Who Are You? Crafting a Persona for Comedy

In comedy, the laughs don’t just come from your punchlines—they come from you. Your persona is the lens through which the audience experiences your material. Whether you’re playing an exaggerated version of yourself or a full-blown character, your persona is what makes your jokes land, your silences resonate, and your presence memorable.

And if you’re in a workplace, there’s a good chance that your audience already knows about you. So, it’s even more important that you know yourself. 

What Is a Persona, Anyway?

Your persona is the version of yourself that exists in front of your audience. It's not necessarily who you are in real life, but it draws from it. Think of it as your filter—what you say and how you say it all needs to make sense coming from that person. If your persona is shy and awkward, it would be jarring to suddenly turn into a loud, arrogant know-it-all—unless that shift is intentional and clearly for effect. In other words, if you’re going to break your persona, do it on purpose and make it worth it.

You Can’t Change Everything

Some elements of your persona are simply part of how your audience perceives you, whether you like it or not. These aren’t necessarily things you control, but they do inform how your material is received.

• Age: A 21-year-old and a 50-year-old can’t tell the same joke the same way and expect the same reaction.

• Physical presence: Your height, size, race, preferred gender and overall appearance. The audience sees you before you say a word. A tall, muscular man talking about feeling physically intimidated will read differently than if a smaller, older woman says the same thing.

• Presentation: The way you present yourself, consciously or not, sets certain audience expectations. It’s not about fitting into stereotypes, but recognizing how you’re likely to be perceived and working with—or against—that.

What Can You Control?

Even though you can’t change everything, you have control over key parts of how you present yourself.

• Clothing: What you wear is a costume, even if it's just jeans and a T-shirt. Your clothes can signal casualness, professionalism, rebelliousness, or irony.

• Posture and movement: Do you slouch, pace, or stand still with confidence? Your body language speaks volumes.

• Voice and accent: These can either highlight or mask aspects of your identity. In the UK, your accent can strongly indicate class—another layer of persona that carries assumptions and social cues.

Playing a Character

Some comedians take it a step further and adopt a clear character—someone entirely different from who they are offstage. But even with a character, the same rules apply. The audience still sees your age, your look, your energy. The character doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s filtered through you.

You may have a different ‘character’ at work than you do at home. This might be a chance to introduce some of that, or you might decide to lean in to your ‘workplace’ self. 

When playing a character, consistency becomes even more crucial. If your character has a specific voice or worldview, any deviation stands out. Again, if you're going to break character, it should be deliberate and ideally funny in itself.

Why It All Matters

Your persona helps the audience trust you. It tells them what kind of humour they’re about to get, and whether they should laugh with you, at you, or because of you. When your material aligns with who you are, it feels natural, and your audience stays with you. When there’s a mismatch, they get confused—and confusion is the enemy of comedy.

So ask yourself: Who am I? Not just what do I want to say, but who is saying it? Get that right, and you’re already halfway to the laugh.