JUICE Comedy
Stafford's premier comedy club
Tag Archives: Paul Savage
Coming Home
Last night was a HUGE night for JUICE Comedy, as we returned to the Gatehouse Theatre for the first time in over a year. These big, professional shows are so much fun for us. We get to play with a budget, hand-pick our favourite comics from the circuit, bring them to the heart of Stafford and showcase them in what is just a beautiful room for stand-up, The MET Studio.
Every comedian that we book tells us how much they love playing The MET Studio. It’s intimate but not small, with nice, low ceilings for the acoustics and round cabaret tables for the front row. It’s also fantastic to have professional sound & lighting to highlight our comedians and make them the best they can be.
For this show we’d put together one of the strongest line-up of comedians we’ve ever had. Strangely for us, only a handful of tickets were sold in advance for the show. Even 5 days before the event, we’d only sold 40-odd tickets. This caused us a lot of concern, as all our previous shows were three-quarters full weeks in advance and sold-out before the night. As it turned out, three days before the show tickets started flying out the door and we ended up having the BIGGEST ATTENDANCE EVER for a JUICE show!
But it was a stressful month for us when it looked like tickets weren’t selling. Our friends & colleague in the theatre industry tell us that, across the country, people just aren’t buying their tickets in advance and every show comes down to the last 5 days.
Paul Savage returned as our Resident MC, holding the show together & warming the audience up. Paul has a natural ability to engage people and draw them into the event. His audience interaction is brilliant and sets the perfect tone for the rest of the night.
First on the bill was Freddy Quinne, a comedian who has earned a reputation for being one of the most entertaining and exciting MC’s on the circuit and is gaining lots of attention on the circuit. Freddy actually had his first ever gig as a comedian for JUICE Comedy five years ago, so was it great to welcome him back now as a true professional.
In the middle of the show we had Kate McCabe, a stand-up who began her comedy career in America and who now has a great reputation on the English comedy circuit. Kate brought her background in Improv and physical comedy with her, performing some very memorable physical routines.
Also in the middle section was Hannah Silvester. Hannah has performed for JUICE at our grass-roots comedy club, and we’ve seen her numerous times at new material night, but it was great to showcase her on a professional stage. Hannah possesses a unique voice in the comedy world, delivering brilliant routines on middle-class domesticity and some excellent musical comedy.
Headlining the show for us was the wonderful Danny Buckler. Danny is a comedian with such a high-level of talent that we’re constantly amazed he isn’t on the telly every week. The show so far had been good, but Danny took it to another level and made the show great. The audience was laughing so much and so hard that twice when Danny tried to wrap things up, the audience wouldn’t let him and begged for more (which Danny was happy to give).
In the middle of all this came a special announcement from JUICE Founder Rob Halden. As you wil know, Dear Reader, out monthly comedy club became homeless two months ago when cafe/bistro Number 15 was suddenly & unexpectedly closed down. For the first time in 10 years JUICE was homeless, with no venue for our monthly grass roots comedy club. But last night Rob Halden announced that JUICE had found a new home. Or, more accurately, an old home.
On Monday 6th July JUICE Comedy will return to the venue where it all began, the pub formerly known as Joxer Brady’s, but now currently the successful and popular bar The Market Vaults!
We’ve incredibly excited to return to our spiritual home, which has improved drastically since the last time we were there! The pub has a completely new lease on live with a refurbishment, wider selection of beers, some of the best food in town and a commitment to live music.
We think The Market Vaults is going to bring us a brand new audience and this chapter in JUICE is going to be the best one yet!
Wednesday 25th September 2013
Welcome, dear reader, to the first J-blog in quite a while. But we haven’t been resting on our laurels all this time, we’ve been hard at work putting together some really exciting shows for Stafford!
JUICE has recently taken over the comedy nights at Staffordshire University, and Monday night saw our debut show at the Legends venue for Fresher’s Week. To kick things off we’d put together a stellar line-up of comedians, a really first-rate bill. Headlining this show we had star of Mock The Week and Dave’s One Night Stand, Mr.Gary Delaney!
