They say laughter is the best medicine, but finding the right tonic for a last-minute audition can be a stressful business. Here we’ve done the searching for you: from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, here are 15 humorous monologues to show off your funny side.
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (1598–99)
Act 2, Scene 3
Character: Benedick
If you need a classical monologue for an audition, Shakespeare is your guy, and few of his characters offer quite as much comedic potential as proud bachelor Benedick, with his witty observations and self-deprecating humour. In this soliloquy, Benedick goes on a comically fast journey from scepticism about marriage to being passionately in love with Beatrice – a rollercoaster ride that’s fun to perform.
This can be no trick. The
conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of
this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems
her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it
must be requited! I hear how I am censured. They
say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love
come from her. They say, too, that she will rather
die than give any sign of affection. I did never think
to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they
that hear their detractions and can put them to
mending. They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can
bear them witness. And virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot
reprove it. And wise, but for loving me; by my troth,
it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of
her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her! I
may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of
wit broken on me because I have railed so long
against marriage, but doth not the appetite alter? A
man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot
endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and
these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the
career of his humour? No! The world must be peopled.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not
think I should live till I were married. Here comes
Beatrice. By this day, she’s a fair lady. I do spy some
marks of love in her.
As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1599)
Act 3, Scene 5
Character: Phoebe
Phoebe’s monologue is laced with humour thanks to the way she oscillates between criticising and complimenting Ganymede (who is actually Rosalind in disguise). These contradictions make for a playful piece that still contains emotional depth.
Think not I love him, though I ask for him.
'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;
But what care I for words? yet words do well,
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:
But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him:
He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence his eye did heal it up.
He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall:
His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip,
A little riper and more lusty red
Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
I love him not nor hate him not; and yet
Have more cause to hate him than to love him:
For what had he to do to chide at me?
He said mine eyes were black and my hair black;
And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me.
I marvel why I answer'd not again:
But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.
I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
And thou shalt bear it: wilt thou, Silvius?
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (1895)
Act 1
Character: Algernon
Oscar Wilde’s well-known comedy of manners satirises the social customs and attitudes of the Victorian era, and this particular monologue employs exaggeration, irony, and witty wordplay to do just that. Embrace the absurdity of Algernon’s observations here and you are sure to have the audition panel chuckling along.
I haven’t the smallest intention of dining with Aunt Augusta. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to dine with one’s own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place me next to Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.
Poor Harold by Floyd Dell (1920)
Character: Harold
This satirical comedy remains as funny today as it was when it was first published over 100 years ago. It sees Harold, a bumbling and self-pitying poet, revealed as not quite the victim he makes himself out to be. His disillusionment and desperation offer actors an exciting and challenging opportunity to play a character trying to convince himself, as much as his lover, of his innocence.
Incriminating? How can you ask that, Isabel? They were perfectly innocent letters, such as any gentleman poet might write to any lady poetess. How was I to know that a rather plain-featured woman I sat next to at a poetry dinner in Chicago was conducting a dozen love-affairs? How was I to know that my expressions of literary regard would look like love-letters to her long-suffering husband? That’s the irony of it: I’m perfectly blameless. God knows I couldn’t have been anything else, with her. But I’ve always been blameless–in all the seven years of my marriage, I never even kissed another woman. And then to have this happen! Scandal, disgrace, the talk of all Evanston! Disowned by my father, repudiated by my wife, ostracized by my friends, cast forth into outer darkness, and dropped naked and penniless into Greenwich Village!
Laughing Wild by Christopher Durang (1987)
Act 1, Scene 1
Characters: Woman / Man
The key to great comedy lies in playing the truth of the scene, and these two juicy monologues from comedy play Laughing Wild do just that. If you truly commit to portraying what these characters are feeling rather than trying to ham it up, you’ll find these speeches not only exceptionally funny, but also an excellent way to showcase your acting skills.
