Gurus of Comedy Dave Keeshan

This week\'s guest is Merit Kahn. Merit wrote, produced & performed an inspiring one-woman comedy show. She took all the painful stories of her life and re-wrote her story through the lens of stand up comedy. She also works in sales and marketing where she is the CEO of SELLect Sales Development. We discuss how some of the tools she has used to be successful in business has contributed to her approach to standup. \r\n\r\nMerit details how some important techniques for getting into and staying productive in the comedy world and discussed in depth some of the topics that she covers in her one woman show.

With tensions escalating on the Ukrainian border, we welcome back to the show Russian comedian and actor Denis Nikolin. Denis is back to tell us Russians aren\'t scary, they do like to laugh and he even set up a course to teach people how to make other Russians laugh. Bizarre!\r\n\r\nWe also discuss, Netflix Comedy Specials, cancel culture and we discuss war, yes WAR! The war that the Australians went to with ... emus.

This episode we are joined by writer, John Vorhaus. John has published a number of books based around comedy, The Comedy Toolbox, the little book of SITCOM and Comedy Writing 4 Life. John recently published his new book the little book of STANDUP.\r\n\r\nWe discuss John\'s new book, stand-up, cancel culture and whether or not there should be comedy cover bands and the Bulgarian remake of Married with Children.

We are delighted to welcome New York born, but Califonia residing improv artist Nicole Matarese. Nicole explains some of the concepts used in the improv world. All stand-ups should do at least one improv course to help with your crowd work. We also discuss the grown-up pain for trying to find a new place to live that comes with parking and producing content in the lockdown, online world.\r\n\r\nNicols is also hosts her own podcast called \"Totally Recommend This, Dude\" and she cohosts the podcast \"Totally Toonular\".

This episode we cross borders and cross promo. Joining me from another country but also about a 100 kms up the road is Northern Ireland based comedian and podcaster Nathan Smyth.\r\n\r\nAs a world traveller from Ireland I am often asked \"What is the story with Northern Ireland?\", I was always terrified to tell people the honest truth, \"I haven\'t a clue!\"\r\n\r\nIn this special episode, I interview Nathan and then get the shock of my life when Nathan interviews me. We discuss and clear up a lot of confusion on this small isle, will there be a future Unified Ireland following Brexit, again I haven\'t a clue, but at least we know there will be comedy and I will be trolling for gigs on both sides of the border.

Returning to our show we have Award-winning Irish comic Sean Begley. Sean is currently touring his one hour show, Tragic, around Ireland and found the time to come on the show and have a chat about starting back touring a show, the demands of negotiating rooms when putting on your own show. We also reminise on what it was like gigging back in 2019, fun times!\r\n\r\nIt\'s a great chat! Chat-tastic even!