Gary gave Stafford a very special 45 minute set which included a Sneak Preview of the brand new material he was due to record on Tuesday for Mock The Week! This was a rare treat for any audience, and we were really excited that Gary wanted to work with us and Stafford Student Union.
We didn’t have just ONE TV star on the bill, we also had the talented Fern Brady as well! Fern is a fast-rising star in the comedy world, and will be appearing on Comedy Central’s Alternative Comedy Experience later in the year.
Paul Savage returned as our resident MC and Compere, continuing the relationship he’s built up with the student audience over the last few years. Also on the bill was the energetic self-help enthusiast Robin Parmiter. Robin previously impressed JUICE at our New Act / New Material Show, and it was great seeing him in front of a large audience.
Although this show was open to the public and promoted to non-students, it’s notoriously hard to get the people of Stafford to come up to the campus. The show was a real bargain, just £5 to see a TV-level Headliner. But alas, the people of Stafford did not make the journey. But not to worry, dear reader, 140 students packed-out the Legends venue until it was standing-room only!
We’ve also been putting together our next show at the newly refurbished MET Studio! On November 1st JUICE returns to The Gatehouse Theatre with a line-up of brilliant comedians. Not only will we have the simply marvelous sketch-troupe Gein’s Family Giftshop, but we’re also having the brilliantly misanthropic Michael J Dolan! Both these acts have just finished up exciting runs at the Edinburgh Festival. Tickets are already available from The Box Office.
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!
Thursday 6th June 2013
Well, Dear Reader, we’ve been extremely busy these last few weeks, with a big show at the Gatehouse Theatre, our penultimate grassroots comedy night at Joxer Brady’s and preparation for next Tuesday’s Edinburgh Previews! This edition of the J-blog will take you behind-the-curtain!
Last Friday night we returned to The MET Studio with a really brilliant line-up of comedians. We love these shows, we get to gather our favourite comedians together and share them with the rest of Stafford. It’s a genuine joy to put these excellent comedians on in a brilliant room like The MET, in front of a lovely audience who are enthusiastic about stand-up comedy.
Opening the show was Katie Mulgrew, a talented and engaging storyteller who we’ve been trying to book for years! Katie performed a number of times at our New Act / New Material Night in Joxer Brady’s, and even took part in our ill-fated, grimey gigs at The Bird In Hand. Since then we’ve had Katie on the books to perform at a number of gigs, but fate and ill-health over the years conspired against us, and it never came to be. So this time, when Katie came down with the flu mid-week we were convinced it was the universe conspiring against us! But Katie fought on like a trooper and performed for us, snot-and-all. She was the perfect act to bring the audience together, warm them all up and kick the show off with aplomb.
Also on the bill was new comic by the name of Graham Milton. Graham is just getting his start in stand-up, but we’ve been really impressed by his smart and funny material. When he arrived at the theatre, Graham confessed that he’d died at a pub-gig the previous night and was very nervous. We reassured him that The MET would be very different from a belligerent pub audience. It was rewarding to give Graham the chance to have a really good gig just 24 hours after having a really crappy gig. Graham took to the stage and was really on-form, winning the audience and earning big laughs.
Our Headline Act for the night was the very talented Danny Deegan. JUICE first saw Danny on a bill in Saltaire, then again at The Comedy Store in Manchester, and we’ve wanted to book him ever since. A swaggering, entertaining performer, Danny is a comedian at the top of his game and really delivered for us.
But perhaps the star turn of the night came from Fern Brady. Fern is an act who came highly recommended to JUICE by Kiri Pritchard-McLean, a comedian and producer who really knows her shit when it comes to stand-up. Fern performed for us last year at Cocktails & Comedy, but since then she has really evolved and improved as a comic. Whilst her caustic wit is as sharp ever, her delivery has become deft. Fern has also devoleped the ability to bring the audience alongside as she cuts various figures and institutions down to size. Rather than feeling like a comedian ranting at the listener, Fern puts her arm around the audience’s shoulders and takes them with her through her performance.
