Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of amazing
Joanne Lockwood: people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
Joanne Lockwood: If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot Uk. You can
Joanne Lockwood: catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual
Joanne Lockwood: places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's
Joanne Lockwood: get going. Today is episode 99
Joanne Lockwood: with the title laughter as a lens, and I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to welcome Beth Sherman. Now, Beth is a
Joanne Lockwood: multi Emmy award winning comedy writer and speaker
Joanne Lockwood: on the power of humour for human connection. When I asked Beth
Joanne Lockwood: to describe her superpower, she said, she can make you funny even
Joanne Lockwood: if you don't think you are. Hello, Beth. Welcome to the show. Hi,
Beth Sherman: Jo. Thanks for having me. I should actually say, welcome back to the show.
Joanne Lockwood: You have the honour of being my first repeat guest
Joanne Lockwood: because we had such terrible Internet troubles last time that
Joanne Lockwood: we had to basically write the entire soundtrack off. It just wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: usable, was it? No. And it was all the fault of my Internet.
Beth Sherman: We disconnected from Zoom. My spotty Internet
Beth Sherman: disconnected from Zoom seven times. I had just moved and the
Beth Sherman: Internet was not properly set up. So BT had given me sort
Beth Sherman: of an interim device that did not work
Beth Sherman: as so. But you know what, in show business, they say,
Beth Sherman: bad dress rehearsal, great show, great show. It was
Beth Sherman: a terrible dress rehearsal. But in the
Joanne Lockwood: spirit of this conversation, laugh was a lens.
Joanne Lockwood: We did have quite a laugh, despite the problems. And it was like
Joanne Lockwood: a real outtakes blooper reel, wasn't it? At times, it really is,
Beth Sherman: but that's what humour does. It is quick
Beth Sherman: connection and being able to laugh at yourself, being able to laugh at the
Beth Sherman: situation. Yeah, I guess we both could have just gotten angrier and
Beth Sherman: angrier. I mean, there was part of it,
Beth Sherman: but at a certain point you just have to look at each
Beth Sherman: other and roll your eyes and laugh. I mean, it was
Beth Sherman: absurd. The first time it was uncomfortable. The second time, it was awkward.
Beth Sherman: The third time it's just silly.
Beth Sherman: But that is connection. I mean, are you going to forget that taping?
Beth Sherman: I know I'm not. I'll try.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe we will publish a bloopers reel at some point, but it was a
Joanne Lockwood: cross between going through a tunnel on a mobile phone
Joanne Lockwood: and an episode of Doctor who with the Daleks trying to exterminate
Joanne Lockwood: somebody. It was a really broken up conversation. Every
Joanne Lockwood: so often you'd freeze. And I was thinking, are you going to come back or
Joanne Lockwood: aren't you going to come back? And it's comedy genius. Well,
Beth Sherman: and it became a talking point for us. It became
Beth Sherman: a way to. Well, it's become a
Beth Sherman: reference for us. I mean, I'm sure when we run into each
Beth Sherman: other again, it will come up. It becomes a shared
Beth Sherman: experience, so why not turn a negative
Beth Sherman: into a positive? Yeah. So you're an Emmy
Joanne Lockwood: award winning writer. Tell us a bit about your background
Joanne Lockwood: and how you got here today to. The
Beth Sherman: second bedroom where we're recording this. Where I'm recording this. We're not in a bedroom
Beth Sherman: together. Well,
Beth Sherman: I am a comedy writer by trade. I fell
Beth Sherman: in love with the idea of writing comedy for
Beth Sherman: television from the time I realised it was a job.
Beth Sherman: And I can actually remember that because I was about 15, I watched a
Beth Sherman: behind the scenes news programme on a
Beth Sherman: sitcom that I loved, and they weren't focusing on the
Beth Sherman: cast behind the scenes. They showed us a magical place called the writers
Beth Sherman: room. And it was just ten guys sitting around a
Beth Sherman: conference table being funny. And they got paid for it and it
Beth Sherman: was a job and it was guys, mostly guys at
Beth Sherman: the time. But as soon as I realised that was a job,
Beth Sherman: it's the only thing I ever wanted to do. And I'd been obsessed with stand
Beth Sherman: up, so I just always had an ear for comedy. I went to
Beth Sherman: university, I moved to Los Angeles.
Beth Sherman: I'm born and raised in Philadelphia, nowhere near show business, nowhere anything like that.
Beth Sherman: I moved to Los Angeles after college to go follow
Beth Sherman: my dreams. I didn't know anyone except a woman that I'd
Beth Sherman: gone to college with. And I started at the bottom, getting
Beth Sherman: coffee, making copies. I started as a production assistant, worked my way
Beth Sherman: up to writer's assistant, and then eventually started getting
Beth Sherman: paid writing jobs on tv shows.
Beth Sherman: And I found my tribe. It was my place and I absolutely loved
Beth Sherman: it. I did that for. Well, I'm still doing that. That's
Beth Sherman: 27 years. And along the way, I didn't have the
Beth Sherman: courage to do stand up myself, even though I was in love with it. I
Beth Sherman: didn't really find the courage to do that until I'd had a few
Beth Sherman: professional comedy writing jobs under my belt. And I also found myself writing
Beth Sherman: for a lot of comedians who pushed me to try stand up myself. So within
Beth Sherman: that career, I also did 15 years of stand up and about
Beth Sherman: six or seven years ago, because the nature of tv
Beth Sherman: work is it's freelance. So sometimes the jobs
Beth Sherman: last three years or five years and sometimes they're ten weeks and quite a bit
Beth Sherman: of them were ten weeks. And to fill some of that
Beth Sherman: period in between, I started writing for doing speech writing
Beth Sherman: for non entertainment professionals. So helping people
Beth Sherman: who were doing TED talks or delivering sea level
Beth Sherman: executives, delivering speeches, helping them make their speeches funnier and more
Beth Sherman: engaging. A lot of very smart people delivering Ted talks,
Beth Sherman: helping them not sound like a robot, but
Beth Sherman: finding a way to be authentically funny, because there's nothing
Beth Sherman: worse than listening to someone shoehorn in a joke that
Beth Sherman: clearly has nothing to do with them or their personality.
Beth Sherman: So I also fell in love with that
Beth Sherman: side of it. I just love bringing humour into the world
Beth Sherman: and working one to one with a lot of these speech
Beth Sherman: writing clients made me realise that a lot of the things
Beth Sherman: I do instinctively and my friends and colleagues do instinctively does
Beth Sherman: not come instinctively to other people.
Beth Sherman: I've been working as a professional comedy writer since I'm in that world since
Beth Sherman: I was 20 years old. So I just assume everyone thinks that
Beth Sherman: way, but they don't. And as I was explaining over and over
Beth Sherman: again to one to one clients, or pointing out these comedic opportunities in the
Beth Sherman: material they'd written, and again, not trying to make them into stand up
Beth Sherman: comedians, just trying to make that quarterly report or the TED talk,
Beth Sherman: just give it a little bit of humour, a little bit of balance to some
Beth Sherman: serious subjects. I realised that I had something to teach and to share.
Beth Sherman: And so I've now started speaking on the subject
Beth Sherman: and talking about humour as a tool for quick connection.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a massive fear of public speaking, let
Joanne Lockwood: alone professional speaking. It's even got its own term,
Joanne Lockwood: glossophobia, fear of public speaking. And it's one of the
Joanne Lockwood: biggest kind of anxieties that most human beings can face in
Joanne Lockwood: their life, actually having to stand up on stage or stand up in public, or
Joanne Lockwood: even stand in front of a room of your team and speak.
