{"id":1490,"date":"2019-07-16T16:47:52","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T15:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1490"},"modified":"2019-07-25T13:58:47","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T12:58:47","slug":"creative-freelancing-no-funny-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/creative-freelancing-no-funny-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative freelancing: no funny business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In our latest post, Lorna Prichard<\/a>, comedian and former journalist, talks about the risks and rewards of creative freelancing following a recent event hosted by Cardiff Business School\u2019s Executive Education Team and Creative Cardiff at Glee, Cardiff.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Recently I had the great pleasure of being asked to do a set at Glee Cardiff for the creatives of Cardiff. It was a business networking event put on to celebrate National Freelancers Day. I felt honoured to be asked and tried to push down the inevitable dose of impostor syndrome. Who was I to give a talk to other freelancers? I\u2019d only been doing it a year and a bit myself! And it was certainly a role-reversal, for me to be the case study.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first 10 years of my career, I was the one finding them. I was a journalist at BBC Wales and then ITV Wales. Like I told my audience at Glee, the first ever case study I was tasked to find was a brothel for a special investigation into the sex industry. \u201cHi, I\u2019m from the BBC, could we come and film with you..?\u201d It sounds like an impossible task, but eventually I found one. It was a great way to gain perspective on any subsequent case studies I was tasked with finding! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A leap into the unknown<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Being a journalist was great. I really enjoyed a lot\nof aspects of my job: meeting amazing people, live broadcasts, breaking news,\ntelling stories, coping with the unexpected. But other aspects weren\u2019t a good\nfit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI struggled with the need to conform and suppress other things: my personality, my forthright opinions, my curly hair. These days, I wear what I like, say what I like and my hair can be as wild as it likes!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s all pretty new to me. It still catches me by\nsurprise to describe myself as a freelancer. Or to know how to explain my day\nto day life to anyone. It\u2019s such a mixed bag of creativity, admin, practice and\nperformance. Basically I started doing stand up comedy as a hobby in early\n2017, absolutely fell in love with it, realised I couldn\u2019t possibly do that\nplus be a credible TV news reporter anymore. So it was time to make a leap into\nthe unknown. Not only into the world of freelancing, but also into a brand new\ncareer. So that\u2019s what I did in March 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Giving academic context to the life of a comedian was Cardiff University\u2019s Dr Dimitrinka Stoyanova Russell<\/a>. She gave a fascinating talk about research she’s jointly done with Nick Butler into the stresses and strains of working in stand up comedy. She’s spoken to 64 professional comedians for her paper No Funny Business: precarious work and emotional labour in stand-up comedy<\/a><\/em>. She’s keen to reach out to more comedians – particularly women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The push and pull<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One thing that really struck a chord with me was when\nshe said most comedians felt they’d been “pulled” into it as a\nprofession. It’s really hard to explain to people why you feel this hunger to\ntry and make a living out of making people laugh. There’s so much more to it\nthan a 20 minute set! It’s such hard work. I’m in the really strange situation\nat the moment where I’ve never worked harder or been poorer. I’m absolutely not\nasking for sympathy though. I’ve honestly never been happier. That’s the weird\nthing. It feels like I’ve met the love of my life. I think about comedy all the\ntime, I struggle to take time away from it or see my friends enough. I pine if\nI don\u2019t have a gig imminent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d say life as a comedian isn\u2019t for the\nfaint-hearted. It can be very difficult. But it\u2019s also so rewarding! To be paid\nfor doing something that you absolutely love, that gets your whole brain and\nbody fired up and working. To communicate bits of your inner weirdness to an\naudience and find they accept that. It helps you accept yourself. Also the\nresilience you build from bad gigs, jokes that fall flat, audiences that don’t\nlike you. It’s got to be good for you, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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During my set I also talked about the need to develop\na healthy amount of \u201cstraight white man confidence\u201d in your day to day\nfreelance life. I was being a bit facetious but it did seem to strike a chord.\nWith women in the audience, in particular. I told them I thought I\u2019d got\nreasonably far in life by having an unusual amount of self-belief. Which I\nthink is how it should be – we should take risks, put ourselves out there,\naccept we\u2019ll make mistakes and learn from them. I reminisced about the last\ntime I played a short spot at Birmingham Glee last Summer. I died on stage. My\n“bankers” i.e. the jokes I expected to always get laughs, fell\nabsolutely flat. It was horrible. But I learned from it, rewrote my jokes and\nmoved on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howl like a banshee (or a straight white male)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

