Comedy Club Line-Up

Next Monday night JUICE will return to the fantastic Market Vaults pub in Stafford with our monthly Comedy Club! This exciting show is a mix of professional comedians testing out new jokes & material, as well as some newer comedians gaining experience. It’s always a fun, unpredictable show from start to finish.

Last month marked our return to The Market Vaults for the first time in two years, and it was a great show. We packed the pub with somewhere between 50 and 60 punters, everyone having a good time. Through out partnership with House Of Bread, we raised £100 for low-income families, vulnerable adults and homeless people across Stafford. The House Of Bread will be back next Monday night and we’re hoping to SMASH £100 and raise even more money!

The line-up of professional comedians for August has been confirmed and we’re very excited about some JUICE Favourites returning to Stafford!

 

Craig Deeley – a stalwart of the Midlands comedy scene, Craig is an experienced, professional comedian who delights audiences with his story-telling style. A true Favourite of JUICE Comedy, Craig has performed at virtually all our venues over the years.

Kate McCabe – a comedian who got her start on the New York comedy circuit, Kate crossed the pond to join the Northern comedy scene in the UK. Adept at both stand-up and improve comedy, we were lucky enough to have Kate perform for us as part of our professional show at The Gatehouse Theatre in June.

 

Harriet Dyer – Energetic, unique and bonkers, Harriet Dyer is a stand-up comedian no audience will forget. JUICE was lucky enough to book Harriet during some of her earliest gigs, but now she regularly performs for major comedy clubs such as The Glee Clubs, The Stand and The Frog & Bucket.

Also on the bill will be Jayne Edwards, Adam Blaize, Graham Wythenshaw and Joe Ross Williams. As ever, this line-up is subject to change.

Monday 3rd August at The Market Vaults, Stafford. The show starts at 8pm, but spaces in the pub are LIMITED so make sure you arrive at 7:30 in order to get a good spot to enjoy the show.

Wednesday 3rd July 2013

 
This week featured the end of an era for JUICE, as we bid farewell to Joxer Brady’s, our original venue and the home of our monthly New Act / New Material Show. JUICE began life at Joxer’s eight-and-a-half years ago when Neil Reading & Rob Halden started dicking around in the back of a pub. From their it grew into a well-respected performance space for stand-up comics, and acted as the launching-pad for JUICE to move into bigger venues and more diverse shows.

With Joxer Brady’s going through a change of management it felt like the perfect time for JUICE to move away from running shows in pubs. So to bid farewell to Joxer’s we assembled some of our favourite performers for a final show. It ended up being a wild and unpredictable evening of beautiful grass-roots stand-up.

As ever the night was hosted by Neil Reading & Rob Halden, who have started to compliment each other well as co-comperes. Rob spouts off near non-stop ranting, which gives Neil time to work on considered and funny interjections. Some of the high points of their MC’ing involved picking on a young lad on the front table who worked in a Particle Accelerator, chatting to a local author about her latest novel, and the constant mocking of Paul Savage.

The show kicked off with Chris Norton Walker, who immediately started pulling people out of the audience and getting them to stand on the stage. With no explanation of what he was doing, Chris sent punter after punter up onto the stage. He then arranged them like a football team taking a group photo, and had Rob Halden lie across the knees of the lads crouching at the front. Once this was all over, Chris revealed that his ten minutes was up and left the stage after not telling a single joke, but receiving a great deal of laughs.

Craig Deeley returned things to normal next, bedding the audience in before trying out some new material. Craig is consistently one of the funniest people on Social Media, following him pays endless dividends, and it was interesting to see how these observations and one-liners translated from the screen to the Microphone.

Billy McGuire is one of the longest serving comedians to perform for JUICE. He’s been with us since the early days, performed for us in a muddy tent at Stafford Castle and on the lovely stage of The Gatehouse Theatre. Billy’s affable act was wistful, funny and charming.

Closing the first section of the bill was Johnny Sorrow, an absolute legend on the West Midlands comedy circuit. When introducing him, Rob Halden tried to lay-in Johnny’s backstory and create an air of uncertainty in the audience (something which Johnny’s act feeds off). But the crowd knew exactly who was coming on stage and the cheers and applause for him was deafening. Despite Johnny’s act being largely the same as the last few times JUICE has seen him, Johnny never seems to get apathetic with his delivery and always throws in something different into each performance. The people in the audience who had never seen Johnny before were quickly swept up in waves of giddy laughter that everyone else was experiencing. The audience began chanting along with Johnny’s catchphrases, egging him on to the next punchline that they all knew in advance. It would have been impossible to leave Joxer Brady’s without having Johnny Sorrow on the bill.