Joanne Lockwood: It must be doubly difficult, if you have that anxiety about speaking
Joanne Lockwood: anyway, to add some of yourself, some of your
Joanne Lockwood: humour in there, because you're so focusing on the content
Joanne Lockwood: or what you've got to try and say, or being professional or creating a
Joanne Lockwood: great impression that you can't relax
Joanne Lockwood: into it. So how do you help people overcome that fear of public
Joanne Lockwood: speaking and therefore embrace their comedic
Joanne Lockwood: self or humorous self? Well, there's that great Seinfeld joke about the fear of
Beth Sherman: public speaking, where that it's one of the biggest
Beth Sherman: fears, which means that at a funeral, most people would
Beth Sherman: rather be the person in the coffin rather than the one delivering the eulogy.
Beth Sherman: But to me, what
Beth Sherman: takes away some of that fear of public speaking, one,
Beth Sherman: like the fear of doing anything, is preparation. So
Beth Sherman: knowing that you have good material to deliver helps.
Beth Sherman: And when I work one to one with people who.
Beth Sherman: Well, and also, again, adding humour to
Beth Sherman: something isn't just about trying to make someone a stand up
Beth Sherman: comedian. So if someone is getting up to give a best man speech or a
Beth Sherman: father of the bride speech, I work with a lot of clients doing those. A
Beth Sherman: great way to add humour is just to be
Beth Sherman: yourself and add authenticity. So if I've got someone
Beth Sherman: who's terrified and they're giving a speech where it's going
Beth Sherman: to be so distracting to them and to the audience, where their nerves
Beth Sherman: will be a massive distraction, not just to them, but to the audience, people will
Beth Sherman: really see them and see how nervous they are, you have to
Beth Sherman: acknowledge it. So give them a joke. I mean,
Beth Sherman: give them something that sounds like. I have
Beth Sherman: to be honest, I'm not comfortable speaking in public. It's not my
Beth Sherman: favourite thing to do. So if I pass out from nerves,
Beth Sherman: just drag me back to my seat when I come to tell me I was
Beth Sherman: great. And it's the kind of thing, it's just
Beth Sherman: acknowledge. It's a dialogue.
Beth Sherman: When you're up on a stage in front of people, whatever it is that you're
Beth Sherman: doing, it's a dialogue. So let the other
Beth Sherman: half of. Let the other party in the conversation
Beth Sherman: know how you're feeling. And if you're nervous, you don't
Beth Sherman: always have to acknowledge it. Sometimes it's just kind of that little
Beth Sherman: adrenaline rush. But if it's the elephant in the room and it's something that's going
Beth Sherman: to be a distraction to yourself so that you can't get the
Beth Sherman: words out or to your audience, you don't
Beth Sherman: want them sitting there thinking, oh, that poor guy.
Beth Sherman: Oh, this is awkward. Oh, this is uncomfortable. If they
Beth Sherman: know the stakes, if they know how you feel and they know the stakes,
Beth Sherman: or if your opportunity
Beth Sherman: to speak, if you
Beth Sherman: acknowledge, I couldn't turn down this opportunity and they know you're nervous,
Beth Sherman: they're going to root for you, they want you to succeed.
Beth Sherman: If they know what you're up against, if they know you have a paralysing fear
Beth Sherman: of public speaking and you're up there and you're doing it anyway, let them know
Beth Sherman: that, because now, well, one, you've made
Beth Sherman: yourself a little bit vulnerable, but you've connected with them,
Beth Sherman: and if you can do that, with a little bit of a sense of humour,
Beth Sherman: more the better. But now you've got people that are on your
Beth Sherman: side. I remember delivering the speech
Joanne Lockwood: at our daughter's wedding a couple of years ago and it was like
Joanne Lockwood: I was given 15 minutes and it was the toughest audience I think
Joanne Lockwood: I've ever had because I wasn't speaking around what a professional speaker
Joanne Lockwood: myself. So I wasn't speaking about my day job, I wasn't thinking about my comfort
Joanne Lockwood: zone, the things that I speak about all the time. I was trying to be
Joanne Lockwood: entertaining for a guest list. I only
Joanne Lockwood: knew probably a third of them. I was under strict instructions. My
Joanne Lockwood: daughter's husband actually took me to one side and said, you must not
Joanne Lockwood: make it. These embarrassing statements. You must not show my
Joanne Lockwood: husband. I was giving this kind of like, up talk to me and
Joanne Lockwood: saying, give me a brief on how I had to behave. And I thought. And
Joanne Lockwood: it was trying to put some humour in there because you can't make that stuff.
Joanne Lockwood: It's got to be light hearted. So I told some anecdotes around. My daughter's life
Joanne Lockwood: just sailed close to the wind where I knew the red line was I didn't
Joanne Lockwood: cross it. I just took people there and I led them down the path
Joanne Lockwood: without telling them the punchline. And you can guess what happened next. And
Joanne Lockwood: so she then had to explain it to all her friends what happened
Joanne Lockwood: next. So I let her do the telling. But I remember telling
Joanne Lockwood: this gag at the end and I won't tell it now, but I tell this
Joanne Lockwood: gag at the end that even now, people who are at the wedding
Joanne Lockwood: still remember that gag because it was so relevant.
Joanne Lockwood: It was a play on their name and their surname and, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: they still remember it now. And everyone's going, wow, that's fantastic. And
Joanne Lockwood: even the mother of the
Joanne Lockwood: bridegroom, my daughter's mother in law, even
Joanne Lockwood: finds it funny, even though it's her name. I was taking the mickey out of
Joanne Lockwood: sort of thing. So you can build it in, provided
Joanne Lockwood: you understand the boundaries of where humour
Joanne Lockwood: stops and embarrassment starts or discrimination
Joanne Lockwood: or bullying or whatever that may be. That's the fine line in comedy, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: It's knowing when to punch up, not punch down. Well, of course.
Beth Sherman: I mean, humour is a tool, and like any tool, you can use it to
Beth Sherman: build something. You can use a hammer to build something, or you could use it
Beth Sherman: for much worse purposes. Good for you for giving a speech, by the way, just
Beth Sherman: as a public service announcement, if you're getting married, don't give anyone
Beth Sherman: 15 minutes. It's a lot of time. I mean, you are a professional
Beth Sherman: speaker, so they were in good hands. But 15 minutes is
Beth Sherman: a long time. If you've got just the best man,
Beth Sherman: that's an invitation you might live to regret. 5 minutes. 5
Beth Sherman: minutes is a general, good rule. Yeah, but the difference
Beth Sherman: between knowing where the line is, I mean, in a personal
Beth Sherman: speech, what I find works very well is if you have anything
Beth Sherman: that you know because you love this person
Beth Sherman: isn't crossing a line, but the person, you think the person might
Beth Sherman: see it as a little bit embarrassing, but you feel in good
Beth Sherman: conscience that it's not awful. You know, your
Beth Sherman: daughter, sometimes you can get away with something like that by sort of sandwiching it
Beth Sherman: within a bunch of. Within compliments. She's this
Beth Sherman: and she's that. She's this wonderful. Has this wonderful quality. That wonderful
Beth Sherman: quality. But sometimes she blank. She does
Beth Sherman: this. So you put it out there in a way where it's
Beth Sherman: clearly affectionate, clearly balanced, and the
Beth Sherman: admiration and the respect that you have for her is abundantly clear.