As ever, Paul Savage returned as our Host & Compere. Paul is able to forge a bond with virtually any audience over the course of a comedy show, and this has only been heightened by making him the Resident MC for all our shows at The MET. Paul’s natural warmth is a huge asset to any comedy night. He wants the audience to have a good time and manages to perfectly convey that onstage.
Click here for an alternative review of the evening by the Staffordshire Newsletter.
Monday night was our penultimate New Act / New Material Night at Joxer Brady’s, and it was chock-full of talent. The talented Aaron Twitchen delivered a new routine in preparation of his Edinburgh Show in a month’s time. Rob Kemp returned to deliver another deconstruction of stand-up. Kemp is a young, unpolished comic who is developing a very interesting voice in the world of comedy, certainly one JUICE is keeping a close eye on.
Being our second-to-last show at our homeground, we put the feelers out to any old friends who have gone on to great success who might want to return. Matt Tiller did a number of performances for JUICE in our early days, and even took part in one of our shows at the down-and-dirty Bird In Hand. Since then Matt has gone on to have great success, taking two acclaimed shows to the Edinburgh Festival before segueing into an even bigger career. Matt has become a TV producer and director, developing a number of shows for television and working as the Executive Producer on BBC 2’s Hebburn. We were thrilled when Matt agreed to return to his roots and give us a special performance of his old set.
Sadly this entire first section of three comedians was mirred by a group of noisy customers on the other side of pub, who merriment was drowning out the comedy for a number of the audience. There was nothing malicious about the group in question, they weren’t trying to derail the show, it was just an unfortunate consequence of running a comedy night in the back of pub.
After a short break the noisy group left and the show ran much more smoothly. Dave Pitt and Jack Kirwan had nice turns (both are developing their styles), Rob Thomas had to put down a couple of loud chatters at the bar but did so with aplomb. Chris McIlroy came across with great stage presence and seems to have put a lot of work into his persona.
James Hately finished the show off with a wonderful piece of surreal comedy, throwing dozens of unique and interesting ideas at the audience in a small space of time. James is always a beautiful counter-point to a succession of traditional stand-ups, and a nice way to end the evening.
It’s certainly going to be sad when we have our final ever comedy night at Joxer Brady’s on 1st July, and it’s certainly going to be strange when we start running the monthly show over at Number 15. However, the change of venue will allow us to improve the show and correct some of the issues that have cropped up over the years. For example, at Number 15 the only people in the venue will be the audience that we bring to it. So never again will we have a noisy group of other customers spoiling the show for the audience.
Speaking of Number 15, we’re back there on Tuesday night with the second of our exciting Edinburgh Preview Shows. Talented professional comedians Phil Ellis and Katie Mulgrew will both be bringing their solo shows to Stafford on the way up to the world’s biggest arts festival in Edinburgh. Click here to find out more!
Wednesday 19th December 2012
JUICE suffered some technical difficulties this week when we were left without internet connection for days, which meant that Episode Two of JUICE News didn’t get posted. Since it’s a topical web-show, we won’t be posting it a week late. There’s nothing worse than comedians telling old jokes that nobody cares about anymore. But we’ll be shooting a new episode this week so look out for that later in the week!
Last week we finished off our comedy year by hosting a special show for Paul Savage. Regular readers will know that Paul Savage has been working with JUICE Comedy for quite a few years now, and he’s the Resident Compere for our shows at The Gatehouse Theatre. Paul has been a stand-up comic for over five years now, and has crafted his very first full-length comedy show called ‘A Cheerful Shambles’. JUICE was in audience when this show debuted at the Birmingham Comedy Festival earlier this year and snapped up the chance to put the show on in Stafford for our comedy fans here.
This is the first full-length comedy show that JUICE has had the opportunity to put on, so we decided to keep the guest list exclusive rather than leave it open to the public. We advertised the show just to our loyal JUICE Followers and got a great response the real fans of comedy that live in Stafford. There was a great atmosphere in Number 15 on Thursday night as the audience was made up of people who have supported JUICE Comedy all year round.
