Funny People is out on DVD and Blu-ray this week. To celebrate, we figured it would be a good time to explore the weird world of the stand-up comedian.

So, we sat down and watched every stand-up flick going then, for some reason, decided to enter a stand-up competition.

We're still not sure why we did that. But here's what happened.

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Seen In: Funny People, Eddie Murphy: Raw, Festival

The Movies: There aren’t that many stand-up movies centred around actual stand-up comedians, which is a bit of a surprise.

Funny People is one excellent exception, starring Adam Sandler as a stand-up mentor to amateur laughsman Seth Rogen.

As demonstrated by the genuinely stunning documentary on the DVD, both Adam and Seth have been stand-ups for years. Many years in Seth’s case. He started when he was 13.

Generally, the stand-up flicks that feature actual stand-ups are the best. So, if you’re making your own, head down to your local open mike night, and if there’s someone there that makes you giggle, sign them up for your Bill Hicks biopic immediately.

Real Life: To find out what it’d be like to be perform a comedy routine, we found ourselves a stand-up school and enrolled.

We’re not sure why either. We think it had something to do with how much we enjoyed Funny People.

We joined a gang of other journalists and DJs who had been invited to take part in a School Of Comedy day, to celebrate the release of Judd Apatow's latest film on DVD and Blu-ray.

Sean Keavney from BBC 6Music, Minnie Stephenson from Live At Studio Five, Caroline Cook and Ant Nichols from Kiss 101 and Tommy Holgate at The Sun, had all decided to step up to the funny mic.

We were going to be taught how to tell jokes by current comedy legend Micky Flanagan, then perform an actual routine in front of paying punters, to be judged in a clapometer format.

So, let’s just make this clear. We would be performing, for the first-time ever, stand-up material we’d written ourselves in a day, to a room of around 150 people who all regularly attend proper comedy nights. And they’d be picking a winner, using the medium of applause.

Nothing scary about that. If a 13-year old can do it, surely we can, right? Right?

Next: Fake It