The study attempts to explore the ways in which stand-up comedians plan and deliver their jokes in order to create humour and make the audience appreciate their performances in forms of laughter or applause. After summarizing the main theories attempting to define comedy, namely the superiority, incongruity and release theory, a short review of the history of stand-up comedy in Britain and in America has been illustrated. This is followed by the summary of the main findings of humour research. In order to provide authentic material, the transcription of an act performed by Lee Evans serves as the data for the analytical part of the work. The strategy Lee Evans applies during his routines is a blend of various rhetorical and linguistic devices such as ridicule, simile, hyperbole and word play performed in the combination with paralanguage, intonation shifts, repetition, pauses, and disfluences. Furthermore, the humorist pays a great attention on the audience, and reacts to their response making his presentation more lively and spontaneous.