Beth Sherman: Sometimes that's a way to navigate it. I have a lot of clients where it
Beth Sherman: just sounds like a roast and it becomes un. Would you like to say
Beth Sherman: something nice about this person who is your best friend? Even though we
Beth Sherman: all know that they feel that way in professional
Beth Sherman: speeches, I always recommend playing it safe. If you're
Beth Sherman: not sure, don't say it. There's a leeway that you have with a personal
Beth Sherman: speech that you don't have in a professional situation. But
Beth Sherman: I think when people go wrong, often now, they're trying to be
Beth Sherman: provocative. They are intentionally trying to get a
Beth Sherman: reaction. So I think sometimes that's something to
Beth Sherman: measure it against, personally. I mean, if you're asking about
Beth Sherman: comedians who sometimes cross the line, as
Beth Sherman: a comedian myself, I support the
Beth Sherman: right to do it. To me personally, unless everyone in the room is laughing,
Beth Sherman: it's not funny. To me personally, that raises the
Beth Sherman: bar. And if you have a joke that's on a controversial
Beth Sherman: subject or could possibly be interpreted in a way or
Beth Sherman: misinterpreted, rather in a way that seems as if it's punching down,
Beth Sherman: I think then you need to really show your skill as
Beth Sherman: a writer and a performer to make it clear what your intention is
Beth Sherman: behind the joke. Because there's a world of difference. A friend of mine put
Beth Sherman: it in a way that it was just beautiful. I mean, because there's a world
Beth Sherman: of difference between the subject of the joke and the target of the
Beth Sherman: joke. So the subject of the joke in itself
Beth Sherman: might be controversial, but the target of the joke isn't
Beth Sherman: necessarily it would be possible to have a joke about
Beth Sherman: trans or abortion or something like that, where the target of the joke
Beth Sherman: is. It's a joke that everyone, including the community
Beth Sherman: that is mentioned, could laugh, I would hope.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've got my own five to ten minute comedy
Joanne Lockwood: routine and it's around trans
Joanne Lockwood: comedy, and I tell jokes and people tell me
Joanne Lockwood: it's funny from all perspectives. So, yeah, it's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of visual comedy. So I'm painting pitch to people's minds with actions and
Joanne Lockwood: taking to that journey. You're right, you
Joanne Lockwood: can use tricky subjects if you have
Joanne Lockwood: some authenticity in that area, so you're not trying to use it against something you
Joanne Lockwood: have no experience of, I think. So you can use yourself as an example of
Joanne Lockwood: the joke. What are you trying to say with the joke? I think it comes
Beth Sherman: down. We've certainly seen a lot of people. What they're
Beth Sherman: trying to say with the joke is, these people are bad, this person is stupid.
Beth Sherman: It's not always a great message, but I think it's definitely possible,
Beth Sherman: because it's definitely possible to write a joke where
Beth Sherman: everyone's laughing. And to me, that's the only reason to do a
Beth Sherman: joke. If everyone's laughing, not just for
Beth Sherman: a moral. As. As a moral reason,
Beth Sherman: but if I'm speaking to a room of 200 people,
Beth Sherman: 200 people laughing sounds better than 100 people laughing, or
Beth Sherman: 75 people laughing, or four people laughing. If your
Beth Sherman: objective is to make a point or inspire action,
Beth Sherman: or simply just make the room laugh, more people laughing sounds better,
Beth Sherman: feels better to everyone. I suppose we've also got to be
Joanne Lockwood: mindful that humour doesn't always travel borders
Joanne Lockwood: or cultures. So what is funny
Joanne Lockwood: to a UK based english speaking person who's
Joanne Lockwood: been maybe lived here in this country all of their
Joanne Lockwood: lives is different to someone who's come to this country
Joanne Lockwood: in their mid 20s, speaks English,
Joanne Lockwood: you originate from America, so there's some british humour
Joanne Lockwood: that you probably don't understand. You have to be sort of socialised from
Joanne Lockwood: birth, almost, with the humour and the culture. And if you're not careful,
Joanne Lockwood: you can crack a funny or think you're cracking a funny, and the whole room
Joanne Lockwood: just stares back at you. And there's also generational. If I talk about Monty
Joanne Lockwood: Python or some of the things that resonated with me when I was growing
Joanne Lockwood: up in the modern
Joanne Lockwood: person, probably wasn't even alive when friends hit the
Joanne Lockwood: tv screen in the late 90s. Yeah, it's a matter
Beth Sherman: of. And in those cases, if using something like that is
Beth Sherman: an example, sometimes all you have to do is just add a little bit of
Beth Sherman: explanation. If you feel like Monty Python is the
Beth Sherman: best example of whatever it is you're trying to illustrate,
Beth Sherman: just make sure that you say Monty Python. It's a group. They did a bunch
Beth Sherman: of ridiculous stuff. They had movies like this and this. You may know, even if
Beth Sherman: you don't know who they are, you may have heard of this. Just give it
Beth Sherman: an extra little bit of explanation so that everyone in the room can follow
Beth Sherman: you. Make sure everyone has context. I see that happen a lot.
Beth Sherman: Especially for me. Yeah, I didn't grow up here. So there are
Beth Sherman: references, there are words, there are phrases. Even though my partner is
Beth Sherman: English, I've known for 20 years and kind of had 1ft in this culture, very
Beth Sherman: often I have no idea what's being
Beth Sherman: referenced. But again, if you are
Beth Sherman: delivering humour on stage or you're just trying to make a connection
Beth Sherman: with someone, just take an extra 3 seconds and add a little bit of an
Beth Sherman: explanation. And you don't have to start from the very beginning, just
Beth Sherman: enough so that the people who may or may, I know I'm
Beth Sherman: speaking to an international crowd here, I mean, even something like that, give the reason
Beth Sherman: why you're going to give the little bit of explanation and then just give that
Beth Sherman: tiny bit of explanation. And you can use that as an opportunity for humour.
Beth Sherman: You can sort of have an awareness of your age. Oh, Monty Python. I
Beth Sherman: know I'm a thousand years old. So maybe everyone here
Beth Sherman: isn't old enough to remember Monty Python. I mean,
Beth Sherman: you can give it context and you can use. Well, again, turn that
Beth Sherman: potential negative that people might not understand. Use it as a positive, use
Beth Sherman: it as a way to, well, inform and
Beth Sherman: educate. And also
Beth Sherman: add the humour of self awareness. Not self deprecating
Beth Sherman: necessarily, but just the awareness. People will appreciate
Beth Sherman: the awareness that you're not just because that
Beth Sherman: you're not just continuing on and not caring if they understand it or not.
Beth Sherman: Because also, if you're speaking and someone doesn't get something
Beth Sherman: or it's not funny, it's not just that they stare back at you and you
Beth Sherman: don't get the laugh in the moment their minds wander,
Beth Sherman: you start to lose them. And then you're sort of digging yourself into
Beth Sherman: this hole where they're not going
Beth Sherman: to be paying as close attention because it's not really for
Beth Sherman: them or they feel as if you haven't taken them into
Beth Sherman: consideration or just their phone pings, so they take a look at
Beth Sherman: it. And now you've dug yourself into a hole. Now you have to really
Beth Sherman: work even harder to get that attention back, and it's easily
Beth Sherman: avoidable. So the obvious time where humour can work really
Joanne Lockwood: well is when someone's trying to heckle you or join
Joanne Lockwood: in the conversation from the floor. As a speaker on stage, you can
Joanne Lockwood: use comedy or humour as a put down as well, can't you? If you're
Joanne Lockwood: careful, you can. That's always a
Beth Sherman: line that you have to be careful if you're going to cross it, because you
Beth Sherman: can't uncross it. There are times the best advice I
Beth Sherman: got on that a guy who was a legendary
Beth Sherman: comedian saw something happen to me and then said,
Beth Sherman: here's what you do. First you have to vet the heckle, and
Beth Sherman: that means you have to. Again, well,
Beth Sherman: in a comedy club, you don't always have to acknowledge every single heckle.
