Stevie Martin has been generating excellent material for years, and is now starting to break through due to her jaw-droppingly funny online videos, packed with punchlines and with a genuinely unique flavour.

We talk about the huge amount of time and prep that goes into her work, as she battles to feel like a “proper comedian” in an industry that prioritises certain styles, backgrounds and looks.

We also explore her brilliant former sketch outfit Massive Dad, and whether their aesthetic made them “unapproachable” as performers; the relative loneliness of stand-up; and trying to love Edinburgh in the way that it deserves to be loved…

Insiders:
35 mins of extra content available exclusively to the Insiders Club include Stevie on her murky past as an Edinburgh Fringe reviewer! She also shares some surprising insights about what works on Twitter and why, the inside editorial secrets of content creators, and we find out why her next Edinburgh poster might sell her in a very different way than previous years.

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Fern Brady and the incredible “self-help for comedians” special with Amanda Donnet.

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: ABK, Acting, Adam Riches, Age, Alasdair Beckett-King, Audiences, Awards, Big Train, Brett Goldstein, Channel 4, comcompod, Comedy, Corona, COVID-19, Edinburgh, Fame, Feminism, Fern Brady, Festival, Fringe, Interview, Nish Kumar, Onstage Persona, Persona, Podcasting, Stage Persona, Stand Up, Success, TV, TV Comedy, Twitch, Twitter, Viral, Worth, Writing, Writing Jokes, YouTube

Irrepressibly optimistic, utterly in love with his craft and very mentally robust, Paul Zerdin is the British ventriloquist who won America's Got Talent.

We talk about his lengthy career working across different circuits -- from variety, cruises and holiday camps to mainstream comedy -- and discuss how he navigates the suspicions of the alternative comedy industry. Paul outlines in detail his pandemic pivot, the relentless energy devoted to TV pitches, how he planned his AGT set to build and build, as well as deception, illusion, and the modular nature of magic...

~15 minutes of extra Insider content available, including Paul's drive to create a fourth-wall-breaking ventriloquist animation, world domination, and Vegas, baby!

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Alfie Brown, and your invite to the forthcoming ones with Fern Brady and a “self-help for comedians” special with Amanda Donnet (MClinPsych)

Find Paul here:
paulzerdin.com
IG: @paulzerdin
TW: @paulzerdin
FB: Paul Zerdin
YT: Paul Zerdin
www.paulzerdin.com
youtube.com/paulzerdin
@paulzerdin

This podcast is @ComComPod on twitter and instagram

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: AGT, Audiences, Interview, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Stage Persona, Stand Up, Success, TV, USA, Vegas, Worth, Writing, Writing Jokes

Josh Johnson doesn’t put a foot wrong. This masterful young US comic never stops working and is reaping the benefits with a place in the Daily Show writers’ room, and two brand new releases: his own music/comedy collaboration “Mixtape”, and his debut special “# (Hashtag)”.

We encounter a really thoughtful approach to his art, and talk about his possibly unique combination of comedy and non-comic original music; explore embellishment; and how “playing to his weakness” serves his material…

20ish minutes of extra content available exclusively to Insiders as Josh ruminates on vulnerabilities, approach, and how not even the most vexatious of Uber drivers can knock back the offer of free fried chicken.

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Alfie Brown, and your invite to the forthcoming ones with Fern Brady and a “self-help for comedians” special with Amanda Donnet (MClinPsych)

Connect with Josh Johnson:

https://www.joshjohnsoncomedy.com/

https://www.instagram.com/joshjohnsoncomedy/

https://twitter.com/joshjohnson

https://www.facebook.com/JoshJComedy

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLuYADJ6hESLHX87JnsGbjA

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: Bob Hope, Comedy, Comedy Central, Coping, Corona, Interview, Kanye, Kanye West, SNL, Soho Theatre, Stand Up, Structure, Success, TV Comedy, USA, Worth, Writing, YouTube

“A drill-sergeant not a perfectionist”, Jessie Cave enjoys simultaneous careers as an actress, comic, artist, and performance artist, all of which marry an extraordinary pragmatism with an attitude of artistic abundance.

We talk about her relentless documentation of her life as a means of seeking permanence, the tragic death of her brother in 2019 - how she processed it, and the effect it had on her creativity - as well as her recent Soho On Demand special “Sunrise”, filmed in Corona to an audience of her sister BeBe, and her new novel “Sunset”.

* Content warning: Sexual assault *

15 mins of extra content available exclusively to the Insiders Club include Jessie on how her membership of the Harry Potter franchise has a legacy of fandom that isn’t always useful to her as an independent artist, and how the Cave Sisters Patreon has changed her relationship with elements of her following.

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Fern Brady and the incredible “self-help for comedians” special with Amanda Donnet.

Instagram @JessieCave Twitter @JessieCave Website: www.jessiedoodles.com Find Jessie’s debut novel “Sunset” here: https://linktr.ee/Jessie_Cave Find Jessie and Bebe’s podcast: “We Can’t Talk About This Right Now” on YouTube and podcast providers Patreon: www.patreon.com/cavesisters

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: Acting, Actor, Age, Alfie Brown, Alternative Comedy, Art, Audiences, Awards, Cave Sisters, Channel 4, Comedy, Coping, Corona, Edinburgh, Festival, Fringe, Interview, Stage Persona, Success, Sunset, TV, Whimsy, Worth, Writing, YouTube

How did a grumpy table magician find a way to turn “being pathetic” into 400 shows a year in his own theatre at Las Vegas?  Only Piff The Magic Dragon knows!