Woman
I want to talk to you about life. It’s just too difficult to be alive, isn’t it, and try to function? There are all these people to deal with. I tried to buy a can of tuna fish in the supermarket, and there was this person standing right in front of where I wanted to reach out to get the tuna fish, and I waited a while, to see if they’d move, and they didn’t – they were looking at tuna fish too, but they were taking a real long time on it, reading the ingredients on each can like they were a book, a pretty boring book if you ask me, but nobody has; so I waited a long while, and they didn’t move, and I couldn’t get to the tuna fish cans; and I thought about asking them to move, but then they seemed so stupid not to have sensed that I needed to get by them that I had this awful fear that it would do no good, no good at all, to ask them, they’d probably say something like, “We’ll move when we’re goddam ready you nagging bitch” and then what would I do? And so then I started to cry out of frustration, quietly, so as not to disturb anyone, and still, even though I was softly sobbing, this stupid person didn’t grasp that I needed to get by them, and so I reached over with my fist, and I brought it down real hard on his head and screamed: “Would you kindly move asshole!!!”
And the person fell to the ground, and looked totally startled, and some child nearby started to cry, and I was still crying, and I couldn’t imagine making use of the tuna fish now anyway, and so I shouted at the child to stop crying – I mean, it was drawing too much attention to me – and I ran out of the supermarket, and I thought, I’ll take a taxi to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I need to be surrounded with culture right now, not tuna fish.
Man
I used to be a very negative person. But then I took this personality workshop that totally turned my life around. Now when something bad or negative happens, I can see the positive. Now when I have a really bad day, or when someone I thought was a really good friend betrays me, or maybe when I’ve been hit by one of those damn people riding bicycles the opposite way on a one-way street, so, of course, one hadn’t looked in that direction and there they are bearing down on you, about to kill or maim you – anyway, I look at any of these things and I say to myself: this glass is not half full, it’s half empty.
No – I said it backwards, force of habit. This glass is not half empty, it is half full.
Of course, if they hit you with the stupid bicycle your glass won’t be half full or half empty, it will be shattered to pieces, and you’ll be dead or in the hospital.
But really I’m trying to be positive, that’s what I’m doing with my life these days. I was tired of not being joyful and happy, I was sick of my personality, and I had to change it. Half full, not half empty. I had to say to myself: you do not have cancer – at least not today. You are not blind. You are not one of the starving children in India or China or in Africa. Look at the sunset, look at the sunrise, why don’t you enjoy them, for God’s sake? And now I do. Except if it’s cloudy, of course, and you can’t see the sun. Or if it’s cold. Or if it’s too hot.
I probably need to take a few more personality workshops to complete the process. It’s still not quite within my grasp, this being positive business.
But I’m making great strides, my friends don’t recognize me.
And it’s hard for me to be positive because I’m very sensitive to the vibrations of people around me, or maybe I’m just paranoid.
The Devil Wears Prada, David Frankel and Aline Brosh McKenna (2006)
You can have so much fun playing the smash hit movie’s high-status fashion editor Miranda Priestly, who drips with sardonic humour, disdain, and an overwhelming amount of self-confidence.
This 'stuff'? Oh, OK. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? – I think we need a jacket here – And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of 'stuff'.
Chewing Gum Dreams by Michaela Coel (2012)
Scene 5
Character: Tracey
This monologue is an extract from Michaela Coel’s one-woman show Chewing Gum Dreams, which was later turned into a sitcom by Channel 4. It’s packed full of hilarious lines, offering actors the chance to deliver comedy beat after comedy beat. It also goes on a real roller coaster ride of emotions, with teenage Tracey jumping from thought to thought, allowing you to really showcase your acting abilities alongside your comedy chops.
I’m a bit scared of dicks. Coz one minute they’re hanging loose, then the next minute it is like a gun, pointing at ya. And how would it fit?! Anyone would be scared. I’ve seen a dick one other time, in year 7, it was Aaron’s actually, we were in the lift and he just got it out, started playing with it calling me a dirty bitch? I just get the stairs now. Connor’s dick is pink. And that’s interesting. Sort of reminds me of one of those pink balloons – and raw chicken skin.
“Shit, I’ve – I think I’m on my period. Yeah. Yep, I just never know when it’s gonna come…the periods. So… I mean we can – maybe we can put our boxers back on. Sorry”
-
I dunno where I ever picked this up, but I always thought white people were bad kissers. It’s not their fault, it’s just that most of them have really small lips and they can’t embrace the challenge of lips like mine, then they try to compensate for the lack of lips with the tongue – then the tongue ends up everywhere, just flapping about you get my drift.
But Connor was great! That’s probably the best kissing I’ve ever done actually and – shit; I could get pregnant. I could get pregnant. Shit. I could get – No no no no no.
