About
One of the Guardian’s Comedy Picks of the Fringe 2017, acclaimed off-beat writer, actor and alternative comedian Joz Norris is a cult figure at the Edinburgh Fringe, garnering a dedicated following for his alternative solo shows of character comedy, stand-up, storytelling and playful nonsense.
Known for his infectious joie de vivre, Joz is a regular member and running in-joke of several comedy collectives including Comedians’ Cinema Club (Chortle Award nominees 2016), the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society, Heroes of Fringe (Edinburgh Comedy Award winners 2016 – Panel Prize for Spirit of the Fringe) and Weirdos (Chortle Award winners 2018 for their show on ice). As well as making an unforgettable impact on the live circuit, Joz has appeared in sketch shows for ITV2, Channel 4 and Dave, as well as on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 4 Extra. His screenwriting and film output has seen him bag award nominations for acting and writing at major international film festivals, including winning Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy at LA WebFest 2015.
In a previous life Joz was a magician, a disgraced former Celebrity Squares warm-up man, and BBC Radio 3’s former Classic & Prog Rock Consultant. Nowadays, if you’re seeking the antidote to modern misery with pure entertainment and something a bit different, a dose of this skilfully silly stand-up is the perfect prescription!
Watch Joz Norris’s Stand-Up Special
Anecdotal absurdity at its finest, Joz’s surreal stories are interwoven warmly together into a web of joyful silliness. Literature, a tumultuous upbringing and skeletons in the closet all get an airing in this mesmerizingly offbeat show.
Short Clips
See Joz Norris Live
Joz is gigging in London and Brighton with current 2018 dates on sale now. For more info available here.
Bio
Born in 1989, Joz started dabbling in comedy as both a stand-up and as the writer of several award-winning student radio comedy shows whilst studying at the University of East Anglia. In 2011 Joz moved to London to pursue comedy further. To date he has written and performed two solo character shows, the first being Joz Norris is Matt Fisher: Uberperson, a 45-minute character show which played a short run at EdFringe 2012. Joz described his character act to comedyblogedy.com as “essentially a more unrestrained and un-self-aware version of myself, and provided me with opportunities to practise writing comedy in a more conversational, natural style. I think for a long time I was too scared to try out that sort of material onstage and stuck to more rigid routines in my standup, but… audiences seem to quite like disarmed by having somebody wander onstage and just chat to them and reveal awful things about himself rather than telling structured jokes”.
Following this debut with his first full Edinburgh show Joz Norris Has Gone Missing, he next created four solo conceptual comedy/theatre shows, 2014’s Awkward Prophet, 2015’s Hey Guys!; 2016’s Hello, Goodbye and 2017’s The Incredible Joz Norris Locks Himself Inside His Own Show, Then Escapes, Against All The Odds!! The latter three of these were part of the programme for the acclaimed and award-winning Heroes of Fringe, with whom he is a frequent collaborator, also taking part in their Christmas Comedy Grotto. In addition, as a member of the two-time Chortle Award-nominated Weirdos Collective since 2012, he has performed in all five of their annual alternative pantos, and played Draco Malfoy in their sell-out Harry Potter sequels at the Leicester Square Theatre.
An avid and well respected writer, Joz starred in the acclaimed self-penned webseries The Girl Whisperer, co-starring Ralf Little for Little Rock Pictures, which was an Official Selection at the LA Webseries Festival (the world’s largest festival for serialised online filmmaking) in 2017 and his sitcom Deathbed, inspired by the death of his grandad, was performed to acclaim at the Soho Theatre as part of The Comedy Project in 2016. Joz has also written, produced and acted in two short films for Turtle Canyon Comedy 2016’s Double Act and 2017’s Robert Johnson & The Devil Man.
Currently working on a sitcom about social anxiety and technology addiction entitled Please Be Normal which was recently optioned by What Larks! Productions, Joz is also in post-production for his third short film, Feed The Baby, an art-horror-comedy collaboration with Lucy Pearman, Sam Nicoresti and Lottie Bowater. His latest solo theatre piece for VAULT Festival 2018 entitled 60 Minutes After Feeling Sad, is about happiness, sadness, urban loneliness and communication in the 21st century.