Beth Sherman: You don't have to acknowledge everything because sometimes it might distract you, but
Beth Sherman: maybe it hasn't distracted the whole room. If someone says something,
Beth Sherman: you have to repeat it back because you've heard it. But maybe the
Beth Sherman: people in the back of the room haven't heard it. And I'm now gesturing towards
Beth Sherman: the back of the room, which is perfect for a podcast,
Beth Sherman: but maybe the people in the back of the room didn't hear it. So all
Beth Sherman: of a sudden you just go off on someone and their friends stop what you're
Beth Sherman: doing and go off on someone, and they're very puzzled, the people who
Beth Sherman: didn't hear it. So you have to repeat it back, because also
Beth Sherman: what has happened? And he told me a great story, I can't remember the phrase,
Beth Sherman: but he told me a great story where he thought someone had heckled him, someone
Beth Sherman: shouted out something, and he repeated back what he'd
Beth Sherman: heard again, for that purpose of making sure everyone in the room heard it before
Beth Sherman: he took that next step. Because if the heckle
Beth Sherman: serves as a set up, then whatever he says to it would serve as the
Beth Sherman: punchline. And you want everyone to have the context. But it turned out that's not
Beth Sherman: what the person had said. The person was talking to the waitress about the chicken
Beth Sherman: fingers, or whatever the order was. It wasn't give him the
Beth Sherman: finger. Are those our fingers? Something that was just
Beth Sherman: totally had nothing to do with him. It was distracting. But
Beth Sherman: had he just jumped down her throat, it would have been
Beth Sherman: inappropriate and unearned, which is a really
Beth Sherman: tough thing. To get away from as you're
Joanne Lockwood: talking. I think about humour as a sort of spectrum.
Joanne Lockwood: There's the big gag that you're setting up and really
Joanne Lockwood: sort of signposting and then trying to get this major laugh. Then there's
Joanne Lockwood: humour, which is kind of an anecdote you're weaving into
Joanne Lockwood: a story and the result is trying to make people
Joanne Lockwood: feel and experience a different emotion inside them.
Joanne Lockwood: So should you use jokes or should you use
Joanne Lockwood: anecdotes that are humorous situation I appreciate, but
Joanne Lockwood: in a professional talk, in a public speaking
Joanne Lockwood: at work, you probably want to aim down the humour route rather than the
Joanne Lockwood: gag route, wouldn't you? Is that what I'm thinking? Well,
Beth Sherman: it depends. I'm not quite sure what you mean by
Beth Sherman: gag. I mean, to me, whatever it is just has to be authentic to you.
Beth Sherman: And if you're not a gag person, everyone has a different sense of
Beth Sherman: humour. I'm quite dry.
Beth Sherman: I might comment on something or allude to something, but
Beth Sherman: I don't always try to hit it over the head because that's just not my
Beth Sherman: style. But when I talk about humour in a professional
Beth Sherman: situation, for speakers, I
Beth Sherman: describe it as a seasoning. Sometimes. You
Beth Sherman: don't always need a lot. If you think of it like salt, if you've got
Beth Sherman: a very heavy talk, then just a little bit
Beth Sherman: is going to be plenty. It's just enough to sort of
Beth Sherman: relieve the tension, relieve a little bit of the pressure, give it some
Beth Sherman: balance so that it's not just unrelentingly
Beth Sherman: sad, but if it's a best man speech, there's an
Beth Sherman: expectation that you're going to use a lot of salt. You want movie theatre
Beth Sherman: popcorn, but sometimes it's really just.
Beth Sherman: But if you put a few grains
Beth Sherman: of sea salt on chocolate, it's just literally just
Beth Sherman: a few grains, it makes it an entirely different experience.
Beth Sherman: But if you just kind of dumped the shaker on it, which is
Beth Sherman: great for popcorn or chips or something like
Beth Sherman: that, it would be inappropriate, it would feel out of balance.
Beth Sherman: So I think it's a matter of who you are and what the situation
Beth Sherman: is. When
Joanne Lockwood: I speak, I'm very conscious around the need
Joanne Lockwood: to speak methodically, rhythmically
Joanne Lockwood: and with a certain cadence that allows people to
Joanne Lockwood: ruminate and absorb. You speak too quickly, it's
Joanne Lockwood: like a machine gun hitting them, isn't it? You can't take anything in. You
Joanne Lockwood: speak too slowly and people are going, what I've got no interest in. So you're
Joanne Lockwood: trying to find that ideal cadence and pace to keep people
Joanne Lockwood: engaged, allow them to digest at the same. For comedy or humour, isn't it? If
Joanne Lockwood: you're not careful, what we do is we try and rush a gag because we're
Joanne Lockwood: nervous or we have to sort of blurt out and then we just move on
Joanne Lockwood: quickly. It's all about the timing in comedy, isn't it? Yeah, it's about the
Beth Sherman: timing and it's really about making it sound natural again. It all
Beth Sherman: goes back to feeling authentic to you. The best
Beth Sherman: laughs that you'll get in a speech
Beth Sherman: are the things that, well, either sound like
Beth Sherman: they've come off the top of your head or really did come off
Beth Sherman: the top of your head. The observations, the asides, things like
Beth Sherman: that. But I generally wouldn't suggest that
Beth Sherman: people put big gags in or big. It's
Beth Sherman: just tough to land things like that, and it puts a lot of pressure
Beth Sherman: on one particular moment rather than
Beth Sherman: distributing a little bit of
Beth Sherman: wonderfulness throughout your speech. Because when
Beth Sherman: it sounds rehearsed, obviously you have to rehearse
Beth Sherman: things, but audiences are smart, they're very perceptive, and
Beth Sherman: when something sounds rehearsed, it sounds
Beth Sherman: inauthentic. And that's not necessarily a bad
Beth Sherman: thing. People want you to sound prepared, and if you're
Beth Sherman: delivering material, if you're delivering serious material or
Beth Sherman: delivering, in comedy terms, straight, as opposed
Beth Sherman: to funny, intentionally funny, if you're
Beth Sherman: delivering information, then there's nothing wrong
Beth Sherman: with it sounding prepared. But if you're delivering comedy and it sounds over
Beth Sherman: prepared, it's diminishing returns. So I think
Beth Sherman: that's another reason to sort of just have small moments and let the small
Beth Sherman: moments add up. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: you've heard me speak a few times and
Joanne Lockwood: I'm really conscious about people finding me too
Joanne Lockwood: serious. I've had people say, you're really serious, and I thought,
Joanne Lockwood: you don't know me very well. Because in my day to day
Joanne Lockwood: conversations, my day to day life, I don't take myself seriously. I don't expect other
Joanne Lockwood: people to take me seriously, but I expect people to respect that I am
Joanne Lockwood: serious, but don't take myself seriously, if that makes sense. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: professional with a light heart, and when I do my
Joanne Lockwood: professional speaking, I sometimes find that a gag
Joanne Lockwood: or a witticism or an ironic statement or something will pop into my head
Joanne Lockwood: which is completely unrehearsed yet lands so
Joanne Lockwood: well. I then use it again, because next time I use it, it is
Joanne Lockwood: rehearsed or it is tried and tested. So I don't necessarily
Joanne Lockwood: set out to write gags, but I remember the ones that get the
Joanne Lockwood: laughs and then recycle and bring them in authentically. It's very
Beth Sherman: green. Yes, it's very good for the environment, the recycling of jokes.
Beth Sherman: But I think what that speaks to is that
Beth Sherman: that comedic opportunity that you took advantage of, was
Beth Sherman: authentic to you and to the material.
