JUICE Comedy
Stafford's premier comedy club
Tag Archives: Edinburgh Fringe
Wednesday 17th July 2013
Last night our Season of Edinburgh Previews concluded with two more excellent full-length comedy shows. The quality of these comedy shows has been very high, comedy fans and casual punters alike have been full of praise for all the performers and their shows in the build-up to Edinburgh. Last night was no different.
One big road block occurred a fortnight before the event, when scheduled performer Dan Nightingale had to drop out. Dan is a comedian in such high demand that he was suddenly offered some very high-profile work for Channel 4. This was obviously an opportunity that Dan could not pass up, and we really hope we’ll be able to showcase him in Stafford in the near future because he’s an excellent comic.
One show down left us in a tricky spot, but luckily we were able to book in the sketch troupe Gein’s Family Giftshop. Comprised of talented performers James Meehan, Kath Hughes and Ed Easton, this trio have been causing a real stir on the Northern comedy circuit and JUICE has been eager to see their act for months.
Audience numbers weren’t quite what we’d hoped for, but the punters we did have in were a lovely, eager lot of laughers. The comedians were all delayed by traffic, which meant that MC Rob Halden had to fill quite a bit of time. He did this by pulling a reluctant volunteer out of the audience and creating a shambolic bit of improv sketch comedy that was cheerfully bad but got everyone involved and laughing.
The first part of the Previews came courtesy of JUICE Award-Winner Kiri Pritchard-McLean. Kiri’s is a show of bitter-sweet anecdotes about childhood and relationships, relayed with a dry wit that’s just this side of sardonic. It’s a show peppered with some well-crafted dark punchlines that are nicely set amongst some more life affirming stories. Kiri also has a natural talent for performing, and these small physical touches add greatly to the material.
Gein’s Family Giftshop were the final act in our Edinburgh Season, the first sketch group JUICE has hosted, and they were absolutely fantastic. Short, sharp sketches that delivered more jokes-per-minute than most stand-up on today’s circuit. The sketches are inventive and enthralling, with some very clever deconstruction at work that, crucially, didn’t go over anybody’s head. Press releases have labelled the act as being “dark” but there’s far too many laughs and giggles for this to be taken to heart. There are big punchlines, hilarious little lines and some excellent performances.
All three members of Gein’s display sublime comedy timing, fully-committed acting that snares the audience and really gets them believing in the characters and scenarios before it’s all undercut by the big jokes and funny endings.
The audience absolutely loved this show and were raving about it at the bar afterwards and later that night on Facebook & Twitter. JUICE are already eagerly awaiting the next time we can bring this excellent sketch troupe back to Stafford. In the meanwhile, we highly recommend seeing them at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Sunday Share
This week’s Sunday Share features the marvelous Phil Ellis! You can see Phil LIVE in Stafford on Tuesday night, when he brings a Preview of his Edinburgh Show to Number 15! Contact us for tickets!
Thursday 16th May 2013
Some big events and changes are brewing for JUICE Comedy, dear reader, so sit back as we give you the inside scoop.
First and perhaps foremost, after nearly nine years it looks like our time is up at the pub Joxer Brady’s. Joxers is where it all began for JUICE, many moons ago, and even though we’ve expanded to other venues over the years, the little Irish pub has always remained our spiritual home. It’s also continually played host to our monthly New Act / New Material night. Sadly, the pub is shortly due for a complete change in management, which will bring to a close an important chapter in Stafford’s comedy scene. It’s only through the support of previous managers James Woodhams and Eve Colclough that we got our humble start in the comedy world, and it’s only thanks to outgoing Landlords Sam Swift & Chyrell Standish that the New Act / New Material shows flourished.
It won’t be the end of our monthly grass-roots comedy show, we’ll relocate elsewhere within the town centre and carry on. Meanwhile, June 3rd & July 1st will be our very last shows at Joxer Brady’s (and between you, us and the lamppost, we’ve got at least one very special guest lined up!) so it’d be lovely to see as many of your faces at those shows as possible.
Tuesday night saw the first JUICE Comedy showcase of Edinburgh Preview Shows, which took place at Number 15. We’ve planned a season of 6 Edinburgh Previews across three months, as the whole country gears up for the biggest arts festival in the world! Stafford hasn’t had Edinburgh Previews is nigh-on ten years, so these events were always going to be a little bit tricky as JUICE tries to educate our audience a little bit. These showcases are very different from a regular comedy night. Instead of having a different comedian every ten/fifteen minutes, with plenty of intervals breaking up the show, these nights consist of two comics delivering roughly one-hour shows back-to-back. That can be a big change for an audience to get used to, but a rewarding and enjoyable experience once done.
We also want to profusely thank all our wonderful Twitter Followers who have this event so much love and support, Retweeting and Favouriting posts about it, spreading the word whether they could make it to the show or not. Considering how much (deserved) apathy there is on Facebook when people are invited to yet-another event, it was heart-warming to see so much involvement and action on Twitter!