I text Candice: “Candice need help”
No reply. And that’s weird, she always replies –
I call her…Voicemail. Fuck. There’s only one option left. Fuck. I ring Fat Lesha, the DIY vagina licker for advice.
Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (2013)
Character: Fleabag
Before it was a hit TV series, Fleabag was a one-woman show that had audiences laughing out loud from London to Edinburgh. One of the brilliant things about Waller-Bridge’s writing is her ability to make you laugh with the unexpected – sending us in one direction then suddenly changing track. In this monologue, Waller-Bridge does just that, offering actors the perfect opportunity to showcase impeccable comic timing.
Okay.
Into the shower. Boom. Bedroom. Make-up. Boom. Gonna really make an effort. I take half an hour trying to look nice and I end up looking… amazing. I mean, best in ages. One of those days. Boom.
Gorgeous, fresh-faced, heels, wearing a skirt, new top, little bit sexy, on my way to save my café and yes, I am strutting.
I see a man walking towards me from the bus stop. He can’t take his eyes off me. I’m all walking like I’ve got a paintbrush up my arse, thinking:
Yeah, check me out, cos it’s never gonna happen, Chub Chub.
Chub Chub’s getting closer. Oversized jacket. Meaty face. Looks me up and down. It’s like he’s confused about how attractive I am – he can’t quite believe it. I worry for a second I’m going to make a sex offender out of the poor guy. He’s about to say something. Here we fucking go, this better be good. He’s passing, he’s passing. He clears his throat, brings his hand to his mouth and coughs:
“Walk of shame.”
It’s too late to go home and change. I have some flat shoes in my bag and anyway, he’s fat.
And he can’t take that off at night.
Bitch Boxer by Charlie Josephine (2013)
Character: Chloe
This pacey monologue has a distinct voice, and it jumps straight into the action, so it’s a great one for showcasing your talent for stepping immediately into character, as well as your prowess as a comedic storyteller.
I’d woken up well late. Knew it was late before I looked at my phone. Leant over to pick it up and check the time, praying it weren’t gonna be too bad. Fuck. Ten, twenty-seven. Blind panic as I jump outta bed and run round the house trying to tidy up/ make breakfast and get dressed at the same time. Multi-tasking to the max. All bleary eyed before my mornin’ cuppa. Phone on charge/ toast in the toaster/ kettle on the boil. I jump out the front door to stick the rubbish in the bins. All in the black one. Recycling can fuck itself this morning. I actually thought to myself wouldn’t it be funny if, when I heard the door shut. Click.
Ah no way. You gotta be fuckin’ joking. I stood there gently pushing on the door, just praying it would open. But no. I’m officially locked out. Wearing nothing but a skimpy little vest top and Jamie’s boxer shorts. I ain’t even got trainers on. And it’s half ten in the morning/ everyone’s at work, and I’m in Leytonstone. Not exactly the best place to be locked out dressed like that. I’ve got to be at the gym in an hour and my dad will kill me if I’m late. He’ll be travelling back down from the fight in Manchester with the boys, celebrating their win, all pumped up and ready to go. He thinks I’ve stuck to the straight and narrow; training, tidy house, no boys. Little does he know that Jamie’s been round all weekend.
Beat.
I quickly hatch a plan. I reckon I can climb onto the outhouse thing we got at the back of our house ‘n’ try my bedroom window which is always open. But/ there ain’t an alleyway, so to get into the garden/ I gotta ask next door if I can hop their fence. Which is obviously fuckin’ embarrassing, I’m pretty much not wearing anything and next door’s a dirty old bastard.
I knock next door, but there ain’t no answer. I try the house on the other side, no answer. I try both houses again, no answer/ so I move to two doors down. No fucking answer. By now I’m panicking. Three doors down on both sides still no answer/ four doors down to the left/ and some woman opens the door. She finds it funny, leads me across her shit-heap of a garden and gives us a leg up.
‘Good Luck!’
‘Cheers love.’
Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (2016)
Series 1, Episode 6
Character: Godmother
This monologue, delivered by Olivia Colman as Godmother in the TV adaptation of Fleabag, is brilliantly written. Peppered with killer comedic lines, it also oozes with character, offering the chance to play sickly sweet, sharp, sardonic, and sincere all within the space of one audition speech.
