This week saw one of out highest profile preview shows to date. A – with an old friend of mine and superstar Josh Jones tried a new show and a longtime favourite of the club Hannah Platt performed her own preview. We had a room packed with regulars and first timers alike and frankly it was spectacular.
Seeing Hannah work on this show for the best part of 3 years has been a delight. Starting as a solid compilation of her stand-up material exploring mental health and body dysmorphia, being built up and worked on to what is one of the most engaging, personal and relatable (speaking for myself at least, maybe I’m just also mentally ill, but if you’re on our website there’s a strong chance you are too, so I feel I can speak for you) stand-up hours I’ve ever seen.
Hannah doing an hour is a delight. While she retains her more deadpan stage presence and delivery that makes her such a fun club act, her personality is given space to shine more dynamically here. She creates a bond throughout the show that will leave you incredibly emotional invested in her narrative, only for her to blindside you with some outrageously great punchlines that will leave you howling.
I’ve said several times that Hannah is a great example of a comedian going to dark places in a way that is entirely in keeping with our ethos and is my go-to comedy homework for new open mic-ers who have potential but are leaning slightly too hard on edgy/shock value over humour. All of Hannah’s jokes feel very personal and real. Even when they go dark, they’re never really punching down at anyone.
She balances self-deprecation with an earnestness that, without stereotyping, makes her an incredibly introspective and reflective voice for our regular audiences, all throughout showcasing tightly curated jokes and stories reminiscent of the quality of the best shows I’ve ever seen at any fringe.
If you haven’t seen her show yet, definitely catch her either at the fringe or at a preview, or just wherever she is gigging near you. She’s always worth dropping all of your plans to go and watch, a true creative titan of the scene.
Then we had the comedy legend that is Josh Jones. What is there to say about Josh? He’s simply brilliant.
Josh is an act that seems so effortlessly funny, until you actually analyse his material and realise just how tightly crafted it is. Josh is such an intricate and talented joke writer, and yet manages to deliver the material as if the words are just popping into his head, leaving you hanging on every word and never knowing quite which way he’s going to go.
Josh covers a wide range of topics through his own viewpoint. He undercuts a lot of stereotypes on what a gay, working class northerner would typically talk about in a club set, but also leans delightfully into those stereotypes to create a really fun contrast. He showcases his sillier playful side as a comic, but also his breadth of knowledge and interest that makes the show incredibly dynamic and never as repetitive as, say, me when I’m MCing Blizzard and talking about hating the Tories and wishing I had bigger tits and nothing in between ever.
The show, in terms of structure, was a work in progress, but the quality of the material was still among some of the best I’ve seen. If this is an early draft of next year’s tour, I can already tell it’s going to be a tour that you DO NOT want to miss. Josh is a national treasure of a comic and well worth your time to see if you somehow haven’t done already.
Thanks to everyone who came and especially those who donated, one of the most fun and full rooms we’ve had for a while.
Check out our upcoming shows on our OutSavvy, including our show with headliner David Stanier on June 10th, and more previews to come in July: https://www.outsavvy.com/organiser/blizzard-comedy