We’ll discover how a shop-bought dragon costume flicked the switch from sackable corporate table guy, to deadpan bulletproof performer and self-styled “loser of America’s Got Talent”. Along the way we’ll find out why the perfect show will never happen, and why a fear of failure turns most magicians into “hack copycats”…

30 mins of extra content available exclusively to the Insiders Club include Piff on the invention of his own tricks, and how something new with a block of jelly has already cost him two and half years and over $70,000; how own bad magic and guilty shortcuts; his evangelist uprising; and what comics can learn from magicians.

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Fern Brady and the incredible “self-help for comedians” special with Amanda Donnet.

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: Addiction, Audience Participation, Audiences, Awards, Cabaret, comcompod, Comedy, Competitions, Coping, Corporate Gigs, Corporate Work, Edinburgh, Fame, Festival, Fire Breathing, First Open Spot, Fringe, Frisky And Mannish, Gary Delaney, Inspiration, Interview, James Acaster, Onstage Persona, Penn & Teller, Persona, Piff, Piff The Magic Dragon, Stage Persona, Stand Up, Success, USA, Vegas, Worth

If you thought wrestlers shared some of the tropes of comedians’ lives, wait til you hear about historians! Comedy-adjacent public historian, writer of “Dead Famous” and other superb books, and creator and host of “You’re Dead To Me” (BBC Sounds) Greg Jenner had factual oversight on every word of Horrible Histories ever recorded, and wrote some of the jokes too. He’s also a student of ComCom and probably our most learned ever guest…

We talk about his creative process in constructing analogies that package and frame his research; learn about the pitfalls of generalising and the responsibility of the historian; and he shares his deeply personal struggle with mental health, anxiety and extraordinary insomnia, and they effect they still have on his fraught relationship with celebrity.

30 mins of extra content available exclusively to the Insiders Club include Greg delving further into his anxieties, particularly those that accrete around social media and listener feedback; the joy of online kindness; “factoids” and his doomed quest to rid the internet of viral “fake facts”; and we learn about the hidden link between Rattus Rattus from Horrible Histories and Greg himself.

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, James Acaster and Alfie Brown, and your invite to the forthcoming ones with Fern Brady and a “self-help for comedians” special with Amanda Donnet (MClinPsych)

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: Age, Audiences, Blackadder, Comedy, Dead Famous, Eddie Izzard, Heckles, Horrible Histories, Interview, Maid Marion, Monty Python, Sara Pascoe, Structure, Success, TV Comedy, Twitter, Worth, Writing, You're Dead To Me

“Not a cute ragdoll, but a disgusting sex robot”, Rosie Jones is a triple-threat in ways of which you couldn’t dream if you hadn’t seen her act. Leveraging hugely punchy comedy from people’s constant underestimation at her sheer agency, we discover the precision comic timing borne of her cerebral palsy; her new political dynamism; and why she won’t drown, even though she can’t swim.

40 mins of extra content from comedy’s Thanos, available exclusively to the Insiders Club include her *unmissable* insights from behind both production and performance sides of TV panel games; how and why her feelings about being viewed as an inspiration have changed; and why Nish Kumar is such a horrible man.

Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, Alfie Brown and your invite to the forthcoming ones with Fern Brady (24th May) and a self-help for comedians special with Amanda Donnet (MClinPsych)

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: Audiences, Billy Connolly, Channel 4, comcompod, Comedy, disability, Diversity, Edinburgh, Heckles, Helen Bauer, Inspiration, Interview, Stage Persona, Stand Up, Success, TV, TV Comedy, Victoria Wood, Worth, Would I Lie To You?, Writing, Writing Jokes

Laser-guided comic, writer and corporate host, the "modnifique" Ian Moore is every inch the Comedy Store headliner, but in the early part of his career his battle with stage fright left him a more deadpan act than he intended. We talk about the phenomenon of white blokes in suits raging against the world; the reality of his apparent dream life commuting from rural France to the UK for gigs; and the excoriating ten-page editor's note on his first foray into detective fiction, and his brilliant response to it…

25 mins of extra content available exclusively to the Insiders Club includes Ian on what it means to him to be a Mod, his entry-point into being published as a writer, and the forces behind his doomed attempt to set up a creative retreat for artists. Go to www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders for this and much more, including the exclusive Insiders Q&As with Nish Kumar, Alfie Brown and your invite to the forthcoming one with Fern Brady (24th May)

Catch up with Ian:

ianmoore.info 

*Death and Croissants out July 2021*  Pre-Order HERE

*New Podcast - Mustn't Grumble* HERE

Everything Stu's up to:

This podcast is @ComComPod on twitter and instagram

www.comedianscomedian.com

Stu’s “Virtual Office Party” is now available as the perfect solution to remote-working office parties, sales conferences, motivational and wellbeing events.

“It was an absolutely hysterical and wonderful evening, for both those partaking and everyone watching online!”

- Maria Kuzak (Fundraising Manager at CALM)

The games and interactive element were hilarious and extremely well executed! 10/10 from us, you created a real buzz in our business, thank you." 

- Ben Gott, (SVP at Merkle)

For more info on how this unique concept can bring your staff together while working apart, go to www.stuartgoldsmith.co.uk

Stu also offers remote talks to business on what the distilled wisdom of over 350 comics can teach you about resilience, especially in times of pandemic.

“The most inspiring talk I’ve had in years!” (LEGO staff member)

Find out more at www.stuartgoldsmith.co.uk

LISTEN HERE

Filed Under: Age, Audiences, Blogging, comcompod, Comedy, Comedy Store, Coping, Corporate Gigs, COVID-19, Edinburgh, Interview, Stage Persona, Stand Up, Success, TV, Worth, Writing, Writing Jokes