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!
A short video of Michael J Dolan performing for the BBC! You can see him live in Stafford on Tuesday night, performing a Preview of his brand new Edinburgh show at Number 15!
“There’s no point being right all the time if no cunt’s listening.”
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!
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;
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!
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.