These days I book several pro nights of comedy every\nmonth under Howl\nComedy<\/a>, my own comedy franchise (again, how on earth did I end up with my\nown comedy franchise?!). What an education in straight white man confidence\nthat is. I\u2019ll advertise a well paid headline spot and then get a flurry of\nemails from men I\u2019ve never met or interacted with. One recent one went: \u201cHi, I\ncan do this gig. John\u201d No video links to other gigs, no cv, nothing. This of\ncourse is when straight white man confidence goes way too far. But I do notice\nmen in the industry tend to propel themselves forward, be pushier than women,\nask for more and therefore get more. And Dimi\u2019s research backed that up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a fair bit of sexism and backwards\nattitudes that female comedians still have to battle from certain promoters.\nThings are changing, but it\u2019s taking time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike I said at the event, one thing I never thought I\u2019d miss about being employed was a HR department. If someone acts badly towards you in comedy, for example tells you they won\u2019t book female comics for a certain gig because it\u2019d be \u201ctoo dangerous\u201d, there is no line manager you can file a complaint to.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dimi talked about this aspect of life as a stand up\ncomic too. The need to mask anxieties, ignore questionable behaviour from your\npeers because kicking up a fuss could affect your future bookings. Personally\nI’m all for calling out unacceptable behaviour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After my set I took part in a panel discussion with Dimi and two other local freelancers – money coach Talia Loderick<\/a> and creative producer Gavin Johnson<\/a>. We covered a few topics – wellbeing, digital and finance. I left the finance to Talia and admitted tax was a monster I hadn\u2019t dared look in the face yet. It was clear Talia and Gavin loved what they did and felt similar struggles to mine – despite being in totally different industries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was so much positive to take away from the event. It opened my eyes to just how much help is available in the creative community in Cardiff and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sara Pepper<\/a> of Creative Cardiff – who hosted for us – said there were workshops available and they\u2019d consider putting one on that covered tax to help people like me. Can\u2019t wait! Sort of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event was put on jointly by Creative\nCardiff<\/a> and the Executive Education Team<\/a> at Cardiff Business School.\nAnd they\u2019re really keen to reach out to the creative and freelancing business\ncommunities of Cardiff and beyond. They\u2019re going to find me pestering them from\nnow on to be honest. If I can manage to get up in time after a late night gig,\nI\u2019m definitely going to make it to their Breakfast Briefings<\/a>. I also found out they work with large,\nsmall to medium and micro businesses to design and deliver custom learning programmes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One idea I\u2019ve been developing and trialling is\n\u2018confidence through comedy\u2019 workshops, and am meeting up with Cardiff Business\nSchool execs later this month to discuss further. So watch this space..!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you want to see if they can help you get an idea\noff the ground then why not join\ntheir community<\/a>? And join Creative Cardiff’s community<\/a> while you’re at it as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the difficulties, I\u2019d never give up life as a\nfreelancer. There are certain things you can\u2019t put a price on: the freedom to\nchoose when you work, take time off when the sun is out, follow your passions.\nIt\u2019s certainly a lifestyle worth celebrating with events like this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lorna\nPrichard<\/strong><\/a> is a Freelance Comedian.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howl Comedy<\/a><\/em> is a pro comedy night that runs monthly across venues in Cardiff, Barry and Penarth.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In our latest post, Lorna Prichard, comedian and former journalist, talks about the risks and rewards of creative freelancing following a recent event hosted by Cardiff Business School\u2019s Executive Education […]","protected":false},"author":1696,"featured_media":1492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[916,9,14,28,898,918,902,909,389,908,913,905,244,899,912,921,59,914,906,917,196,907,900,903,904,16,910,911,901,920,919,5],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-employment-relations","tag-audience","tag-business","tag-cardiff","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-comedy","tag-comics","tag-creative-cardiff","tag-creative-industries","tag-digital","tag-dimitrinka-stoyonova-russell","tag-emotional-labour","tag-executive-education","tag-finance","tag-freelance","tag-funny","tag-gavin-johnson","tag-gig","tag-gigging","tag-glee-cardiff","tag-howl-comedy","tag-hr","tag-itv-wales","tag-journalism","tag-national-freelancers-day","tag-network","tag-research","tag-sara-pepper","tag-sarah-lethbridge","tag-stand-up","tag-talia-loderick","tag-wellbeing","tag-work"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-o2","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/07\/MH_200619_Cardiff_Uni_413-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1696"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1548,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions\/1548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}