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About Joe Sutherland
With a caustic, catty wit and unapologetic confidence, cheeky millennial comedian Joe Sutherland has grabbed the UK comedy circuit by the proverbial and given it a good tickle. After being selected for the Pleasance Comedy Reserve in 2015, Joe Sutherland made his solo Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2017 with MODEL/ACTRESS, garnering numerous 4-star reviews and featured in the Telegraph’s ‘Best one-liners of the Fringe 2017’.
In 2018, Joe Sutherland staged his second Edinburgh Fringe hour of razor-sharp comedy, TOXIC. A show about masculinity, gender, veganism (and other millennial keywords), it was ranked as the 9th best reviewed show of the whole festival. With appearances on Sky’s Urban Myths, BBC Three and Comedy Central, comedian Joe Sutherland has performed as tour support for prolific comic Ellie Taylor (2016-18) as well as UK tour support for stars of Rupaul’s Drag Race including Alyssa Edwards, Trixie Mattell, and Sasha Velour. And there’s no stopping him now. Joe Sutherland will be returning to the Edinburgh Fringe for 2019 with his third solo show of punchy jokes and shrewd sarcasm in Sour.
WATCH JOE SUTHERLAND: TOXIC
Dark, cheeky and adorable in equal measures, Toxic is a stand-up special for our times. Tackling gender, veganism and bogies, Joe brings his candour and caustic wit to social issues big and small in this razor-sharp hour on the meaning of manhood. And The Spice Girls, obvs.
Reviews and Awards
Joe has been a finalist in the prestigious NATYs awards and the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian competition.
‘Oozing star power from every pore’
The Mirror
‘The kind of young comic you really want to hate’
Broadway Baby
‘Drooling cynicism, punchy jokes and shrewd sarcasm. I think I’ve found my new favourite comedian’
VoiceMag.uk
‘Edgy and unpredictable’
ToDoList.org.uk
‘Demands attention… He exudes a star quality, and on his own terms… Definitely one to watch’
Chortle
Joe Sutherland Tickets
Information on Joe Sutherland’s upcoming gigs and live shows can be found here.
Can’t wait to see him live? Stream his full show now
Biography
Growing up in Coventry and working as a former model, (via part time jobs as a hotel cleaner and at Greggs), comic Joe Sutherland told Fringepig about his first ever stand-up gig which was “depressing and probably very similar to most comedian’s first times. A small room above a pub on a Thursday night. There were 25 open mic acts on the bill all doing 5 minutes, I was second to last, no-one was listening. Yet, when I finished I had such a rush that I thought, “I’ve got to do that again”.
He’s come a long way since then, citing one his favourite gigs as being the support for RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Sasha Velour at the Clapham Grand. “[It] was quite phenomenal. The most beautiful audience of 500 eager and engaged young queers who might not think comedy is for them, when it often seems to be performed by a dad in a shirt. I was wearing a shirt, but I’m sterile, so I’ll always be edgy.”
Joe is very open about the homophobic bullying he recieved as a teen, an experience which, perhaps, was partly the catalyst for honing a sharp wit in his defense. So did he always want a career in stand up? He told comedy blogedy , “In the 90s my Dad and his wife would go on dates to Glee in Birmingham and I would run rings around the babysitters so that I’d still be awake when they got back. I’d pester them for tales about what happened that night: who was on the bill? Did anyone heckle? I was like Charlie stood at Wonka’s gates, in that I could only dream of what happened inside and I had a fetching gap between my two front teeth.”
A regular visitor to the Edinburgh festival with his dad whilst growing up, Joe Sutherland made his first voyage to the Fringe as a performer back in 2015 when he was selected as one of four acts to be showcased in The Pleasance Comedy Reserve. Two years later he returned with his debut solo show Model/Actress, drawing on his attempts to escape from the depths of poverty to scale the heights of the fashion industry. The show was a hit with audiences and critics alike, and he featured in the Telegraph’s ‘Best one-liners of the Fringe’ that year. In 2018, Joe Sutherland brought his second comedy special Toxic to the circuit, an endearing and intimate hour that was praised for “revitalising the gender debate with warmth and wit”.
So with a clear appeal to the millennial generation, are there any particular comedians that influence the way he presents his material? Talking to the Comedy Blogedy.com, he explains, “I love shows that are quite confidently NOT stories. I mean I love a good story, but if you don’t have a single story to tell then you shouldn’t pressure yourself to invent one. Frankie Boyle, Phil Wang, Joe Lycett and Katherine Ryan are all great at ‘curating’ an hour of funny material which is still just as thematic, revealing and enlightening as any linear coming of age tale…. A bit of an artsy concept can actually be quite liberating as it means you can go to unexpected places with the writing.”
Joe Sutherland undoubtedly has a knack for putting pen to paper, having written for various publications as well as Comedy Central’s Roast Battle. He’s also spent some time working as an actor, with a cameo in the BAFTA award winning movie Pride. But stand-up has always been his true passion, which he lovingly refers to as “living like a highwayman, going from town to town to steal laughter”.
Get More Joe Sutherland
Want more of Joe Sutherland? You’re in luck – his full stand-up comedy special is available to watch on NextUp – a digital comedy club where you can stream instantly over 120 comedy specials from some of the exciting names in comedy. Oh, and there’s a 7 day free trial.