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Learn the Skills and Art of performing Stand-up Comedy 

At our venues around the UK, and Online: We currently run our beginners course at venues in London, Manchester, Brighton and Edinburgh - with dates available through until Spring 2024. And we'll be in a new venue in London in 2024 - in Hammersmith. click here

Our online courses continue too with dates listed into 2024 at the moment. As the online format has worked so well, opening up our courses to people who can't get to venues we will continue with monthly online beginners courses (click here), as well as our current Intermediate and Advanced courses running online training with shows in venues.   


Laughing Horse Comedy offer a series of highly rated comedy courses to learn or improve stand-up comedy performance.

The courses are aimed at complete beginners, new comedians or those that need help improving after a while on the circuit - they are also great to learn confidence, public speaking and comedy writing skills, even if you're not planning to ever get on a stage.

Our popular intensive two day beginners course offers newcomers the chance to learn the basics, and get up on stage and perform their first ever set. It is also suitable for new comics to get the chance to see how they can improve rapidly. There is also a premium option, giving the student additional personal tuition following the two course days.

The beginners course is held in venues: monthly in London, and at least twice a year in Brighton, Manchester and Edinburgh including during the Edinburgh Fringe.

There's also an online course each month for those that can't make it to our venues, running the exact same course as we do in venues. We started this during lockdown, and it proved its a brilliant format for comedy teaching.



We also offer a longer intermediate course, offering new comedians with a little experience or students who have already attended our beginners course to expand their set, and more time with the tutor.

There is also an advanced course for those performing regularly to expand their sets, and Personal Tuition sessions for both newcomers and established comedians.

Both the intermediate and advanced courses are run online, so students from a much wider area can take part.

Many of our graduates are full-time stand-ups, competition finalists and have been signed by agents - some leading comics to graduate from our course including Britain's Got Talent Winner Lost Voice Guy, Edinburgh Award Nominee Imran Yusuf, and world touring and leading festival acts like Nat Luurtsema and Daniel Sloss.

And there is many more from the 100s who have graduated through our training in more than a decade!



Watch our main tutor, Jay Sodagar, and several course students talk about the course


What do the Courses Offer?

Each course offers time with an experienced comedians and tutor, practice sessions, and the opportunity of taking part in a graduation show at one of the Laughing Horse's Comedy nights, or at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The courses are led by experienced comedy teachers and performing professional stand-ups: Jay Sodagar (Comedian, Actor and Creator of these courses), Nik Coppin (World Touring comedian and compere), and Jojo Sutherland (Comedy Tutor, actor and comedian) are our three main tutors - for more information in the tutors, click here.

All of our courses can be packaged to be run at other comedy venues or locations too, so if you have a comedy venue or festival that would benefit from comedy courses, please email us on admin@laughinghorse.co.uk to discuss details.


Comedy Course as a Gift - a unique Christmas or Birthday present

You can buy a voucher for our courses - why not give a comedy course as a unique present to someone for their birthday or Christmas?



Comedy courses, and comedy training for use in business development and personal training

We can put together training, or comedy activities as part of your employee or business development, or as part of fun staff days. Click here for more details.


THREE WEEKS REVIEW (2 Day Course at the Edinburgh Fringe):

"This course has to be one of the best on offer. The students, including a policeman and a Dutch porn addict (if his act is to be believed), had all travelled into Edinburgh especially for the course. Notable was the relaxed and uncompetitive atmosphere, in no small part down to the tutor who focused on helping each participant to find a personal style, coached them on how to edit their material and explained how not to fall out with comperes (particularly by not bumping into them on their way on and off the stage). The course culminated in impressive performances that night at a Free Festival venue with radically improved acts... Everyone seemed delighted with the experience. Highly recommended ★★★★ "


Review of 'Trying 2B Funny' at the Edinburgh Fringe:

"All of the students had completed a 2 day Laughing Horse Comedy course with Jay Sodagar prior to the Fringe, and all teenagers with no previous comedy experience: "Let's not lie. The title of this show is in no way comforting. As Michael our first teenage comic pointed out, trying to be funny indicates that these kids aren't funny. Which is very far from the truth. They were 100% hilarious. Heatham House is a youth centre for children in Twickenham and surrounding areas, and boy has it done these kids proud. There were a couple of blunders, and not every gag went down well, but I laughed all the way through. Special mention has to go to Esther, rightly the headline act. She was a natural comic, in a way that was refreshing. This was serious talent, watch them now or pay for it later. ★★★★"