Beth Sherman: And it wasn't something where you said, I'm going to write
Beth Sherman: something funny here, because that's very hard to do. I have people that
Beth Sherman: come to me and say, I want you to add some jokes to this. I
Beth Sherman: don't have a wand. And I
Beth Sherman: could, hey, I could write it the way I would say it. I
Beth Sherman: could write it the way someone else would say it, but it's not going to
Beth Sherman: sound right coming out of that person's mouth. It's a matter of drawing out,
Beth Sherman: well, what happened next in that story? Or wait, you got fired.
Beth Sherman: What was the ride home like? What was the conversation with your partner?
Beth Sherman: What was the first thing you did the next morning?
Beth Sherman: So trying to find the real moments and
Beth Sherman: bring it a little bit closer to storytelling. And truth is
Beth Sherman: funny, when you
Beth Sherman: have an aside or something spontaneous and you use it again
Beth Sherman: because it was spontaneous the first time, even though you've rehearsed it
Beth Sherman: and you've put it into your set and now you're planning to do it, you
Beth Sherman: probably also have the muscle memory of how spontaneous it felt the first
Beth Sherman: time. So your delivery probably feels
Beth Sherman: spontaneous as well because that's just kind of how
Beth Sherman: it popped out of your mouth originally.
Beth Sherman: It probably doesn't sound as rehearsed as something that just
Beth Sherman: sounded good when you were sitting at home typing on your computer.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I actually find it maybe easier to be
Joanne Lockwood: light hearted or throw a humour in there at the
Joanne Lockwood: beginning because I'm kind of just trying to warm myself up to
Joanne Lockwood: start talking. So it's almost like an icebreaker for me, an icebreaker to the audience,
Joanne Lockwood: to something quick. When I'm in flow in the middle of a talk, I'm probably
Joanne Lockwood: too much in flow unless I've got something. I've got a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: phrases I use unless one of those phrases happens to trigger a thought about something
Joanne Lockwood: lighthearted. But I find the easiest time for me is during the Q a
Joanne Lockwood: section where people are asking questions. Because I'm now
Joanne Lockwood: relaxing my shoulders, I'm now in a different mode. I'm now engaging with the
Joanne Lockwood: audience and trying to entertain them with an answer. So I find
Joanne Lockwood: that I'm more in creative mode during A-Q-A whereas in
Joanne Lockwood: the delivery, I'm more in flow and it's harder to, in my brain to try
Joanne Lockwood: and pause, gag, carry on unless it's kind of
Joanne Lockwood: ingrained into that banter or the pattern I use.
Beth Sherman: Yeah. When I work with people,
Beth Sherman: I always say that there's three places
Beth Sherman: in the speech when humour is really
Beth Sherman: best used and it's very, very technical, it's the beginning, the middle and the
Beth Sherman: end. It's not as hard as it
Beth Sherman: sounds, but at the beginning, when you use it, just as you're saying, when you
Beth Sherman: use it at the beginning, it not only relaxes you, it relaxes the audience
Beth Sherman: and it creates a connection and
Beth Sherman: it creates an expectation, it sets a tone. And
Beth Sherman: with a lot of us, that tone is, you're in safe
Beth Sherman: hands, you're going to enjoy this. I mean, look, we've
Beth Sherman: all sat through talks that
Beth Sherman: we didn't volunteer to attend, and
Beth Sherman: so you can also set a tone of, this isn't going to be painful, this
Beth Sherman: won't suck. Which is really, people really appreciate
Beth Sherman: in the middle, you don't need much in the middle,
Beth Sherman: because that flow that you're in, it's not a matter
Beth Sherman: of you not wanting to distract yourself, it's a matter of you're presenting information.
Beth Sherman: It's not stand up comedy, you're presenting information. So there's not always an
Beth Sherman: opportunity, but in the middle, if there is something that you can
Beth Sherman: add, just a little something, and it sounds like you do, if
Beth Sherman: there's one of the phrases that you say, it
Beth Sherman: sort of perks people up, it reengages your audience. Just in case there's
Beth Sherman: anyone whose mind began to wander. Because
Beth Sherman: when there's a laugh, especially when the speaker is in
Beth Sherman: flow, when suddenly there's a laugh, anyone
Beth Sherman: whose attention has wandered is going to think, wait, what
Beth Sherman: did I miss? What did I miss? I need to lock back in on
Beth Sherman: this. And then at the end, what I
Beth Sherman: like using it at the end is something, and I always recommend people do it.
Beth Sherman: It's something called a callback. And a callback is literally,
Beth Sherman: it's just a reference to whatever the biggest laugh in your piece was.
Beth Sherman: And it's a way to sort of. And if you watch any stand up special,
Beth Sherman: I guarantee you the last joke of the set, the biggest joke of the set
Beth Sherman: is going to be something that references something that happened earlier. So a callback,
Beth Sherman: if you can get a laugh at the end or you can reference whatever it
Beth Sherman: is you said at the very beginning, even you're leaving on a
Beth Sherman: laugh and people's memories are very short,
Beth Sherman: so they will remember. It's much more likely they're going to remember that laugh at
Beth Sherman: the end and think that was really interesting and kind of funny, too.
Beth Sherman: Even if you've got 25 minutes of just information, useful
Beth Sherman: information in the beginning with not a lot of laughs. So
Beth Sherman: you're using it, I think, in just the right way. And when you get to
Beth Sherman: the Q and A, you're there more as Jo the person than
Beth Sherman: Jo the speaker. So you kind of have licence
Beth Sherman: to relax and have a little bit of
Beth Sherman: banter. I saw John Bishop, the comedian,
Joanne Lockwood: live show he did at the guild hall in Portsmouth, and he talked about his
Joanne Lockwood: callbacks. He told about, I don't know, let's just say nine
Joanne Lockwood: different stories throughout his set. And I
Joanne Lockwood: remember one was about a llama or something, or alpaca or llama in there. Anyway,
Joanne Lockwood: that's the one I really remember from it. And you went through it and you
Joanne Lockwood: didn't really know if these were true stories or they were based on anything there.
Joanne Lockwood: But right at the end, as he was finishing off, he put a slideshow up
Joanne Lockwood: of each slide was something that related to the
Joanne Lockwood: story he told. So I always remember the llama being there. So he was with
Joanne Lockwood: the llama doing this and he went through it and thought. So he
Joanne Lockwood: immediately took all this stuff he told you and then gave
Joanne Lockwood: it a fact. It happened. And that made the gags and
Joanne Lockwood: the enjoyment even more powerful because you then shared
Joanne Lockwood: that another laugh by going, yes, I remember that
Joanne Lockwood: story. Yes, it did happen. And I thought that was so expertly
Joanne Lockwood: done. And that's effectively a callback as well. It's refreshing that
Joanne Lockwood: mind or putting you back into that moment where you laughed the first time, to
Joanne Lockwood: laugh a second time without him having to do anything. He just stood there and
Joanne Lockwood: went. I thought, that's really powerful. I mean, that sounds beautifully
Beth Sherman: constructed. Yeah, it's really effective because it creates
Beth Sherman: a sense of community with the audience. Also, think of. We have this in
Beth Sherman: common now. We're all laughing about this. We've had this shared experience, and this shared
Beth Sherman: experience is something that we're laughing about.
Beth Sherman: It's amazing because he's created a community with
Beth Sherman: the same reference points. It's brilliant. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: As a professional speaker, I find that as well. You come out, you deliver
Joanne Lockwood: your set, your gig, your talk, whatever you want to call it, and you come
Joanne Lockwood: out and you're networking with the audience afterwards, you can feel that shared
Joanne Lockwood: community picking up on the things you said and they're repeating it back
Joanne Lockwood: to you. And it's kind of really powerful to know you've
Joanne Lockwood: engendered that into somebody, that feeling and that memory
Joanne Lockwood: and that passion you've given them. I guess comedy is the same.
