My name is Rob Auton, I am a writer and performer of what I write. Sometimes I stand up on stage at comedy nights and it makes people laugh and sometimes I do it and it doesn’t. I was asked to write 500 words on what makes me laugh so here goes. Firstly I thought I’d think about what has made me laugh today. The thing I’ve laughed loudest at so far today is a video On Watts App of my friend’s young child wishing one of my other friends a happy birthday. She said “Happy Birthday Landy” his name is Andy you see and it made me laugh because I had never thought to call him ‘Landy’ before. I am now laughing at myself because I am realising that this probably isn’t what you meant for me to write about but it’s what made me laugh today. I find things like that funny, me trying and failing, you know when you get yourself in such a state that you have to laugh because you’d cry if you didn’t.
Rob Auton
Yesterday I was in the bathroom and there was a fly in there, it was flying around and to amuse myself I began asking the fly what it was doing with its life. Just flying around. What’s the end goal? Was the fly on its way somewhere and it took a wrong turn and found itself in my bathroom? It looked like it was in a rush. That type of thing makes me laugh. Flies looking like they are in a rush. The older I get the more I am drawn to animals, they are making me laugh more and more. The way dogs look at me as if to say “you’re an adult now, what are you doing with your life?” I laugh at cats due to the fact they seem to be so self-obsessed. Cats sitting in windows looking at humans driving about with a look on their faces as if to say “why bother?”
Another thing that made me laugh yesterday happened on the tube. There was a guy who was taking up a seat and a half because he was asleep and he had his legs at an angle. It was quite a busy carriage and a man got on and tried to sit down on the seat next to the sleeping man but without waking him up. He was being really considerate and looking at everyone and laughing as he gently sat down and squeezed himself into the seat. He was sitting there really squashed looking at everyone and smiling. We all knew it was funny. Children would have found it funny, but it was all adults who were enjoying the free entertainment. The laughter really brought people together for that brief time on the tube. I guess that’s what live comedy is about. Giving people a shared moment that you can embrace and go away thinking, “we were the only ones who got to see that today.”
Those are some of the things I find funny.
Rob Auton performs The Talk Show at Just the Tonic’s The Fancy Room at 6.10pm and stars in Frank’s Skinners DEBUT play Nina’s Got News at the Pleasance’s Queen Dome at 2.50pm at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. More info and tickets are available at www.robauton.co.uk
Tagged in Edinburgh Festival Fringe