Give me some help here.

[Huckleman2000]

In a previous life, I played Groucho for 42 weeks in a dinner theater, six or seven shows a week (I can't remember ). Also, the Woody Allen part in Play It Again, Sam - the seduction scene is really funny in that one. Plus lots of bit roles, mostly comic relief. I take great pride in being able to get a laugh at the same line consistently night after night.

Timing is surprisingly audience-dependent, and you only begin to understand it when your performance is sort of on auto-pilot. You know the lines, the movements, the inflections; all of that business is rote, and you can focus on the 'live-ness' of performing. You have to get everyone to 'get' the humor at about the same time, and you do that mostly by timing your reactions - the delivery of the line itself is the same each night, the timing is in the pauses. I find it's sort of an out-of-body experience when it's all working. You hold for the laughs just long enough for them to start to die, then hit them again, and again, and in a good sequence you can get sort of a roller-coaster of laughter going.

I'm a firm believer in the 'tension and release' theory of entertainment.

 

[ishtat]

?

Mr Bean (Rohan Atkinson) who is an example of a comedian/actor that Europeans seem to love but Americans rarely respond to?

 

[Alessia Brio]

This the funniest thing I have seen all year.

I can say the same for this:

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Mr Bean (Rohan Atkinson) who is an example of a comedian/actor that Europeans seem to love but Americans rarely respond to?

I've enjoyed Rohan in a few things. His James Bond movie was a little too filled with embarrisment humor, which I find bottom of the barrel as far as comedy goes (yes, not slapstick, but embarrisment humor is the bottom of the barrel, it's awful and I hate it), but it was still funny enough to watch when you see it again on TV.

I suppose Mr Bean has a lot of embarrisment humor too, but what doesn't anymore (one of the reasons I don't care for most comedies). But I laughed my ass off at the end of one skit where he is in a high class restaurant and orders Steak Tartar, and starts hiding it everywhere. The waiter knocks something over (because Bean bumped him, I think), and starts complaining that his dinner is now all over the place (where he himself hid it), and leaves in a huff.

*Embarrasment Humor: When they deliberately try to make the audience just as embarrised to be a part of the situation as the cast. It doesn't make me laugh, it makes me leave the room.

 

[JamesSD]

*Embarrasment Humor: When they deliberately try to make the audience just as embarrised to be a part of the situation as the cast. It doesn't make me laugh, it makes me leave the room.

Oh man, I feel the exact same way!

As for Rohan Atkinson, I really liked him in "Rat Race". Johnny English or whatever it was looked terrible, but I didn't actually see it.