Joanne Lockwood: You're giving people that brain chemicals and that endorphins and that
Joanne Lockwood: happy feeling, aren't you? Yeah. And it means you've made impact.
Beth Sherman: If people are quoting you back to you, you've done something right because
Beth Sherman: they're remembering what you said. Anyone can just speak and
Beth Sherman: have it sort of flow into people, and then what they
Beth Sherman: retain is how much they retain is sort of.
Beth Sherman: Who knows? But if they're repeating you back to you, if they're quoting you,
Beth Sherman: then you've succeeded, because why
Beth Sherman: else are you up there? And I'm
Joanne Lockwood: going to quote you back to you now, because I want to hear this story
Joanne Lockwood: again about the Dallas Cowboys. For the Dallas Cowboys.
Joanne Lockwood: I want to hear this story again. I'm sure our listeners would love to hear
Joanne Lockwood: this. A bit of background. You were in
Joanne Lockwood: Iraq, as the Americans call it. We call it Iraq, but Americans call it Iraq.
Joanne Lockwood: And I have an iPhone, not an Iraq. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, you could tell us a story about how you went out there and what
Joanne Lockwood: were you doing. Well, it sounds. Especially saying it, to
Beth Sherman: me, it sounds so much more exciting when you say you
Beth Sherman: have a story about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Boy, I wish.
Beth Sherman: Says the middle aged lesbian. Well,
Beth Sherman: yeah, in one of my talks, I talk about
Beth Sherman: humour. Well, it's about humour as a tool for connection and how to
Beth Sherman: use humour to connect with people who might, on the
Beth Sherman: surface, be very different from you. And in stand up
Beth Sherman: comedy, you have to make that connection very,
Beth Sherman: very. I went. When I was doing a lot of
Beth Sherman: stand up, I did a military tour of Iraq. I went to
Beth Sherman: Iraq. Yes. A
Beth Sherman: troubled place. America had its hands all over,
Beth Sherman: but I went there to do a military tour. And I also
Beth Sherman: talk about when you're looking for opportunities, for comedic opportunities,
Beth Sherman: you don't always have to think of gags and puns.
Beth Sherman: Truth is funny. Real life is funny. So
Beth Sherman: when I did this military tour, and it was amazing, we went to
Beth Sherman: combat outposts and forward operating bases
Beth Sherman: and we went on Blackhawk helicopters. It was four or five shows
Beth Sherman: a day. But the people at
Beth Sherman: these forward operating bases, they're 19 year old kids who had not
Beth Sherman: seen anyone other than the 20 or so people that
Beth Sherman: guys that they were with for weeks at a time. So a lot of
Beth Sherman: our job was just to be a different person. So I went up and
Beth Sherman: my opening joke in front of these
Beth Sherman: kids was truth. It wasn't even a joke. It
Beth Sherman: was the big bases. Get the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders,
Beth Sherman: you get me. And then in my talk,
Beth Sherman: I show a slide of the Dallas cowboy cheerleaders. Because in the States,
Beth Sherman: people have an immediate picture in their head, but less so in
Beth Sherman: the UK. But the picture is, it's 22 year old blonde
Beth Sherman: women kicking their legs up in the air. I mean, they're the
Beth Sherman: cheerleaders for an american football team and
Beth Sherman: it's sort of a Barbie image. So there's always a laugh
Beth Sherman: here. But when I say that the
Beth Sherman: big bases get the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, you get me. And here
Beth Sherman: in the States, there's an immediate big laugh. In the
Beth Sherman: UK, there's a titter. And then you show the Dallas
Beth Sherman: Cowboy cheerleaders and I say, yeah, there's a difference.
Beth Sherman: And that difference did not go unnoticed by those 19 year old marines.
Beth Sherman: But that's not even a joke. It was just
Beth Sherman: truth. There's no pun, there's no funny
Beth Sherman: turn of phrase, there's no setup. Well, I guess
Beth Sherman: there's a set up and a punchline. The setup is the big bases get the
Beth Sherman: Daleks, jailbreak cheerleaders, you get me. But on paper
Beth Sherman: it's hardly even a joke. But. So when you're looking to add humour
Beth Sherman: to something, it doesn't always have to sound
Beth Sherman: like a joke. Sometimes just truth, seen in a different
Beth Sherman: way, presented in a way that is just open and vulnerable and
Beth Sherman: honest, can do the job. Not just as well, I think,
Beth Sherman: better than anything that's prepared, because you said. Earlier,
Joanne Lockwood: at that moment, you and the audience have a
Joanne Lockwood: shared experience of you being there, them listening. So you're talking
Joanne Lockwood: about the situation, the context they're in, with an irony
Joanne Lockwood: or a reference of this could have been you, if you were a different base,
Joanne Lockwood: but actually, I'm here instead. So I think, yeah, you're bringing
Joanne Lockwood: that common, shared understanding of the situation into that. And so the
Joanne Lockwood: humour comes from that, doesn't it? So I think it works really well.
Joanne Lockwood: When I'm on stage, I'm basing the humour I want to use on
Joanne Lockwood: the audience I'm with because they need to understand it. I
Joanne Lockwood: think, as I said to you earlier, you got to be careful around bringing humour
Joanne Lockwood: in, into an audience that may not understand that humour. So, again,
Joanne Lockwood: by having the context of who's in front of you, you can then
Joanne Lockwood: target your witty remarks or your anecdotes to the
Joanne Lockwood: audience and not to another audience where it did work well.
Beth Sherman: Exactly. And that's why I realised I had to add the slide
Beth Sherman: had, because I realised that here I'm delivering in front of
Beth Sherman: people who may have a sense of who the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders were,
Beth Sherman: but they don't have an immediate image in their head. So
Beth Sherman: that was because I was aware of who these audiences are and the
Beth Sherman: differences, but the connection that it
Beth Sherman: makes between the speaker and the audience. Yeah,
Beth Sherman: it's a great way to add humour. At the beginning of your talk, everyone wants
Beth Sherman: to be funny up front. Everyone wants to start with a laugh, but simply
Beth Sherman: acknowledging the elephant in the room can do that. And the elephant in the
Beth Sherman: room was a bunch of 19 year old marines looking at
Beth Sherman: me, middle aged, short haired lesbian, thinking,
Beth Sherman: it's nice that see came, but
Beth Sherman: these are sort of the quintessential. They were 19 year old
Beth Sherman: marines, the quintessential red blooded american male. I was not their first choice. I
Beth Sherman: was probably older than most of their mothers, even at
Beth Sherman: 38 at the time. So I'm just
Beth Sherman: acknowledging what they're thinking. But me doing that
Beth Sherman: means that they can then appreciate,
Beth Sherman: oh, she's thinking about us. She understands what
Beth Sherman: we're thinking. It just creates that. Well, it creates
Beth Sherman: that dialogue. Oh, yeah,
Beth Sherman: it worked every time, which is pretty
Beth Sherman: much everything you can hope for. But I've
Beth Sherman: watched you do that too. I've watched you open one of my favourite
Beth Sherman: thing I've seen you done, and I love watching you speak, but
Beth Sherman: I saw you speaking at a day that was dedicated to
Beth Sherman: impostor syndrome, and you walked up on stage. And
Beth Sherman: again, this all goes to things don't have to sound like a
Beth Sherman: joke. Truth is funny, and things don't have to sound like a joke, and it
Beth Sherman: doesn't have to be a pun, and it doesn't have to have water shooting out
Beth Sherman: of the bow tie and the big floppy shoes and a hat.
Beth Sherman: You walked up on stage and you said, almost
Beth Sherman: as a throwaway, what do I know about impostor syndrome?
