Like Punxsutawney Phil sticking his meddling snout out into the cold air to tell us all it’s still cold, as of this week the programme for the Edinburgh Fringe brochure is now online and on sale (does this make sense as an analogy? Like, a fun annual tradition that heralds mixed feelings from people who are overly invested in it). As such, it’s time for my annual newsletter in which I wang on about my “feelings” and/or “thoughts” on the Edinburgh Fringe as a precursor to posting a bunch of ticket links and asking you to come and see some shows. Fun!

My relationship with the Edinburgh Fringe remains complicated. In 2022, I had a good run there but was so exhausted I decided I didn’t want to do it again for a while. In 2023 I didn’t go and didn’t miss it. In 2024 I missed it a bit and went up to do a few work-in-progress shows and remembered that I like it and that I’m good at it. Last year I went up with a new show and had my most successful run there yet. This year I decided that I would come back properly in 2027, because the year-on-year-off model seemed to be quite good for the way I make things. So the plan was to step back from it again this year and focus on other projects and other mediums in order to capitalise on the momentum from last year.

The trouble is, the comedy industry is rapidly shrinking, so there are far fewer opportunities than there used to be to build on momentum generated by the Fringe, and what opportunities there are move very slowly. I’ve loved touring the show around the UK, that’s felt like a big revelation in terms of securing a longer future for a show, and building a wider audience for it. And I’m excited about a few other scripted projects I’m tinkering away with – we’ve just submitted for funding for a short film adaptation of You Wait. Time Passes. which I’d really love to make, and I’m also waiting to hear back about a couple of really cool opportunities which my comedy murder mystery The Last One You’d Expect has been pitched in for. Something may come of these, something may not. As with a lot of scripted development, it might end up being a corner of my career where I end up having done a lot of work for no eventual return. This in itself is something I need to think about.

What I’d ultimately really like to do is to get better at building a model that puts me more in control of whether I can make the scripted comedy projects I’d like to make, be they short films, webseries, audio projects, or whatever. I feel like I’m still following the rules of a model that no longer really exists – diligently trying to go through commissioners and broadcasters and funding bodies even though those organisations are less and less able to offer much in the way of opportunity. I try not to be defeatist about this – I’m really proud of the things I’m pitching this year and feel really hopeful about them! – but I’m also aware that the TV comedy landscape in particular isn’t really in a healthy enough condition for me to rely on it as the primary target for my creative output, even though long-form scripted comedy is the thing I most enjoy writing and most want to do more of.

This was the thinking behind my making my own sitcom pilot last year, (which I’m hoping to release later this year! Watch this space!), and I’d be excited to work out if there’s a sustainable way of making that kind of thing long-term for an audience of paying subscribers, but it all fries my brain a bit trying to work out the finer details of how it might work. Miranda and I have some ideas about how to use the brand we’ve been building through Eggbox to facilitate the production of more scripted comedy of our own, but it’s something we want to get right and not blunder into.

In the meantime, despite its many faults and astronomical costs, the Fringe remains one of the main places where it’s possible to build work on your own terms and be more or less in control of whether or not it happens (there’s also social media, of course, but my God I’m shit at that). So it’s odd to find that in 2026, the year when I planned to be less focused on the Fringe and to put energy into different mediums, I’m doing a lot of waiting to be given permission to work in those mediums and have ended up being swept along by a bunch of Fringe-bound projects which I’m really enjoying.

Whether or not this is sustainable in the long-term I don’t know – the Fringe only gets more expensive every year, but for the first time in a while I am starting to see the results of riding a wave generated at that festival, so perhaps it was silly to think I’d spend a year fully away from it in the first place. What I do know for sure is that the various projects I’ll be working across in Edinburgh this year are things I’m really proud of and excited by and I think people will really enjoy them! Here’s a quick rundown of them:

MY PROJECTS:

JOZ NORRIS IS HUGH JACKMAN IS THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA – This is the big new thing. Fresh from winning Best Show at Leicester Comedy Festival, this “blockbuster of madness” (thanks, Chortle) comes to the Pleasance Dome for two nights only. Hollywood superstar Hugh Jackman has it all, but he’s haunted by one huge regret – he never got to play the Phantom. Now is his chance to go back and make things right. I’m hoping that by August I’ll have figured out a way of performing this where I don’t feel like I’m going to pass out at the end.

Pleasance 10 Dome, August 8th (18:50) and 10th (20:10)

JOZ NORRIS: YOU WAIT. TIME PASSES. – A brief victory lap for last year’s “curiously rousing defence of experimental art-making in a conformist, capitalist world” (thanks, the Guardian) in the delightful setting of Shedinburgh, which stages its own programme of pop-ups and one-offs and short runs during the Fringe. The Shedinburgh programme hasn’t gone on sale yet but if you’d like to catch the 5-star smash hit one last time, put these dates in your diary:

Shedinburgh, August 11th & 12th, 17:00

JOZ NORRIS & JOHN-LUKE ROBERTS ARE BARRY AND TONY: THE BARITONES – Somehow this show just keeps working. It really shouldn’t, because it literally is just me and John-Luke wearing flatcaps and talking in silly voices and doing the stupidest things we can possibly think of, and yet these characters are proving an even more successful live proposition than they were in their original home on Instagram (where let’s not forget, one sketch got over 100 likes!) This show was one of the word-of-mouth hits at Machynlleth Comedy Festival this weekend just gone, and shows no signs of coming apart at the seams just yet.

