Providing an in-depth
reading of an introductory routine by English stand-up comic Josie Long
off of her comedy special Trying is Good (2008), this paper is concerned
with the interrelations between verbal narration and co-temporal
gestures in stand-up comedy as embodied verbal art and semiotic
interaction. In particular, the paper outlines a conceptual framework of
narrative orientations with which to highlight how gestures and
movement participate in juxtaposing and mediating various conceptual
spaces and narrative perspectives to precise communicative and artistic
effect. In the process, it attends in detail to how perceptions,
affects, and evaluations of immediacy and authentic self-presence are
semiotically construed in a markedly mediated and reflexive context of
stand-up comedy.