Our first showcase featured top talent Tony Jameson who was prepping his show ‘Football Manager Ruined My Life’. Tony’s tale features his obsession with the sporting video game and how blinkered and involved he became in it. There was a good mix of football / video game fans in the audience, along with those of us who had limited experience of both. Yet Tony’s jokes and stories managed to not fly over people’s heads. JUICE received some lovely feedback from punters who enjoyed seeing a comedian visibly working on his show before their very eyes, letting the audience behind the curtain as he talked about re-ordering the jokes, and confessing when certain things didn’t work.
The other performer on the bill was Michael J Dolan, a comedian who won plaudits and critical acclaim at last year’s Edinburgh Festival with his previous show. This year’s outing for Dolan is titled ‘Nothing Will Ever Be Alright Again’, which certainly sets the mood for his misanthropic rage and self-hate. Dolan’s persona and delivery are marvelous, and it was joyous to see such bleak subject matter generating deep belly laughs and uncontrollable giggles in the audience.
As ever, we had a beautiful Stafford audience who came out on a rainy Tuesday night to get themselves a bit of arts & culture, and have themselves a big laugh as well. We hope the success of this first showcase will lead to bigger, brighter things on Tuesday June 11th when we’ve got previews from Phil Ellis and Katie Mulgrew (tickets available now)!
Speaking of “tickets available now” don’t forget to book your seats for Friday 31st May when JUICE returns to The Gatehouse Theatre! These show are always our favourite of the year and so much fun is had both on and off stage. The MET Studio at the Gatehouse is a brilliant space for stand-up comedy and the comedians we’ve had on have done nothing but rave about what a nice gig it is and what a lovely audience we get. This show will feature not just the excellent Danny Deegan and Fern Brady (amongst others), but we’ll also have Mr. Paul Savage back on-board as our Resident MC & Compere!
JUICE Chat with Tony Jameson
Tony Jameson is one of the most sought-after comics & MC’s on the circuit. His engaging style and fabulous hair have made him a mainstay at the major comedy clubs. He looks forlorn & enigmatic in that picture above, but in reality he’s a very silly chap.
JUICE: How did you get your start in comedy?
“I guess I started comedy the same way a lot of people do, by going to an open mic as a punter for 6 weeks in a row and thinking ‘my god, this is terrible, I’m sure I could do better’. I spoke to the organiser, and a few weeks later I was booked in. I wrote my set about 2 hours before the gig, and that was that.”
JUICE: What attracted you to performing stand-up?
“I’ve always wanted to do stand up, even from an early age, but I never knew how to get into it. I also think it was better I started when I did (I was 28) as I probably thought I had some life experience and something to say. I think I’ve disproved that with my show title.”
JUICE: Your Edinburgh show is called ‘Football Manager Ruined My Life’. How bad did it get?
“The show is basically a retrospective look back over the past 20 years as I realised I’d played every version. Essentially I’ve grown up with this video game, so during good times and bad, the one constant in my life has been Football Manager. There have been some stupid moments which get covered in the show.”
JUICE: What can we expect from the show?
“Expect some silly stories, references to players you may / may not remember, and most of all, its also accessible to people who haven’t played the game. I was very conscious when I started writing the show that I didn’t want to alienate people who didn’t know about the game.”
JUICE: Who are you looking forward to seeing at the Festival this year? Who should we be looking out for?
“My comedy wife, Katie Mulgrew is taking her debut show up to The Fringe this year, so I’ll be very keen to see that. Also, Romesh Ranganathan and Sean McLoughlin are doing their first hours, both of whom are fantastic acts.”
JUICE: Stand-Up Comedy – art or science?
“Totally art.”
You can see Tony’s brand new show “How Football Manager Ruined My Life” in Stafford TONIGHT at Number 15! E-mail us for tickets!
JUICE Chat with Michael J Dolan
“There’s no point being right all the time if no cunt’s listening.”
Michael J Dolan is one of the most interesting and cerebral comics in the UK. His fiendishly well-written material seethes with a palpable misanthropy that has won him rave reviews and celebrity fans. We spoke to Dolan ahead of his upcoming Edinburgh Preview in Stafford on May 14th.
JUICE: How did you get your start in comedy?
“There’s a handful of archetypal routes into stand-up, I came via the ‘depressed parent’ trail. As a kid when one of your folks is depressed you don’t have the faculties to see what’s wrong but you can sense something’s up, so you start clowning and get laughs and you feel like you made it ok. If my mum had discovered Prozac a couple of decades earlier I might be a lawyer now.”
JUICE: What attracted you to performing stand-up?
“That last answer stank of some hard therapy, if I’d never seen that bad psychiatrist I’d probably have said something else. Certainly the appeal of forcing large groups to listen to you, and if they interrupt they get kicked the fuck out of the room is a big draw. There’s no point being right all the time if no cunt’s listening.”
