you this might be really stupid question because you can't smoke anywhere around here anymore. Are there are you allowed to smoke in the clubs now?

[00:26:10] No, sadly not. And I am a smoker and it is a curiosity. In fact, I was in LA in Christmas 1997 to to conduct an interview, and that was just a few weeks before the smoking ban kicked in in California. But they had already brought it in in most places. And then I was in New York in, I believe, 2002 when the smoking ban kicked in. And I literally had a smoke in a bar on Broadway, went to see a movie Basic with John Travolta, if I remember correctly, and then came back to the same bar, chatting to the same barman, lit up a cigarette and he snatched it out of my hand and told me I could no longer smoke. I had no idea what was coming. So I seem to be a bit of a doomsday think we. I think we lost the right to smoke here in pubs and bars. Um, back in 19 excuse me, 2007, I believe they brought.

[00:26:59] Yeah, you're probably better off.

[00:27:00] I mean, you know, I had a nightclub for six years and it was in smoke constantly, you know, day and night for six straight years. And I didn't even notice it then. But now, like, I can smell smoke from 100 miles away after I got away from it. But yeah, being in.

[00:27:16] Are you a.

[00:27:17] Smoker?

[00:27:17] No, I'm not. But the thing is, is, you know, I was immersed in smoke for six years straight, day and night.

[00:27:25] It's. It's unfair to inflict secondhand smoke on other people. I see that entirely. I really do. You know, we're social pariahs at this point. And to be honest, we're you know, we inflict that upon ourselves. Um, it's hopefully a dying habit, by and large.

[00:27:40] That's a good word to put towards it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Oh yeah. So, so.

[00:27:47] Anyway, so the, the website is I want to make sure I get it right here. Wearefunnyproject.com. And that's how they get to look at all these courses and access to you.

[00:28:07] Yeah, everything's there. That's pretty much a one stop shop. There's loads of free blogs that have got lots of decent info for people who are thinking of starting comedy or have started and want to scale up a bit. It's got free sample videos from the three different courses. And also if you sign up to the mailing list there, there's a free ebook for comedians.

[00:28:27] What's the name of it?

[00:28:29] Currently we've got eight problems that comedians run into and how to handle them, and in the near future I'll be switching that up to a book that I've just finished writing a slightly longer book, which is eight Ways to Turbocharge Your Standup Comedy. Again, it's got advice for those who are thinking of trying it for the first time and advice for acts that might be in on the circuit for three, four, even five years. There's still good stuff in there for them as well. And there's also clickable links that send them to even more helpful videos.

[00:28:58] Beautiful. Beautiful.

[00:28:59] Well, thanks so much. Boy, you're we've done over 800 episodes and you you as far as I know, you are the first and only person that has ever pissed off Richard Gear not only once, but twice. So. So that makes this a unique episode, folks. So Alfie Noakes No axe. Alfie is Alfie. And check out WeAreFunnyProject.com. Grab a copy of that book and thanks so much for coming on, man.

[00:29:33] I really appreciate you having me. Thanks very much, Tom.

[00:29:35] Okey dokey, folks.

[00:29:36] We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.