Stand Up or Shut Up (01×05)

Starz Comedy’s new series, Stand Up or Shut Up! takes a backstage look at what it takes to be a standup comedian and how different topics are address by comics. The screener provided delved right into one of the most poignant and hot topics in the comedy world today, politics. The comics interviewed for the micro series, and host Michael Somerville, give their opinions on how political humor is address in the industry and how they use such topics in their own act.

The series breaks things up by showing the comics talking to the camera either walking through a park or walking down the street and also in workshop classes at the American Comedy Institute in New York City complete with small standup sessions with their classmates.

One of the great things about the series is it isn’t afraid to show the would-be-stand-ups fail in some of their jokes, in fact, a great majority of them aren’t particularly funny to start off by even over the course of a 10 minute episode you can see them become more comfortable with some of the material the show addresses.

Standing out amount the comics featured on the show is Aussie-native Josh Zepps who had me laughing hysterically when he compares gay marriage to shellfish and how the Bible doesn’t seem to distinguish any difference between laying with another man and eating crab cakes.

The series has been running since July 21 for a 10 week run culminating in the graduation of the comics from ACI. There’s a lot to like about the series, including its condensed, no-nonsense time frame that gets you in for a few good laughs and leaves you wanting just a little bit more.

Stand Up or Shut Up! runs on Starz Comedy every Friday at 7:50PM. Check your local listings for actual time and channel.

For more information on the series, check out the official website.