RACHEL CREEGER
The UK’s only Orthodox female stand-up is well prepared for the Fringe
ALTHOUGH IT might not be every parent’s dream for their child, a stand-up comedian’s job is in many ways the ultimate Yiddishe trade. Writing comedy attracts those exact Type A personalities who make excellent doctors, lawyers and accountants.
The process follows a traditional yeshivah style formula of taking an idea apart, breaking it into questions, wondering if key principles would change if you looked back through biblical history or had Beryl say that line rather than Golda.
People imagine that comics walk out on stage and spontaneously deliver anecdotes but like all good rabbis we spend hours honing, analysing and rewriting until each word has intention, exploring every pause to wring the most out of a concept for your amusement.
Constructing a solo hour is a laborious course of trial and error. It’s essential to say the words aloud to strangers to get a sense of whether your material works. An entire day’s writing may yield a handful of embryonic jokelets worth testing, via an often excruciating first performance.
You extract any nuggets of potential, rework it all, and try it again night after night, failing then succeeding, building on the best bits. In Ethics of Our Fathers, Ben Bag Bag says “Turn it and turn it again, for all is in it; see through it; grow old and worn in it; do not budge from it.”
Although he meant the Torah, a comedian like me might do this with the word bagel. Or beigel.
Eventually, you get to the stage when your show consistently brings forth laughter from the toughest of crowds. And then you have to start working on something new. The process begins again. You return to feeling as unsettled as Yentl when she first noticed that Avigdor’s beard was as fascinating as his Talmudic insights.
This is our yearly process in preparation for Edinburgh, the world’s most expensive trade fair. It has