Welcome to my site. My name's Matt Hayden, and I'm a writer, blogger and marketer in Perth, Australia. I have many years experience as a stand-up and character comedian and have performed at venues in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. I have several credits on TV shows such as Tonight Live and Fast Forward from way back in the nineties.

I hardly ever perform comedy live now, although I will get back into it again. Instead, I spend most of my free time writing blogs and building websites. When I find time I'll list many of the things I learned about performing comedy on this site.

And just on the subject of satirical comedy: I think that the best definition of it is that it is entertainment that is both funny and edgy. It has something to say as well as aiming to make you laugh. Usually this point, or message, is political. Satirical comedy often makes people squirm a little or laugh nervously.

Perhaps the most polished and well known exponent of it is Barry Humphries. While his creation Sir Les Patterson is hilarious, the character is also a dig at many aspects of Australian culture including ockerism, Aussies' love of booze, and even government funding of the arts (or "yartz" as Les calls it).

Another example is this satirical character site (which includes a character blog) that is based around a comedy persona that I have often performed live. The site is not meant to be hilarious, just gently amusing, particularly to those who are a bit fed up with political correctness and green extremism.

One thing I learned from my years of writing and performing comedy is that there's nothing that mysterious about it. Comedy is an art form like so many others. While some people are fortunate to possess natural talent in the area, pretty much everyone can learn to be funny with a bit of hard work. The trick is to take baby steps and learn from your successes and your failures.

The material, of course, is very important. That's why it's a really good idea to keep a blog. It's a great way to accumulate this - particularly topical stuff. It also helps with self-promotion. In fact, what you might find is that you'll soon end up with more readers to your blog than those who see your live comedy act.

As well as the material there are many other ingredients. And you will save time if you combine these into a general approach or technique. There are many of these on offer, particularly on the internet. In the coming months I'll link to some of these, as well as listing my own thoughts. And my advice for anyone wanting to become a comedian is to investigate many different techniques, try them out and see which one (or ones) suit you. You'll probably end up taking elements from several different schools of thought and creating your own comedic approach.

Keep learning and trying out the techniques they recommend and whatever happens, don't give up! You are sure to experience the great joy of making a room full of people fall about sooner or later. It really is not overrated. Laughter is the sweetest sound there is. The high you feel after having a good gig just cannot be beaten!

Also, with a technique that you've honed over many months of practise you'll be able to perform at a consistent level. So, even if you don't always "kill" as they say in the comedy scene, you can get to the point where you usually have good gigs, and pretty much never "die". This is important, particularly if you want to make a living at comedy.