SFU course tackles senior loneliness with stand-up comedy

A course being offered by Simon Fraser University is using stand-up comedy to help lonely seniors deal with social isolation.

The course titled “Finding Your Funny: Discover Standup Comedy” is tailored for people 55+.

Discussion topics include comedy’s role in people’s lives and how nearly every subject can be developed into a comedy skit.

“Stand-up comedy is considered one of the most difficult performance art forms,” says the online course description. “You’ll participate in this course by telling parts of your life story and adding the punchlines in the right places.”

Seventy-five-year-old Anne Crawford is a student in the course.

A breast cancer survivor and widow, Crawford says she loves to laugh no matter what life throws at her.

“I think it is really important,” says Crawford. “So when I saw this course was being offered, I thought I could meet a lot of fun, quirky people.”

But the course is not all about learning how to be good at cracking jokes in public. It was also designed to play a bigger social role.

Stats Canada says 31.5 per cent of senior women and 16 per cent of senior men in Canada live alone.

The BC Health Ministry has previously suggested social isolation among seniors is an emerging issue, with links present between social isolation, loneliness and health and social service usage.

The growing issue of senior isolation has prompted the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives to come up with a report and a list of suggestions for the provincial government on how to combat the problem, suggesting the most successful approach is to help seniors get out of their homes and into the community.

While Crawford says she is still living a fulfilling, busy life, the course can help many other people in her age group look at the brighter side of things.

“If this course can in some way lift people from realizing that the world is still a pretty neat place and their problems are still pretty small comparatively speaking, then that would be a socially good thing.”

As to tickling people’s funny bones, Crawford says she has never done stand-up comedy before. “I make my friends laugh,” says Crawford. “But only in private.”

The course promises to help registrants generate jokes and develop their performance style, with a possible showcase performance at the end.

Crawford says she is terrified at the prospect.

“I think I really needed a challenge, something to get my blood curdling and this is so frightening, I can’t begin to tell you,” she says.

The class was offered for the first time last year.

This year, the class meets on Wednesdays and the group had their first session last week.

Crawford says there are 22 people of different age groups in her class, with most people in their 60s.

“It is a small room with a lot of people in it. Some people were nervous, but I have a feeling this can be a group that will eventually really interact,” she says.

Janice Bannister, SFU continuing education instructor for the course, has been teaching comedy for over a decade. She says the course is designed to allow seniors a chance to speak out.

“It’s quite a sharing course, and it tends to be a lot about the students themselves,” says Bannister. “People that age have a bigger collection of stories to share. There could be someone in the class who is 55 years old and someone who is 85. That’s a 30-year difference in the stories that they have grown up with and the things they have seen. That age group has such a variety of stories.”

She says the course is also a bonding experience that in itself could be an isolation antidote.

“It’s coming to the same location every week, seeing the same faces and talking to them,” she says. “There are always friendships being built in the class.”

Some of the course participants even take it a step further.

Two of Bannister’s senior students from last year’s course are still involved in the local comedy scene, performing at local shows and clubs.