We came out of the break with “The G’vnor” Dave Dinsdale in fine form. It’s been a while since Dinzy has played for JUICE, but he really threw himself into this performance with energy and vigor. As well as his tried and tested material, Dave brought out some new jokes to JUICE and these contained some absolute gems we’re still thinking about today.

The Men With Bananas were a late addition to this show, mainly because they’ve stopped gigging. We’d assumed that they’d moved on with their lives and were no longer available. Luckily a message or two on Facebook ensured that this unconventional double-act reunited for the first time in two years just for JUICE! The Bananas were a big part of our early days at Joxer Brady’s and it was really special to have them back. Their larger-than-life act is full of silliness, songs, props and audience interaction. These are an act that really should have made it big on the major Festivals and would be right at home with a spot on BBC3’s Live At The Electric.

Following a second break, Paul Savage was due to be introduced. The problem with this is that Rob Halden and Paul Savage are very good friends, which means that whenever Rob is supposed to introduce Paul, he just repeatedly fucks with him. Earlier in the show Rob had shared a number of stories at Paul’s expense, and now he stole Paul’s T-shirt and used it to mock him. Paul swaggered on stage, yelled that he’d be doing this gig for eight years and didn’t want to do any jokes. “All of you, put your hands up and move into the middle. I am going to Crowd Surf you!”

Now, the above sounds like a funny way to start off a set. A wild and outrageous demand that the comedian will soon move on from. However, this was not Paul Savage’s plan. Instead, he leapt into the waiting arms of the audience and literally crowd-surfed! The audience held Paul up high and carried him across the length of the pub, depositing him safely on his feet! Savage then yelled “I’m not doing any fucking jokes!” and promptly left the pub to a thunderous applause.

Tom Allsopp had the unenviable task of having to follow that spectacle, with an audience now giddy after what they all just got involved in. He made a very good accounting of himself with some witty stories and presented a poem that was extremely well written and managed to be both funny and touching at the same time, without one disparaging the other.

The final comedian on the bill was the first ever comedian on the bill, Lovdev Barpaga bringing things full circle. Since first performing for us nearly nine years ago, Lovdev has gone on to make regular appearances at The Glee Club and The Comedy Store. Having Lovdev closed out our time at Joxer’s was very fitting.

When all was said and done, Neil & Rob sung a bad but enthusiastic version of ‘Send In The Clowns’ and the lovely audience indulged them with a standing ovation. What was perhaps most pleasing was to see so many comedians from the circuit in the audience. Comics who were scheduled to perform, but had just showed up to raise and glass and mark the occasion.

So it’s onwards and upwards for JUICE! On Monday 5th of August we relocate the monthly New Act / New Material Show to Number 15 on Greengate Street in Stafford town centre. A lovely bistro that will be more suited to our needs, and to the needs of our audience. The layout will be better, the arrangement of chairs will be much better for everyone’s viewing pleasure. We won’t have to deal with any disturbance from pub drinkers who aren’t there for the comedy. All-in-all it’ll be a much better experience for all.

To kick things off in style at our new venue, as well as the regular bout of new comedians finding their feet and some established veterans testing out new material, we’ve hired top professional comic Andy White to deliver a Headline set and close the show! Andy is a highly experience comic who regularly performs for all the major comedy clubs including The Glee Club, Jongleurs and The Comedy Store! We’re really excited about working with Andy and we hope you’ll join us as we start this new chapter in Stafford comedy!

Tuesday 5th March 2013

Last night’s New Comedian / New Material Night was a real joy. We have some new faces in the audience, which is always great, it lets us know that all the time we spend promoting JUICE online isn’t wasted! Woohoo! We were especially pleased that most of the new faces were woman. A lot of the time live stand-up is heavily dominated by a male presence, and therefore a male point-of-view, so it’s great that we’re getting a more equally split audience. But the bottom line is that the acts on last night’s bill were fab! We had a great mix of newer comedians, and some top-quality pro’s!

Graham Milton is a newer act who really impressed last night, with a well put together, cohesive set. Star turns came from the excellent Michael J. Dolan, who didn’t utter a single sentence that didn’t result in fall-about laughter from the audience, and Craig Deeley, who graced us with a wealth of well-crafted new material that sits perfectly in his cheeky-Brummie act. It was also great to have another appearance from the talented James Meehan. We’re very lucky to get such brilliant comedians choose our little Stafford outfit to perform at, and anyone who was at last night’s show got to see some brilliant professional comedians for free on a Monday night. If you’ve never been to this monthly gig of ours before, you should really make the effort on Monday 1st April.

If you missed it, the latest JUICE Comedy Show podcast from Rob & Neil is available here to stream. You can also download it from iTunes and take it with you on a long, strange journey. Rob & Neil discuss the current goings on in the world of comedy, review funny TV programmes you may have seen and also chat about local Stafford news and events!