JUICE: Your previous Edinburgh Show ‘Dress To Depress’ garnered you glowing reviews and won you a high-profile fan in Sarah Millican. As a self-confessed curmudgeon, has this success improved your outlook on life? Are you now a cheery fellow?
“Let’s be honest there were some shit reviews as well. I’ve had plenty of those. My favourite bad quote is “watching Michael J Dolan die on stage is akin to watching somebody deliberately scrape their fingernails down a blackboard for twenty minutes”. If that sounds like your cup of tea you should come along.”
JUICE: What can we expect from your new solo show ‘Nothing Will Ever Be Alright Again’?
“Death, madness, apocalypse.”
JUICE: Who are you looki”ng forward to seeing at the Festival this year? Who should we be looking out for?
“I don’t know who’s on really. I’ll probably book a ticket for Alexei Sayle, he’s definitely on. Phil Ellis’s show is shaping up to be the funniest thing anybody will see this year, I was at one of the previews and it was dynamite. I’ll try and see Bridget Christie, Nish Kumar is good, Peacock and Gamble, all them. Mostly though I imagine I’ll be sat in the flat playing Lego City.”
JUICE: Stand-Up Comedy – art or science?
“It’s definitely not science.”
You can see a special Preview of Michael’s brand new Edinburgh show (along with Tony Jameson) on Tuesday 14th May at Number 15. E-mail juicecomedy@gmail.com for tickets!
Tuesday 12th March 2013
This week the J-blog gets to break some very exciting news to you, our Dear Reader! We’ve been working with some lovely people to bring a series of Edinburgh Preview Shows to the heart of Stafford! Every year comedians try to craft a full-length, solo show out of their stand-up act, aiming to wow critics at the world’s biggest arts festival. This year JUICE has managed to snare some of the best up-and-coming comics on the circuit, and they’ll be bringing their solos shows to super-cool bistro Number 15 on Greengate Street, in the build-up to the Edinburgh Festival!
Over three months and three dates, JUICE & Number 15 will be bringing you SIX of the best new solo shows on their way to the Festival!
Tuesday 14th May
The first of our Preview Shows will bring Michael J. Dolan’s new show “Nothing Will Ever Be Alright Again” to the stage. Michael’s contemplative, hate-filled comedy has earned him accolades and praise. His 2012 show “Dress To Depress” garnered numerous 4 Star Reviews at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, and was singled-out by Sarah Millican who said “One of my fave shows is Michael J. Dolan. Grumpiness has never been smart and funny.”
Also on the May show with Michael will be Tony Jameson’s “Football Manager Ruined My Life”. Tony is an accomplished and talented comic from Newcastle, who regularly performs for major comedy clubs such as The Frog & Bucket, Comedy Central and The Stand. Tony also did a star-turn for JUICE Comedy last year at The Gatehouse Theatre. Tony’s obsession with computer game Football Manager has led him to ruin, and that ruin is at the heart of his hilarious new show.
Tuesday 11th June
In June we get to welcome back an old JUICE friend in the form of Phil Ellis! Phil performed for JUICE a number of times in his formative days, and has gone on to have great success on the comedy circuit. As well as being a regular performer for major comedy clubs such as Jongleurs and The Glee Club, Phil has also written and appeared in TV projects for both Dave and BBC Three. Phil’s 2013 solo show is an inventive and interactive journey of self-discovery and giggles, fueled by his madcap energy and maverick charm!
Sharing the spotlight in June (disclaimer: there’s no spotlight) will be the marvelous Katie Mulgrew! Over the years Katie’s brand of comedy has earned her a place as Finalist in the prestigious nationwide Funny Women competition, and has made her a fixture in major comedy clubs such as Highlight and The Frog & Bucket!
Tuesday 16th July
In July our Preview Show will feature the highly respected and experienced Dan Nightingale! Dan has been one of the most sought-after warm-up men in the country, working for both the BBC and ITV and acting as the regular warm-up act for The Jonathon Ross Show. Dan has performed for virtually every big comedy club in the country, and last year his show “The 11 And A 1/2 Ill-Conceived Edinburgh Shows Of Dan Nightingale” received wide-spread acclaim and multiple 5 Star Reviews at the Festival. The comedy circuit eagerly awaits his 2013 show!
Sharing the July show with Dan will be JUICE Comedy Award Winner, Kiri Pritchard-McLean! Kiri is one our favourite performers on the circuit, she was on the bill at our first-ever show at The Gatehouse Theatre, took part in Cocktails & Comedy at Number 15 and has made numerous appearances at our New Material Night down at Joxer Brady’s. We can’t wait to see what Kiri’s got in store for us with her solo show!
So that’s our season of Edinburgh Previews in Stafford! Fantastic comedians with exciting solo-shows! They are all on Tuesday nights and the dates to remember are;
14th May
11th June
16th July
Tickets will be priced at just £5 each! That’s £5 for a night consisting of TWO Preview shows! Tickets will be available very soon from Number 15!
JUICE Comedy 