I’ve been building this sexhibition since I was eleven and a quarter, which is when I first climaxed, by accident, on a bidet. The bidet is, of course, exhibited, as are all the pieces from my first ever sexhibition. All apart from one.
She gestures to an empty pedestal.
A few weeks ago, one of my most delicate pieces was stolen from my studio.
But in a sense, it was a blessing.
In fact her brutal snatching made me think of all the women of the world who have been robbed of their freedom, of their happiness and, in the saddest of cases, of their bodies. So in many ways, I have to thank the thief for creating my most profound piece of work to date. A Woman Robbed.
Now, I would ask you all to leave your genitals at the door and bring your minds to these pieces. I don’t believe people always think about sex when they see a naked body. I believe they think about their own minds, their own bodies and their own power. And that’s what this show is really about.
She looks at Fleabag.
It’s about power. Thank you.
Godmother gives a little smile to Fleabag.
Angry Alan by Penelope Skinner (2018)
Where It All Begins...
Character: Roger
If you’re looking for a piece that’s dark and satirical, you can’t do much better than this passage from Penelope Skinner’s solo play. The play explores masculinity and the men’s rights movement, with this extract from the first scene giving you lots to sink your teeth into. Playing Roger’s state of mind and circumstances truthfully will allow the acerbic comedy in Skinner’s writing to shine through.
It’s Monday morning and just to provide you with some context
on this particular Monday morning
things are what I would consider to be
normal. Not the old normal. The old normal is long gone. On a Monday morning
Roger-from-before would be getting in his fancy car and heading into the office. But what you’re looking at here is Roger-Now. And Roger-Now is the third assistant store manager in the Walnut Creek Safeway and he doesn’t work Mondays and if you’re wondering what the third assistant store manager does
you know when you have to bring something back to the store and you’re complaining to the checker? And she’s not dealing with your complaint to your satisfaction so you say,
‘I’d like to see the manager’? The guy who comes along at that point? It’s not the actual store manager just so you know. His name is Tim and he’s sitting up in his fancy glass office on the second floor. We actually went to high school together which is how I got this job. But that’s a whole nother story. Point is you don’t need to worry about Tim because you never meet Tim. See? But me? Sure. I’m the guy who comes to help. I’m not in a suit I’m in a shirt and tie and I’ve got a badge and it says my name is Roger and I’m happy to help. And apparently it also says: I’m a guy you can yell at. Sometimes if you’re mad enough you can threaten me with physical violence. But I’ll just offer you a refund and tell you I’m very sorry and I hope you’ll continue to choose Safeway for all your shopping needs. Because that’s store policy and I know better than to go up against store policy. Where am I going with this? Oh right. I’m at the beginning. And it’s Monday morning
and I’m awake early and I’m considering exercising when I fall into your average Google vortex but this time
instead of forty minutes of pointless surfing
I end up watching a video about history
which is kind of amazing
so I watch it again. Then I click on a link underneath to the man who uploaded it. He calls himself Angry Alan. And he’s a pioneer of something they call The Men’s Rights Movement. Have you heard of that? Apparently what it is is it’s a natural evolution from the women’s movement because basically:
in a nutshell: since feminism was so successful
things have gone too far the other way. We’re now living in a ‘Gynocentric Society’ and now
now it’s like Beyoncé says: Who runs the world? Women.
Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd (2019)
Act 1, Scene 4
Character: Richard Gadd
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s likely you’ve at least heard of Baby Reindeer, the hit Netflix series which spent weeks as the streamer’s most watched show following its release in 2024. It’s yet another example of a TV show which started life as a solo stage play, and this extract comes from close to the start of that script. Darkly comic given the subject matter, this monologue also contains literal jokes, allowing you to showcase different styles of humour.
I don’t know what it was in me – but I start to pay her little compliments here and there –
Your birthday’s coming up?! Your twenty-first, is it?!
You’re forty-five?! Well, I’ll be damned! You had better give Peter Pan his moisturiser back!
I began to love her laugh. Obsess with it. Do everything I could to eke it out of her. It was flirtatious, fun. Surface level. I genuinely thought I was doing a nice thing. You don’t need to fancy someone to flirt with them, right? It’s casual, it’s harmless, it’s –
Becoming a joke around the bar –
She sat in the middle of it all – soaking up each comment like it fuelled her, the walls of the pub dropping away and it's prom night – her in the middle of the dance floor, us watching on spellbound.