Monkey Barrel 4, August 9th, 23:55

SHOWS I’M WORKING ON:

That’s it for my own shows – just a brief run of one-offs and specials – but I’m also working as director or dramaturg on three other shows doing the full run this year. They are:

ANNA LEONG BROPHY: BORN SEXY YESTERDAY – Anna is a sexy alien baby woman whose destiny is to save the entire universe, but only if some hopeless shlub can teach her what a sandwich is first. Character comedy about the stories we tell about women and girls, and why we should maybe try telling better ones.

Pleasance Courtyard Below, 17:40

EMMELINE DOWNIE: GAIL – Gail Summerfield is about to introduce her life coaching group to the Gail Summerfield Approach. After all, it’s served her well her whole life – or it does until she has to go home. Character comedy about a voiceless woman trying to be heard.

Pleasance Courtyard Attic, 16:35

ALICE FRASER: OH, MAN! – Alice doesn’t want to make yet another show about how shit men are. Unfortunately, she’s also ended up accidentally imprinting on a sentient Roomba who is in the process of being radicalised, so she might have to resort to desperate measures. Stand-up comedy about masculinity and how to make a good human.

Monkey Barrel @ The Tron, 20:40

SHOWS I’VE DONE A BIT OF WORK ON:

Those six projects are the ones that I’ve really been focusing on this year, but looking through the listings I’ve also been really excited to see a bunch of shows going to the Fringe which I’ve done one or two creative sessions on as an outside eye over the last year, and I feel I’d be doing them a disservice if I didn’t also steer you towards them! These shows are all well worth your time and I loved contributing to them:

RACHEL FAIRBURN: VEXY BEASTS – Monkey Barrel @ The Tron, 13:35

AYOADE BAMGBOYE: SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS – Pleasance Courtyard Forth, 20th-21st, 22:00

ROSALIE MINNITT: CLEMENTINE 2 – Pleasance Courtyard Beside, 15:35

CAMILLA BORGES: BE NOT AFRAID! – Hoots @ Nicolson Square, 18:30

ROSIE HOLT: THE ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE LANDED! – Pleasance Courtyard Two, 18:30

That’s enough to be getting on with, I reckon. Go see ‘em all, you’ll kick yourself if you don’t.

A Quick Plug – Eggbox, the show that Miranda and I run at the Pleasance, is back on May the 26th with another night of comedy shorts and live readings of brand new scripts. This month we’ve got new scripts by me and John-Luke Roberts and live character comedy from Rachel Fairburn, plus short films from Miranda Holms, Josh Glanc, Sam Buchanan, Aruhan Galieva & Benjamin Adnams, Aruhan Galieva & Jac Clinch, Hayley Morris, Kyle Jon Shephard, Will Farrell, Java Jacobs, Jack Carrivick, Matt Riley, Phoebe Bourke and Angela Kirkwood. The guest cast includes Katie Norris, Bilal Zafar, Roisin O’Mahony, Ada Player, Bron Waugh and Alison Thea-Skot. It’ll be such a great show and it’s filling up, so do book here if you’re planning on coming!

A Cool New Thing In Comedy – I feel like this entire newsletter has just been me plugging comedy-related things, so in the spirit of not overloading you with yet more stuff I’m going to park this section this week and leave you to browse freely through all those amazing shows.

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – This week I performed at a corporate gig for a local business awards dinner thing and so much stuff happened that really made me laugh. At one point the guy who was organising and hosting the whole thing ran to the tech booth and urgently asked “Have you got Happy Birthday ready on the QLab? No? It’s fine, I’ll just sing it manually.” The award for “Safety and Security” went to a venue that had burned down the day before the dinner. Incredible stuff.

Book Of The Week – Art Cure by Daisy Fancourt, which is about all the ways in which participating in the arts is good for our health. Informative! Interesting! Good!

Album Of The Week – FENIAN by Kneecap. This new album is much more sombre than their debut, I guess because they got swept up into a media frenzy off the back of them protesting against a genocide. Anyone who really enjoyed them yelling “I’m K-holed out my head, this stuff puts rhinos to bed!” might be disappointed with the seriousness of this album, but I really enjoy them in both political mode and party mode.

Film Of The Week – Not seen any films this week, but I’ve just booked for The Devil Wears Prada 2 and – film of the year alert – The Sheep Detectives – so you can look forward to my thoughts on those!

That’s all for this week! Let me know your thoughts, and if you enjoy the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d really appreciate it. Take care until next time,

Joz xx

PS Feel free to send me a tip on Ko-Fi if you enjoy my work and would like to support me to keep making it!

PPS Thanks so much to everyone who came to see any of my various shows in Machynlleth this weekend, we all had a lovely time:

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