The show itself was brilliant. Paul Savage really matured and evolved as a performer during the hour-long set. Paul’s rambling journey through a series of embarrassing life events really took root with the audience. Crucially, Paul was able to do what all great headlining comics should be able to do. Namely, create spontaneous moments of comedy gold with the audience, moments that exist separately from the planned material but don’t detract from it. These are one-off moments that the audience can see and feel are happening spontaneously and just for them. Not only are these moments fun, but they elevate the rest of the planned material in the show by adding a real truth to the routines and jokes. Paul connected with the audience by showing the truth of his character . . . that of a very silly, neurotic and borderline autistic man with a small mouth.
It was fantastic to see Paul, who does the majority of his work for JUICE as a compere and MC, hold an audience for a full-hour and get belly laughs and applause-breaks from them throughout. After the show, Rob Halden brought Paul back onto the stage to do a Q&A session with the audience, which allowed Paul to go through another ten minutes of routines he’d left out of the main show.
We received a plethora of great feedback from audience members, and it was a lovely way for JUICE to close the calender year. But even as 2012 draws to a close, we’re busy making BIG plans for 2013! We’re looking for more ways we can make you laugh next year with some brand new projects. Earlier in the year the J-blog announced that our very own comic-strip will be starting in 2013. Check out a sneak peak of JUICE Comix!
This week JUICE commenced plans to bring a host of original articles and blogs from some of your favourite JUICE comedians right here to this very WordPress site! We’re giving an open-platform to these very talented comedians to create funny and original content exclusively for YOU, our beloved JUICE Followers! Two names attached to the project so far include the hilarious Jayne Edwards and the hysterical Kiri Pritchard-McLean!
So whilst we’re winding down for 2012 don’t think there’ll be a lack of updates here, or at juicecomedy.co.uk We’ll still have the weekly Podcast show with Rob & Neil and (technology allowing) a new episode of JUICE News for you to digest before the New Year.
To all of you out there who have come along and enjoyed one of our comedy shows in 2012 we want to say thank you for supporting grass-roots comedy and local entertainment in Stafford. Onward & upward for 2013!
Monday 10th December 2012
Well, dear reader, we’re fast approaching the last JUICE event of the year. On Thursday night we’re having a special showing of Paul Savage’s first-ever one man show called ‘A Cheerful Shambles’. This is going to be a private little show for an exclusive number of JUICE fans. Shows like this are very different to the more regular Friday-Night-Out comedy experience, and we want to create a great atmosphere for Paul’s first full-length show.
Paul Savage began gigging regularly for JUICE a number of years ago. We ran a very ill-advised gig at a pretty dreadful pub in Stafford called The Bird In Hand. Attendance was always low, we got virtually no support from the management and it could generally be a real pain of a gig. We hired Paul to come in and MC the show, and somehow he managed to make the gig fun. Over the years we’ve seen Paul grow and improve as a comedian, and we’ve been witness to the numerous moments of spontaneous comedy gold that he’s been able to create, off-the-cuff, as a performer.
JUICE is really excited to be closing the year off with what is sure to be a lovely little gig with one of our favourite comedians and an audience of friends who have been supporting us for years.
Speaking of Festival Shows, JUICE is in talks with a good friend from Up North to bring some top-quality shows from some top-quality comics (including an old JUICE favourite from our earlier years), right to the heart of Stafford in 2013! The J-blog will have more details for you as they get confirmed.
As seems like our relationship with Stafford FM has come to an end (although we’re still in the dark as to what’s really been going on over there). JUICE always assumed that our partnership with Stafford FM would come to a crashing end when Rob Halden said something terrible enough to get himself kicked off the air. We imagined fines and lawsuits and villagers with pitchforks. Instead it’s been an anti-climatic whimper. But fret not, dear reader! For the JUICE Comedy Show lives on in the glorious form of a Podcast!