Beth Sherman: And it was a slow burn and you let it sit there. You
Beth Sherman: let the fuse burn all the way down to
Beth Sherman: the full firecracker. And I could see people. I knew what you were
Beth Sherman: doing and you could really see the audience almost do the math. You could see
Beth Sherman: them go, wait, hold, carry the seven.
Beth Sherman: And it was a huge laugh that blew the doors off the place. It
Beth Sherman: was absolutely wonderful. But again, it wasn't
Beth Sherman: a big cartoony. Here, I'm doing a joke,
Beth Sherman: just a little bit of truth, but I think it got you 100
Beth Sherman: times. Anything any gag would have. And you knew that it
Joanne Lockwood: was the truth. It was the truth, yeah, it was truth. What do I know?
Joanne Lockwood: My impostor syndrome was kicking in and going, what do I know about impostor
Joanne Lockwood: syndrome? It was kind of prepared.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't know about you, but when I professionally speak, it's always about the first
Joanne Lockwood: line or the first 10 seconds. Five to 10 seconds that
Joanne Lockwood: grab that hook where you get the audience, and I have a standard set of
Joanne Lockwood: openings I tend to use, and I oscillate between them, depending on how I feel.
Joanne Lockwood: But that day, it wasn't a prepared
Joanne Lockwood: speech. I had about half an hour's notice to go and do something and ask
Joanne Lockwood: it in the audience, thinking, right, if I can get my first line out, the
Joanne Lockwood: rest will happen. I trust my brain enough to be able to keep going. Once
Joanne Lockwood: I've got the first bit out, I'll just sit there thinking, what do I know
Joanne Lockwood: about, what am I going to talk about? So I was sitting there in the
Joanne Lockwood: audience, my impostor syndrome was kicking in, big tone, not knowing what to talk
Joanne Lockwood: about. And it just came to me that that was, what do I know about
Joanne Lockwood: imposter syndrome? It became the obvious first line, as you
Joanne Lockwood: say, it landed well, and you say it's a slow burn.
Joanne Lockwood: But then when people started laughing, the laughing spread quickly, didn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? And I let it carry on. And that gave me five to
Joanne Lockwood: 10 seconds of thinking time as well.
Joanne Lockwood: So I think that's really important sometimes, is when I really want to work out
Joanne Lockwood: what I want to say next. If it's not rehearsed, I need a little bit
Joanne Lockwood: of thinking. And that bought me time to become comfortable with the stage, comfortable
Joanne Lockwood: with the audience, set some credibility and then go for it. And
Joanne Lockwood: then it all went into flow from there. And it did the same thing for
Beth Sherman: the audience. I mean, it has the exact same effect on the audience. But
Beth Sherman: can I ask you something? As I took, and I thought that was why
Beth Sherman: the joke worked. But we all see things from a different
Beth Sherman: perspective. I took your imposter syndrome joke to be a
Beth Sherman: reference not to just you speaking on the day, but I took
Beth Sherman: that to be a reference to your identity.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, completely. I have immense
Joanne Lockwood: imposter syndrome about my gender identity around some things
Joanne Lockwood: I speak about. What do I know?
Joanne Lockwood: It's less so now, because I've been speaking
Joanne Lockwood: around EDi for about seven or eight years
Joanne Lockwood: now, but I still have that echo of the first
Joanne Lockwood: year or the first month or the first year where you're still trying to
Joanne Lockwood: find your feet. And I still remember that. So it's not
Joanne Lockwood: as dominant as it once was, because I've now got social
Joanne Lockwood: proof, if you like, that I know what I'm talking about, or people say,
Joanne Lockwood: I know what I'm talking about. I've got more confidence in my own gender identity
Joanne Lockwood: in myself because I've been walking in these shoes
Joanne Lockwood: now for seven or eight years. But the memory of those early days
Joanne Lockwood: still stays with me, so I haven't shaken it off. It's just maybe
Joanne Lockwood: buried a little bit. I'm not sure I'll ever lose it
Joanne Lockwood: in the same way. I heard
Joanne Lockwood: someone describe it once as when you're trans, if you
Joanne Lockwood: think about, you've got people who are native born in the country,
Joanne Lockwood: you've got people who come on holiday, and you've got people who
Joanne Lockwood: migrate. So there are people who are tourists, basically.
Joanne Lockwood: They do a bit of gender cross dressing. They can't, maybe
Joanne Lockwood: at the weekends, whatever. So they're kind of tourists. They pop in and pop out.
Joanne Lockwood: And I migrated, so I moved into the country, but I'll never
Joanne Lockwood: be a native in the same way that whilst you've been here 20 years
Joanne Lockwood: in this country, you've still got american roots and your history
Joanne Lockwood: from there. So it's that little bit of an imposter syndrome maybe you face as
Joanne Lockwood: a Brit, because you're not truly a Brit. I'm not truly a
Joanne Lockwood: native woman in those sort of terms. I always have that kind of impostor
Joanne Lockwood: syndrome around that. I'm just an immigrant
Joanne Lockwood: into the gender, if you like. Yeah, well, it's almost speaking
Beth Sherman: something fluently as a second language. And I've only been here not quite three
Beth Sherman: years. I've been with my english partner for that long, so
Beth Sherman: I'm even worse, I'm even newer. But yeah,
Beth Sherman: I think that's a great analogy. I mean, I always felt
Beth Sherman: I was speaking about gender. Most of my career, I was the only woman
Beth Sherman: in the room. In. In comedy, or at least in american television shows,
Beth Sherman: there's a writer's room, it's a group of writers,
Beth Sherman: and one person will get assigned. It's a
Beth Sherman: team, and one person will get assigned to write the first draught of something,
Beth Sherman: and then that comes into the room to get punched up as a group, add
Beth Sherman: humour and polish and things like that. And for a lot of my
Beth Sherman: career, I was the only woman in the room. And for a lot of my
Beth Sherman: career, the hosts. I worked a lot in comedy variety in late night, which
Beth Sherman: is sort of a Graham Norton, but five nights a week, sort of a
Beth Sherman: structure. I was the only woman in the room, and
Beth Sherman: so I was writing jokes for
Beth Sherman: the host. So putting myself in that situation, but I
Beth Sherman: mean, I was essentially writing. I was speaking
Beth Sherman: guy. It's not my first language, it's
Beth Sherman: not my experience, especially at the time, I have never been,
Beth Sherman: but especially at the time when I was in my early twenty s and thirty
Beth Sherman: s, I've never been a middle aged white guy. But
Beth Sherman: maybe I will be someday. But, yeah, I've never been so I
Beth Sherman: was always writing as someone else, which, look, everyone in the room was writing for
Beth Sherman: the host, so they were all writing for someone else. But the
Beth Sherman: perspective on the world and how they saw women and how they. I mean, it
Beth Sherman: was just very male, and that
Beth Sherman: wasn't who I was. And so I did feel
Beth Sherman: very much that I was speaking a second language.
Beth Sherman: I was fluent in it and I was there willingly. I'd
Beth Sherman: emigrated, or I was an immigrant who was happy to be
Beth Sherman: there. But there were times when I think
Beth Sherman: my accent made me stand out, if I can torture
Beth Sherman: the metaphor even more. As you were talking there,
Joanne Lockwood: I was thinking, there is definitely a different humour
Joanne Lockwood: base for masculine and feminine identities, if you like.
Joanne Lockwood: I've noticed that having gender transitioned, the humour I
Joanne Lockwood: once was bathing in, in terms of my friends and
Joanne Lockwood: the social circles I had was very masculine. And the humour I
Joanne Lockwood: now bathed in with my circle of friends is very feminine. And there
Joanne Lockwood: is a huge difference between the subjects of the
Joanne Lockwood: joke, how women will often use
Joanne Lockwood: language to describe their partner or husband in a derogatory way.
