Welcome back to The Comedy Bureau - your one stop pod for all things deep dive comedy nerdish!

Every week academic Oliver Double and comedian Laura Lexx choose a different aspect of comedy to pull apart, dissect, study and present to you. This week Oliver has chosen the subject and he has picked the art of MCing.

If you've been to see a live comedy show then you will have seen the host comedian, the MC, the compere appear at the start of the show to warm up the crowd and then introduce acts and intervals seamlessly throughout the night.

In this episode Oliver and Laura take a look at where the role of MC came from in the UK comedy scene as it developed out of Music Hall, into Variety and Working Mens Clubs and then onto the Alternative Comedy scence. They then discuss best practise, the purpose of the MC and the problems and joys that the job can bring.

We hope you love The Comedy Bureau - a true passion project brought to you by Oliver and Laura. If you like what we do please do share links or clips on social media and leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

Our sources for this episode were:

Double, Oliver “Stand-Up! On Being A Comedian” (1997) Methuen Drama

Rutter, Jason “The stand-up introduction sequence. Comparing comedy comperes” Journal of Pragmatics, (2000) - ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition, University of Manchester, Tom Lupton Suite, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9QH, UK Received 29 November 1998; revised version 18 March 1999

We mention a couple of comedy insitutions in this episode that you might wish to explore in your own time...

The Bearcat at The Turk's Head in Twickenham

The Banana Cabaret at The Bedford in Balham

And comedians Will Duggan @will_dug and Roger Monkhouse, who we can't find on social media but his gig listings are available online.