Martha is talking about her Belsize Park penthouse when a joke presents itself. She says she is decorating her bedroom at the moment, and she needs her curtains hung.
The comment hangs in the air.
She needs her curtains hung. Someone? Anyone? Is nobody taking it? Curtains hung? As in, the curtains you get in a house? Vaginal curtains –?!
‘I’ll hang your curtains?!’
Everyone pisses themselves laughing.
Bar her.
She just sits in the middle of it all, her lips stationary, her big brown eyes widening. I am looking at her, wanting her to laugh. Wanting her to share in the joke. But she doesn’t. She just stares. I knew then, in that moment –
That she has taken it literally.
Bottom by Willy Hudson (2019)
Scene 4
Character: Willy
Willy Hudson’s Bottom is a queer coming-of-age, comedic one-man show. The unique and specific details conveyed in the telling of this third-date story make it a monologue which is likely to be memorable and funny. Actors can have fun playing with the characterisation of Willy, as well as switching between how he speaks when talking to his date versus the more truthful asides he shares with the audience.
He arrives late. Which is annoying.
I had timed it all perfectly. That means the fish has now been in the oven for over an hour, and that I’ve over-boiled the peas.
But I don’t tell him this.
I pretend that it’s fine and cover it by saying, ‘Ooh I’m a shit cook, so please don’t expect much.’ (But actually it’s not that I’m shit, it’s that you’re fucking late.)
I smile and sit down opposite him in my little kitchen, ignoring the smell of stale, dry fish. He picks up his fuck – fork – and asks me how I made it. I say, ‘I’ve picked the fish from my garden, chopped the peas and I’ve shit in the pan.’
Yep, I’ve got no idea what I’m talking about. I can’t even taste the food. It’s gone all thick and furry. Like I’m chewing on a sock.
But he laughs. And his cheeks pinch in the corners which is cute, and I quickly forget that he was late.
This is our third date – but I’m still fucking nervous – this is probably the most nervous I’ve ever been. It’s up there with seeing Beyoncé in concert for the first time, and waiting for my mum to pick me up from the police station when I was caught stealing hair gel from Superdrug.
He is a Bottom. I can tell. It’s like we have silently agreed that he is waiting for me to make the first move. I need to top his bottom, which is something I’ve never done before.
I am normally the gracious, welcoming, pillow-biting Bottom and I’m fucking nervous because all I keep thinking about is trying to push into his wagon wheel and it’s making me very sweaty.
Overflow by Travis Alabanza (2020)
Character: Rosie
Overflow follows Rosie, a trans woman, on a night out when she is hiding in a public toilet. It was written in response to the (still very present) “moral panic against trans people using public bathrooms that match their gender”. This darkly comic one-woman show deals with some heavy subject matter, but the opening monologue is lighter in tone. It offers a lyrically poetic as well as humorous take on the ‘preemptive piss’. Actors can show off their ability to play with pacing and delivery with this monologue.
The best piss you can have? Obviously, it is the preemptive one.
You know, the one where you wee before you really need to go.
The one where you think you might need a pee in an hour, but rather than waiting until then, you force out some early release.
The preemptive one.
It’s the pièce de résistance of wee-wees. The number one of number ones.
The golden shower of shit, that isn’t shit, coming out of you.
The preemptive piss is God-tier levels.
Come to think of it, learning to orgasm properly comes second to the best discovery I’ve ever made for my body.
It is the one that you did because you had a spare moment before leaving the house, rather than the one you do because there is no other choice.
The preemptive piss is like when you make your Sim character wee in your new luxury bathroom, just because you wanna see the design in action, not because the bar is on red.
Yeah, the preemptive piss has never met a jumpsuit that it cannot take off with ease, calmness, and a magician’s slight of hand. No ticking time bomb that you regret wearing.
The preemptive piss is going for one just before a night out, because you know the queue to the club is going to be at least thirty-five minutes.
The preemptive piss is done in the comfort of your house, or his house. It’s not done at work in crowded bathrooms.
The preemptive piss is never done at a train station or on the side of a road.
The preemptive piss is done before getting on the plane, not twenty minutes after waiting for turbulence to stop.
The preemptive piss makes you feel like you are in control. Like you have time. Like things are not overflowing.
