After a successful run last year with a show that saw him listed as one of the best-reviewed in 2018, Joe is back at the with a third solo show, so I wanted to find out a bit more about him.
Doing a show every day means you can work on it a little bit every time
Tell me about your 2019 Fringe show?
It's an hour of funny talking about nostalgia and the panic we're all feeling and how a certain 90s pop group reformed and what that means to the world.
Your fringe show is called Sour, if you had to choose, sour or bitter? Really reaaaaallly sour. In the USA you can get inhumanly sour sweets called Warheads. They turn your face inside out and they're amazing. Why would anyone consciously choose anything bitter? What even is bitter? Potato?
Do you remember your first standup Gig? How did it go? It was a miserable open mic in a pub in North London. There were about 294 acts on the bill and I was second to last. I sat for 4 hours watching so many people die on their arse. I got up and rattled through some half-baked jokes that got approximately 3 laughs in 5 minutes, which is not enough laughs to be considered a good comedian, but was enough to get me fully addicted.
What do you love most about performing at the Fringe? Doing a show every day means you can work on it a little bit every time and by the end it's aerodynamic and 30% funnier than it was at the beginning. Reviewers should be banned from the festival until the last Thursday.
What do you hate most about performing at the Fringe?
Reviewers who come on the first Thursday.
Why did you decide to perform as part of Free Fringe? To open up my shows to more people. Charging £10-15 on the paid fringe when you're not a newcomer or a household TV name felt quite cheeky and I used to feel guilty that some people were priced out of coming. So really I did it to make myself feel better. The same reason I do anything.
If you had to choose the lineup for a comedy night, who would you put on the bill? I should say all my heroes and icons but then I'd just be shy and embarrass myself. So actually I'd fill it with mates that I don't see enough and then we could just have a lovely time: Catherine Bohart, Sarah Keyworth, Sophie Duker, Ed Night, Helen Bauer, Sean McLoughlin, Evelyn Mok, Sunil Patel, Mickey Overman to name a few. London Hughes would headline and I'd MC and we wouldn't even need an audience. Bliss.
