Hi! Just a quick newsletter this week, because I’m ill and tired and run-down. (Long story, but in a nutshell – night coaches are a false economy, the £40 you save is not worth the three to four days of feeling like absolute shit. Also I fell off a skateboard during my show in Leicester and the entire right-hand-side of my body is now covered in bruises and I’m feeling very sorry for myself. That said, it was an incredibly funny fall and I might make sure it happens every time from now on. I’ll just make sure I book an actual train home at a reasonable time so that I can rest and heal properly rather than proceeding to torture myself by squeezing my battered frame into the foetal position as I try and fail to sleep through a 5-hour journey on a National Express. I guess that wasn’t much of a nutshell, was it, that was kind of just the entire story).

Anyway, bruised and battered and sleep-deprived as I am, I have dragged my broken body to the laptop to type out a newsletter because, as fortune would have it, late February and early March is a great time to go and see the shows I’m directing or associate directing this year, as all have WIPs in the next couple of weeks, and I would be letting my amazing collaborators down if I didn’t put the effort into spreading the word about them!

I’ve been absolutely loving the first stages of working on these three brilliant shows, and I think they’re going to be really phenomenal. So, if you’re in or near any of the following shows, get yourself along to:

ANNA LEONG BROPHY: BORN SEXY YESTERDAY

Pleasance London, 20th Feb, 21:00

The Phoenix, Leicester, 22nd Feb, 15:30

Anna, one half of the incredible sketch double act Egg, is making her debut solo show, a character comedy solo sketch show about the stories we tell about women and girls, in fiction and movies and beyond. Specifically, why do we love watching films about beings of extreme cosmic importance who are born into nubile young female bodies and don’t know what a sandwich is? Born Sexy Yesterday is a story about someone who just wants to have permission to live a real human life, but keeps being forced into the boxes that storytelling traditions have built for her. It’s so inventive, so dumb and so clever all at once, and Anna is such a brilliant, hilarious performer – she brings a whole galaxy of characters to life so brilliantly in this.

EMMELINE DOWNIE: GAIL

The Phoenix, Leicester, 22nd of Feb, 12:30

Pleasance London, 3rd of March, 19:40

I first met Emmeline at a workshop run by the brilliant Mikey Bligh-Smith that paired performers with directors and we developed some ideas she had around her character, Gail Summerfield. Gail is such a funny, fully-formed and heartbreaking comedy character – so inventive and original, but immediately recognisable and familiar at the same time. It’s a real joy to have come on board Emmeline’s debut show as associate director and dramaturg, alongside director Leo Reich. The show is so unexpected and bold and is doing things I think people will find really surprising. I’m also loving Emmeline’s determination to grant Gail a reality and a dignity that’s rarely seen in Fringe character comedy.

ALICE FRASER: OH, MAN

The Austral, Adelaide, 24th of Feb – 1st of March, 19:30

Admittedly, this is probably the one it’s gonna be hard for you to get to if you’re aiming to see all three of these, as these WIPs are in Australia. Or maybe you’ll be able to go see it but really struggle to see Anna and Emmeline. But Alice’s show will be coming over here later in the year, so even if you can’t get to this run, do keep an eye out for it! (Anyone who does manage to get to all three of these shows in WIP form in the next couple of weeks gets a very special prize for true dedication, I reckon). Alice is such a gifted stand-up and her writing is always so funny and surprising and rich with silly details. Oh, Man is a show about performative masculinity and the optimised enshittification of every facet of our lives, and how those two things feed into each other. It’s doing some really inventive and ingenious things with the structures of how a stand-up show is “supposed” to work, and I can’t wait til the day that I can actually watch it in person instead of discussing it over Zoom!

They’re three really amazing shows and I’m so proud to be working on them. If you happen to be able to get along to any of those WIPs, I really encourage you to – you’re gonna have a great time!

A Cool New Thing In Comedy – Mackenzie Crook’s new series Small Prophets is out on iPlayer and is lovely and gentle and very big-hearted!

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most – Saw a WIP of John Kearns’s latest show last week and there’s a bit about Last One Laughing that really got me.

Book Of The Week – Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer by Patrick Suskind. The guy in this book is absolutely crazy! He’s just spent seven years living in a cave, occasionally leaving to eat a lizard, lick a rock and do a shit before going back in the cave to sit and think about his inner catalogue of every smell he’s ever smelled. When I told Miranda about this, she said “Sounds like you with your music,” which was one hell of a reality check.

Album Of The Week – Bit self-conscious about this now I know my music cataloguing system is the same as the weird smelly murderer man from Perfume, but this goes to Karma by avant-garde jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, an album which is simultaenously transcendently beautiful and unlistenably dreadful. I can’t make my mind up about it. I think I love it?

Film Of The Week – Wuthering Heights. This is actually really good! Emerald Fennell seems to be getting a lot of flack for not being 100% faithful to the book, but adaptations don’t have to be, right? Fennell has stated that it wasn’t her intention to make an entirely faithful adaptation, so I guess fair play to her that her vision is 90% just Cathy and Heathcliff either banging on the moor, or hornily slapping dough or fingering jelly. I really enjoyed it, even if I absolutely hated the main characters. I’m told you’re supposed to, but I’ve not read the book. Funny how lots of people were like “I hated Marty Supreme, I don’t want to watch a horrible person for two hours” but then lots of the same people go “No no, that’s just what Wuthering Heights is like, you’re supposed to hate them.” Do we like films about awful people or not? What’s the consensus?

That’s all for this week! Let me know what you thought, and if you enjoyed the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d really appreciate it! Take care of yourselves and speak soon,

Joz xx

PS If you like this and would like to send me a one-off tip of Ko-Fi, it’s hugely appreciated and helps keep me writing!

PPS Look at this weird tall chair I found backstage at Alexandra Palace:

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