We’d like to take the time to recommend an upcoming show to you, Dear Reader. On Saturday 16th March a smart, funny comedian called Rosie Wilby is making a performance at The MET Studio. Rosie’s back-story is an interesting one. She was a pop-music columnist during the 90’s, went on to write and release her own album to rave reviews, supported the likes of Bob Geldoff and Jamie Cullum on their national tours, before making the segue into stand-up. Her new show sees her revisit the heady days of Britpop, using her old music columns, personal letters and photos to explore the nature of nostalgia. She show sees Rosie mix stand-up with storytelling and punctuate the journey with a smattering of her self-penned songs.

Rosie is a truly funny comic and this show has received rave reviews. Unfortunately it’s been scheduled at The Gatehouse Theatre on the same night as national TV star Al Murray/Pub Landlord. We at JUICE would hate to see a smart, original comedian like Rosie have her show completely overshadowed by this clash. We have no vested interest in Rosie’s show, we just want Stafford to have a thriving comedy scene, one that isn’t totally dominated by people-off-the-telly. So we urge you to go to the Gatehouse Box Office and buy your tickets for this excellent show! JUICE Comedy will be there in force, and we can’t recommend the gig enough!

To whet your whistle, here’s a clip of Rosie’s stand-up from 2011.

Return Of The J-Blog!

First of all, appologies for the lack of WordPress activity in the last few weeks. Since JUICE Comedy launched our weekly radio show on Stafford FM, we’ve been seriously over-taxed and over-worked.

But the good news is that the brand new radio show has been a huge success! By broadcasting between 10 p.m. and Midnight the show is able to get away with a lot more “near-the-knuckle” jokes and adult subject matters. The response to shift in attitude has been overwhelmingly positive. Stafford FM are reported to be very happy with the pairing of Neil Reading & Rob Halden as the regular presenters of the show. The programme features all the latest news and controversies from the world of comedy, interviews and chats with top stand-up comedians as well as classic and hilarious clips.

One of the great new features added to Late Night JUICE is the studio audience. Once a fortnight, during the live show, we assemble a small group of fans (or the JUICE Cartel as some people insist on calling them) and pack them into the studio to watch proceedings. There’s nothing quite like the excitement of a live broadcast, and the audience add a fantastic atmosphere to the live show, bringing it more in line with a stand-up performance. If you would like to be part of the studio audience, drop us a line!

Friday 14th saw JUICE take over The MET Studio once again, almost a year to the day since we began our working partnership with The Gatehouse Theatre. To celebrate, we booked two of the very first comedians to ever perform for JUICE Comedy, nearly a decade ago. In the last few years both Craig Deeley and Andy Kind have gone from strength-to-strength and enjoyed ongoing success in the comedy world. It was nice that JUICE has also grown a bit in the last decade, and now reached a level where we can bring these old friends to a wider audience and a larger stage.

As each of the acts arrived, the giddy excitement of seeing old friends grew and grew in the backstage area. Comedians who have performed with each other time and again all over the country, trading road stories and tales of bad gigs.

Craig Deeley was our choice to open the show. Craig’s mixture of double entendre, regional accents and family stories, roots him firmly in comedy’s grand history of Music Hall and provides entertainment for literally everyone in the audience.

Jayne Edwards was a huge hit for us at Cocktails & Comedy earlier in the year. Her well-crafted comedic persona is a mix of clueless buffoon and delusional ego-maniac. Jayne’s closing set-piece had audience members in fits and tears.

Billy MacGuire is a veteran of the circuit who, in our minds, has never been given the opportunities he deserves. Billy’s gaelic lilt casts a spell over audience members, and they hang on his every word. When interviewing audience members after the show, almost everyone said that Billy was their favourite act of the night.

Andy Kind delivered the kind of assured and confident comedic routine that JUICE has come to expect from him. Over the years we’ve been privileged to see Andy mature as a performer, and if he is not now at his absolute peak then he’s not far off it. He mixed up his prepared set with some brilliant audience interactions, entertaining the audience for over 40 minutes (yet it felt like he could have continued all night long).

MC & Compere Paul Savage once again proved why he’s our resident host for The MET Studio gigs. Paul immediately put the audience at ease, settling everybody in by joking around with them rather than firing jokes at them. The Ushers working at the theatre effused praise on Paul during the intermission, telling us what an excellent host he is. And they were right.

We’re hoping to get back to our full internet schedule of providing silly distractions for you guys, all week long. Wednesday will see the return of JUICE Chat as we sit down with the hardest working comic in Britain today, Chris Norton Walker. There’ll also be a brand new video for JUICE Tube! So make sure you keep coming back for more JUICE!