Rob & Neil will be teaming up once a week, just like normal, with some of the more popular features like The Gig Guide and the TV Round-Up carrying on! We’ll also be able to use the swear words like “fuck” and the definitely-not-swear-words-which-Stafford-FM-mysteriously-banned like “vagina” (seriously…we weren’t allowed to say vagina on the air. The correct, proper, medical word for female genitalia, the word we teach kids in school, was deemed too “offensive” for an audience listening between 10pm and Midnight).
The Podcast format means we can get away with speaking our minds on anything, censorship free. We’re also advert free as well. We’ve got some nice plans for future Podcast episode, including musical guests on the shows! You can Listen To The First Episode Here or you can Download It From iTunes and stick it in your ear-holes later!
This week also saw the launch of our brand new video feature JUICE News! We wanted to create some original and silly that would entertain you guys for a few minutes on your lunch break, and something that wasn’t trying to flog you tickets to a gig or a show. And so we created the formula of Making-Fun-Of-Celebrities! Check out the first edition of JUICE News below!
Get in touch and let us know what you think!
Thursday 6th December 2012
Monday night was the blockbuster JUICE-A-Nanny show in which we celebrated eight years of being in the comedy world, and the J-blog has got a full gig-report for you!
JUICE-A-Nanny Year 8
Venue: Joxer Brady’s, Stafford
Line-up: Harriet Dyer, Michael J. Dolan, Billy McGuire, Paul Savage, Dr. Joseph Ettrick-Hogg, Lou Chawner, Phil Pagett, Dave Dinsdale, Tom Allsopp, The Man Called WudWud
For the first time ever the show was hosted by both Neil Reading & Rob Halden doing dual MC’ing. This meant the hosting of the show had a lot in common with their weekly radio show on Stafford FM. It was so much fun we can’t think why they haven’t done it before. Rob and Neil will be the first to admit that they’re not the best Comperes in the world, and whilst they did stumble down a couple of blind alleys and let the energy in the room drop from time to time, there was some great natural banter between them and a lot of laughs were had with the two of them on stage together (which is more than can be said for when they Compere on their own…just saying, guys!).
With the new start time of 8 pm, not all comedians could arrive in time for the start of the show. This meant that the running order of comics could not be fully fleshed out beforehand. We had to arrange the first section of the show based around whoever was in the building, and then leave the rest of the planning for when the other acts had arrived. Usually when booking the New Act/New Material Show we have to pay special attention to which acts are a bit wet behind the ears and make sure they are complimented on the bill by the more seasoned performers, making sure that a section opens with confidence (to set up the section for all the other acts) and then ends with a bang (to make sure the punters come back after the break). But with this line-up of really great comedians it was difficult to place them in a running order, because they were all so good!
Paul Savage took the bullet and went on first. He carried a lot of nice energy with him on the stage and immediately carried out some good audience interraction with a blue-haired girl in the front row called Siobhan (more on her later). When Paul allows himself to slip into his “angry rant at the world” mode, he is truly brilliant and funny and it makes you wish he did it more. Paul’s new material really found some gold with his bit on Post Apocalypse Observational Comedy. Yes, it’s as crazy as it sounds but it’s beautiful, funny stuff that the audience loved! Paul was worried that this material would only appeal to comedians, but a number of audience members said it was their favourite part of the night.
Harriet Dyer’s new material was more embarrassing-yet-true stories from her life, which included being egged by a stag party on the streets of Manchester. Whilst Harriet herself is a zany and anarchic performer, she manages to convey the truth in her stories that connect with the audience and make the stories funny. Harriet made numerous spontaneous tangents from her set to interact with the audience, which did, unfortuneately distract from the flow and the narrative.
Next up was Dr. Josephine…we mean Joseph Ettrick-Hogg, who is definitely a man. Jo’s got a really entertaining character which allows her to be both filthy and sexist whilst subverting the concepts and mindsets of those who’d both tell and enjoy such jokes. Wonderfully, there were several occasions where you could see Jo breaking character and laughing at some of the spontaneous moments with the audience, which was really nice.
