“We are so well looked after at this theatre,” Brad Oakes told the News Of The Area.

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“This audience in Coffs has been one of the best since we started touring together in January to regional towns.

Oakes is a regular on The Debrief and is best-known for his TV work on Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Totally Full Frontal and The Comedy Company.

He has headlined every major stand-up venue in Australia and toured internationally to Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Singapore, New Zealand and Dubai.

On the road, Oakes acts as MC for Dave O’Neil’s show “Overweight Lightweight.”

O’Neil is also an actor, writer, television personality on Spicks and Specks and radio presenter – recently, for the ABC.

Oakes said that the role of MC is knowing that an audience starts out as a bunch of strangers.

“I [then] meld them into being an audience.”

He also held a comedy masterclass for locals to brush up on their skills.

“All good humour has an element of surprise and goes back as far as when we were children, with the peek-a-boo game and then the knock knock joke.

“Stand-up comedy is spoken words, so concentrate on writing jokes that sound right.

Start out with small jokes – get your skills up in manageable bits. Editing is a key skill to develop.”

He urged performers to start their set strongly, learn to read the audience and “not deal” with hecklers.

“They just want attention so don’t give it to them or they will control the show and take away the rhythm.”

Not surprisingly, three local nurses joined the masterclass.

“I found it quite comforting while I was in hospital listening to their type of joking,” Oakes said.

“They have such dark humour, you can not shock them.”

The comedy veterans warned participants that they still have “bad gigs” where the audience is rude to them.

“The way to win them over is… when you knock the towns that they are enemies with,” Oakes said.

“We [also] have fun with the type of industry in the town, such as bananas or prisons,” O’Neill added.

And their final words of advice; “it is a small industry; try to get along with everybody [within reason], learn to market yourself and follow up on opportunities.”