Grounding / Grounded

Grounding is the art of giving your audience something recognisable, relatable and real to latch onto - so that the strange and surprising things (like the “game”) can shine brighter.

Think of grounding as setting the stage: it gives your scene context, clarity, and contrast. It’s the solid floor beneath the silly.

What does grounding look like?

Being normal to the reality: To the logic of the world you’re building, you don’t have to be normal in relation to the real world.
Creating expectations: When we recognise a situation (“a job interview”, “a family dinner”, “a self-help seminar”), our brains start to predict what might happen. These predictions are ripe for comic subversion.
Playing the grounded character: Often described in other traditions as the “straight man” or “foil”, we prefer the term grounded character - especially in clown or alt-comedy, where they’re the calm to someone else’s storm. They don’t need to be boring - just more grounded to the world you’ve built or reality.
Specificity is your best friend: Referencing familiar details (brands, jargon, physical spaces, everyday habits) helps the audience place themselves in the scene and adds texture. A boring office is fine. A boring office with a broken kettle and passive-aggressive post-it notes? Now we’re in.
Meta Grounding: Sometimes, the grounding is the whole space or setup. For example, if you're at a stand-up open mic, the audience expects stand-up. That becomes a kind of meta grounding. Subverting that (e.g. entering in a full clown wedding dress) can create powerful laughs because it breaks that expectation.
Visual grounding: You can communicate a ton with very little - costume, posture, or one simple prop can tell the audience where we are, what kind of scene this is, and what they should expect.
Playing fair: If the ungrounded/clownish character says something that actually makes sense, don’t deny it just to protect your normalcy. Instead, you can reluctantly agree, sigh, or justify your response. This keeps your perspective intact without breaking the world.