Morry wanted to give aspiring comics a better, smoother, more proven track to tread. “And you had to do that for four years, until – through an accidental relationship or something else – you’d get a paid gig somewhere and that could turn your life around. “You basically had to turn up to open mic nights – predominantly in the northern suburbs of Melbourne – and hang around until 11pm, then maybe you could get on to talk to some disinterested comedians who were there still. “I realised at that point there wasn’t a pathway for comedians,” Morry says. The Nelson twins performing at graduation. The Rubber Chicken became a place where comedy fans could come for a chuckle, and up-and-coming comedians to kickstart their careers. Having his own pub allowed Morry to create a more holistic comedy experience. “Just like a dance school needs its own studio.” Creating an “ecosystem of comedy” “That’s sort of the next big jump because there’s no way we could continue our business without having control over the venue,” he says. Then, Morry clapped eyes on an empty pub in South Melbourne – and, like a phoenix from the ashes, The Rubber Chicken was born. “It all came crashing down,” Morry says, “and then we just sort of started from scratch.”Ĭustomer limits meant pubs could no longer afford to host Hard Knock Knocks events, so their “business model was, essentially, dead”. The Rubber Chicken risesīy the time 2020 rolled around, Morry was “aiming for about 30-36 stand-up comedy courses per year, which made it a very lucrative business model”. In the school’s second year, they doubled the number of courses, and by the third, they had branched out to Wagga Wagga, Adelaide, Sydney, and Geelong. “I built a basic website, but I didn’t want to invest in a ticketing platform at the time because I was kind of experimenting to see if the business had legs,” Morry says. The business model was simple and low risk: they would run three courses in the first year from the backroom of a pub, and sell tickets through Eventbrite (“because it was the fastest way to get started”). So, in 2015, he researched and built his own comedy school. “I did a stand-up comedy course to help me with my keynote speeches,” he says, “and because at that point I’d been in the business of training for about 14 years, I realised in just how many areas it could be improved.” He was in the second group when this whole journey began. ![]() There are three kinds of people who take stand-up comedy courses, Morry says: “up-and-coming comedians, keynote speakers, and bucket-list tickers”. And mastering the art of stand-up? There’s no feeling quite like it. “There’s a reason comedians talk about ‘dying’ on stage”, says Morry Morgan, creator of the Hard Knock Knocks Comedy School. The need for social acceptance is one of our most basic human instincts, and as a comic, if your jokes fall flat and you start to falter, there’s no safety net. Many people probably find the prospect of performing stand-up comedy absolutely, stomach-meltingly petrifying.
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