Joanne Lockwood: And all the women go here. Mine too. There's this kind of common
Joanne Lockwood: understanding. But men denigrate their partner, their
Joanne Lockwood: wives, in a different way, because they tend to build them up and say, my
Joanne Lockwood: wife's amazing all the time, and they want to make it sound like they got
Joanne Lockwood: the perfect relationship, whereas wives want to say how shit their relationship
Joanne Lockwood: is and their husband's such a low life, and that gets
Joanne Lockwood: the laughs from a different perspective on the same relationship. And
Joanne Lockwood: I can pick up that gender coded language and that gender coded humour. And
Joanne Lockwood: I sometimes find it really tricky to listen to male humour these days
Joanne Lockwood: because it really triggers me. Yeah, I can definitely see
Beth Sherman: that. Especially a lot of my experience in these writers rooms, it was with
Beth Sherman: younger guys, just because we all sort of aged and younger guys definitely
Beth Sherman: have a different experience. Level of experience with
Beth Sherman: women and a different level of maturity. Yeah. The difference between male and
Beth Sherman: female. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting
Beth Sherman: observation. I'm trying to not speak in
Beth Sherman: generalities, though. I think they apply.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, we obviously appreciate we are generalising and
Joanne Lockwood: stereotyping an entire gender, if you're not careful, and
Joanne Lockwood: making the dispersion against 50% of the population. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I'd use the word tends to be rather than absolute. Kind
Joanne Lockwood: of tends to be in this direction. Sure. And I
Beth Sherman: think one of the things that you're noticing is that because women
Beth Sherman: tend to be more. Maybe by necessity, I don't know if it's nature or
Beth Sherman: nurture, but tend to be more emotionally intelligent
Beth Sherman: by which also the humour would, I think, tend to
Beth Sherman: have a little bit more emotional intelligence, often using
Beth Sherman: the qualifying words and what you're
Beth Sherman: talking about. Also that, yeah, women, as a lot of the male
Beth Sherman: humour, or at least sort of more traditional male humour, has
Beth Sherman: been guys talking about women sort of as
Beth Sherman: extension of themselves. So they are competitive with one
Beth Sherman: another and their partner, or whoever it
Beth Sherman: is that they're talking about, the measure of that person reflects on
Beth Sherman: them. It's really not about the. Whereas
Beth Sherman: with a woman, she's talking about her experience
Beth Sherman: and trying to get to the truth of the experience
Beth Sherman: in that example. And with guys,
Beth Sherman: well, it's more about just how he comes across.
Joanne Lockwood: Let me give you an example which hopefully you'll find
Joanne Lockwood: light hearted, humorous. I was out with a group of my male friends in
Joanne Lockwood: Bricklane, I think curry and few beers, whatever,
Joanne Lockwood: about four or five years ago. And there was a certain part of
Joanne Lockwood: this group of. We were in. Were talking about their broken noses, how they'd been
Joanne Lockwood: in a fight and they had stitches and how they had this, and there's cotton
Joanne Lockwood: one up their nose and all this kind of thing, and everyone's kind of going,
Joanne Lockwood: oh, yeah, everyone's comparing their stitches and their broken noses in their
Joanne Lockwood: fights. And I'm out literally a week later in Brick
Joanne Lockwood: Lane with a group of women after a networking event. And we sat around
Joanne Lockwood: the table and they were comparing stitches that they'd had after
Joanne Lockwood: childbirth.
Joanne Lockwood: It was both talking about stitches, both talking about that pain, the
Joanne Lockwood: opposite ends of their bodies. I just found that
Joanne Lockwood: contrast, that irony in being in the same location, having
Joanne Lockwood: two polar different conversations. Well, and having to have both
Beth Sherman: conversations while eating a curry, which I think is really.
Beth Sherman: That seems the biggest challenge of all. Could you all stop talking about
Beth Sherman: blood and stitches while I'm trying to eat
Beth Sherman: my chicken? But even ordering a curry in an all male
Joanne Lockwood: group, it's, how hot can I get my curry and still eat
Joanne Lockwood: it in an all female group? It's the
Joanne Lockwood: flavours and the aromatics and the
Joanne Lockwood: blends and it's a much more sort of delicacy in the food that's
Joanne Lockwood: eaten. So it's a complete difference in dining out as
Joanne Lockwood: well. Yeah. In that example, anyway, it's almost an issue
Beth Sherman: of confidence because the guys are sort of.
Beth Sherman: It's sort of one up in. Or how do I measure up? And also,
Beth Sherman: if they're broken noses from fights, then it implies
Beth Sherman: that there's a story behind it or at some point, they are in
Beth Sherman: some way seeking out danger or pain. But
Beth Sherman: with women, nature provides us
Beth Sherman: enough pain as it is. So it's pain that we have to
Beth Sherman: deal with, but we're not going out trying to. It's
Beth Sherman: bad enough that there's enough pain involved in childbirth. I don't need
Beth Sherman: to go out and get stitches that aren't
Beth Sherman: necessary, that I could avoid.
Beth Sherman: It is an interesting way of seeing the world. Well, Beth,
Joanne Lockwood: it's been a laugh again. I've really enjoyed this and I've
Joanne Lockwood: laughed with you today, at you today. And you've
Joanne Lockwood: laughed at me as well, which is fantastic. No, I've laughed with you. No one's
Beth Sherman: laughing at anyone. And the fact that we've done this
Joanne Lockwood: twice now, I feel privileged to have had actually a different
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. This is largely a different conversation than the one we had before. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely brilliant. So hopefully the listeners have got something
Joanne Lockwood: out of this as well. So how can people get hold of you and do
Joanne Lockwood: a bit of a pitch, your website, your LinkedIn address, whatever, on
Joanne Lockwood: LinkedIn. Well, I'm Beth Sherman. It's https://bethsherman.com. I'm on LinkedIn. I'd
Beth Sherman: love to connect with anyone who would like to. You know, I
Beth Sherman: speak about humour as a tool for quick connection, and humour
Beth Sherman: is a tool for workplace balance, for life balance,
Beth Sherman: tool for leadership. Just really the ways that people can use
Beth Sherman: humour to be closer to one another and
Beth Sherman: to put themselves in a position where their messages, whatever
Beth Sherman: message it is, whatever action they need people to take, it's
Beth Sherman: more effective. So if that's speakers,
Beth Sherman: if that's leaders, whatever form it takes. But
Joanne Lockwood: bethsherman.com, bethsherman.com,
Joanne Lockwood: it's been an absolute honour. Thank you. And a huge thank you
Joanne Lockwood: for listening, for tuning in, for getting to the end. I
Joanne Lockwood: take my hat off to you for getting to the end. Thank you. If you're
Joanne Lockwood: not already, then please do subscribe 'Inclusion Bites Podcast'. If you're listening on Apple
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Joanne Lockwood: us a five star rating, drop some comments in there, share the
Joanne Lockwood: link with your friends, something to listen to on a long train
Joanne Lockwood: journey or when you're working out at the gym. So please do share this. I
Joanne Lockwood: have more guests, number of other guests lined up over the next
Joanne Lockwood: few weeks and months. This is episode 104. As I said earlier, I want
Joanne Lockwood: to get to episode 200 at least, so there's plenty more material coming out
Joanne Lockwood: there. And of course, if you'd like to be a guest, I'd love to have
Joanne Lockwood: you on the show. So please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And
Joanne Lockwood: finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood. It has been an absolute
Joanne Lockwood: pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.