The first section was closed by the eccentric Billy McGuire who’s been a stalwart of the JUICE-A-Nanny shows for a number of years now. Billy gruff exterior quickly melts away with the pleasant lilt of his voice and the whimsy of his delivery and set. He brought out all the old Billy Favourites and took us into the break very nicely.
During the break we had a surge of comedians arriving, allowing us to wipe our collective brows. There was plenty of cake to be passed around, including some delicious homemade treats from Billy’s excellent wife Yolanda.
Dave Dinsdale has recently made a return to comedy after a brief, and successful, sojourn into the world of theatre. The JUICE-A-Nanny marked Dave’s return to JUICE, so it was great to have him open the second part of the show. Dave seems to have gained a renewed enthusiasm for stand-up, and he threw himself into this performance with aplomb. He also had some very nice new jokes in with all the classics.
Phill Pagett took the audience on a ride through his wonderful one-liners and threw out some new material in the mix as well. Phil’s got confidence and excellent delivery, but also possesses great gags. In short, he’s got everything a comedian needs. Pagett did come up against one of Stafford’s idiosyncrasies, as this appeared to be an audience not overly fond of dark material. Sometimes this is because there’s a higher percentage of women in the audience (which there was at the show) but not always. Some of Phil’s gags that would absolutely kill in most areas of the country, were met with some cautious “ooh”s and embarrassed laughter. Yet this didn’t knock Phil’s pace and he delivered a very funny routine.
When introducing Lou Chawner, Rob Halden decided to have a little fun (mainly because he’d been on the booze) and said to the audience “if you weren’t fond of some of Phil Pagett’s dark jokes…you’re fucked now! Here’s Lou Chawner!” and this was probably not the best way to introduce an act. Lou was trying out some new material, and a lot of the jokes were quite dark, but the audience had already been put in a particular mind-set by Rob’s introduction. The gag about “spastics” probably didn’t help either. Lou got laughs and entertained everyone, but the material would no doubt have received better from a different audience. After the gig, Lou was eager to point out that his set was not actually that dark and when he performs a full routine there are just as many light moments of levity as there are juicy dark gags. He’s right, but that didn’t stop us from chanting “spastic” at him.
The final section of the show saw Michael J. Dolan make his first appearance for JUICE. It’s unusual for us to book a new act on the end-of-year show, as we generally reserve it for our favourite acts. But the wonderful Kiri Pritchard-McLean had asked a favour of us in booking Michael before the end of the year. And we love Kiri so we got him on the show and ended up being very glad that we did. Michael’s performance is full of hate, but is not an angry or shouty act. Michael’s hate is targeted largely at himself, with also some healthy shots taken at the general public. There’s a lot of entertaining, rambling introspection in this set. There were quite a few stops & starts to the routine, but this was down to the set being quite new. But Michael impressed us all and JUICE looks forward to having him back in 2013.
Next up was Wudwud, whose routine involves deliberately contrived puns being drawn out over time to squeeze laughs out of the crowd. Once the audience gets into the act, there are some very nice laughs to be had as Wudwud takes you all-round-the-houses to get to a very simple bit of word-play.
The show ended with the frustratingly versatile Tom Allsopp. Tom performs each and every month at our New Material Show, and not only is every performance brand new material, but it virtually never fails to be hilarious. All the other comedians hate him. This show was no different, as Tom delivered a great monologue/story about swimming as a child. A great way to close the show and, indeed, to end the year.
During the night we also held the annual JUICE Comedy Awards. This year we awarded Performer Of The Year to . . .
Harriet Dyer! Harriet has had a brilliant year and really improved and honed her abilities on the circuit, as well as doing some excellent work for JUICE. We’re very proud to name her the JUICE Comedy Performer Of The Year 2012
Much like last year, we decided to create a second award for one of our regular performers. We called this award the Comedian’s Comedian Award as we were giving it to a grizzled veteran of the stand-up circuit . . .
Billy McGuire! Billy is a comedian who has been with JUICE since nearly the very beginning, playing some of our best, and worst, venues. Earlier this year he had a triumph of a performance at our show in The Gatehouse Theatre. Virtually every audience member who spoke to us after the gig said that Billy was their favourite act, and that was no mean feat on a bill with some top pro-comics.
Oh, and Rob Halden also decided to name Siobhan With The Blue Hair as the best audience member of the night. Rob’s reasons for this included Siobhan having good audience interaction with most of the comics on the show, having blue hair, and finally “being dead fit”. We here at JUICE Comedy would like to point out that this was in no way an official award, and Rob’s opinions do no necessarily reflect the opinions of JUICE or our parent company (Reading/Halden Industries) . . . however, in this instance, Siobhan was dead fit.
It was a great, fun show all-round and we hope you can join us next year as we celebrate a frankly-baffling 9 years of JUICE!
Gigs & Stats
Recent activity with JUICE saw us run our first “private” function for a social club (that sounds seedy, it wasn’t, we were all fully clothed). We put together a dynamite bill of comedians including the larger-than-life Chris Norton Walker, the dryly sublime Phil Pagett, the energetically entertaining Chris Brooker and the marvelous Tony Jameson as the MC & Compere. Aside from a small technical issue with the microphone at the very end of the evening, this show went really well and the club members enjoyed themselves. If you’d like to arrange a comedy show for a private function, drop us a line.
The new working relationship with Speakeasy Comedy has seen JUICE get involved in a lot of their West Midlands shows this past week. Wolverhampton University had the completely awesome line-up of Andy White, Danny Sutcliffe, Kevin Shevlin and JUICE Favourite Katie Mulgrew on Thursday evening. Whilst three of the above acts were traveling back in a car together, one of them asked for the car to pull over as they felt sick, and then proceeded to run away from the car and the other comedians and leg it all the way back to Wolverhampton to go on a massive drinking binge. Nobody knows why, but thankfully everyone is okay.
Sunday night saw the debut of Paul Savage’s full-length show ‘A Cheerful Shambles’ and the brilliant venue of The Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath, Birmingham. The audience was sparse but it was a treat to see the beginnings of Paul putting together an hour-long show. JUICE hopes we can host an performance of Cheerful Shambles in Stafford sometime soon, as Mr. Savage is very popular in the area.
And tomorrow night Speakeasy Comedy brings another excellent line-up of comics to another Student’s Union, this time in Walsall. As well as Rob Thomas, the marvelous sketch troupe Jollyboat will be on the bill along with JUICE Founder Rob Halden. Headlining the show will be Gary Delaney, a comedian audiences will know from his appearances on ‘Mock The Week’ and ‘Dave’s One Night Stand’. Gary is a phenomenal comedian who is really hitting the big time now. This bafflingly brilliant line-up is available for a measly £3 entry fee! Yes, it’s a school night, but it’s still worth the short trip to Walsall to experience this show. If you don’t, then the next time you see Gary Delaney on TV you’ll kick yourself for not making the effort.
We’ll wrap up this short update. We’ll be back on Wednesday with the JUICE Chat interview, and we’ll have our regular J-Blog at the end of the week.
Savage Facts
To celebrate the debut of Paul Savage’s first ever full-length show this Sunday night in Birmingham, the J-Blog has compiled the following Savage Facts!
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When at a gig, Paul always has a second “performance t-shirt” to change into. If the gig goes well then he will frame the t-shirt, but if the show goes badly then he will burn it by moonlight.
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Paul once referred to women as “things you have sex with”.
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Paul has gigged in Britain’s oldest pub and also at Europe’s largest Paintball game.
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For his tea Paul once had 25 Pigs-In-Blankets and nothing else.
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A female audience member was so impressed with Paul that she called off her engagement and proceeded to ‘stalk’ him a little bit. She sent him a series of naughty photos and then emigrated to Poland.
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A Movember accident several years ago has left Paul permanently scarred with a Spiv Mustache that he cannot get rid of.
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His previous car was called The Slim Charles Appreciation Society and it is greatly missed.
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Paul Savage is afraid of bees.
‘A Cheerful Shambles’ will debut at The Hare & Hound in Kings Heath, Sunday evening at 7:30 – Click Here to book your tickets!
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