Tape 154: Lessons From The Archive - Part 1

Everything Teaches Something

This week I’m going heavy on the “reflecting on creative process” side of this newsletter’s remit, because last week I leant heavily on the “writing dumb stories” side and talked at length about dropping my phone into a pile of shit and it lost me quite a few subscribers, so I just want to right the ship. For those of you who have written to say you loved the story about poo, and even sent me money with messages saying “That was the funniest story about poo I’ve ever read,” thank you for your support, there will be more stuff like that, but it can’t be all the time because some people don’t like it.

So. Last week I had the pleasure of producing Miranda’s latest short, which is about a bee. It stars the brilliant Aruhan Galieva and my old comrade-in-arms Ed Aczel, who I’ve not properly collaborated with since before Covid. We made a bunch of short films and a live show together back in the day, and once got tantalisingly close to making our own TV show, but the pandemic put the skids on the things we were working on together, as it did for so many creative endeavours.

It was really lovely to work with him again, and we ended up reminiscing about some old projects of ours and what we’d do differently if we made them again now. After the shoot, Miranda was also talking about trying to journal around the lessons learned from the project, and keeping track of that over future projects as well. I found all this an interesting exercise, and this week I thought I’d go back over the major projects I’ve made over the last 12 years and work out what the one big lesson I took away from each one was. Hopefully it might be interesting to other makers, writers, comics out there. I’d love to hear some of yours too! This is Part 1, because it turns out 12 years is a long time to do anything.

Joz Norris Is Matt Fisher: Uberperson (Live show, 2012) - My first ever live show, which I just went and made in a “rip the bandage off” kind of way. I hated the open mic scene and resented the idea that I had to do 5 minute spots to nobody five nights a week and work my way up the torturous ladder of horrible club gigs in order to get anywhere. I rushed too quickly to the idea of doing a solo show, but in a lot of ways it showed me that you don’t have to do what everyone else is telling you you ought to do. This show was better than it had any right to be! Lesson - You can just make the thing you want to make. If you can’t see the thing that you want to exist, make it.

Joz Norris Has Gone Missing (Live show, 2013) - This, by contrast, was not great. Looking back, I can see that I was having fun with it, but I cringe at what a bad job I did of making my ideas coherent or entertaining for an audience. People have replied to this newsletter before telling me to be less harsh to myself about this show because they saw it and it was fun. But the reason I feel annoyed about it isn’t because I could do better now, it’s because I know for a fact that it wasn’t the best thing I could’ve made at the time. Lesson - Just having fun and doing what you want carries you some distance, but does not make for impressive work in and of itself.

I think around this point in the timeline, this photo was more or less my comedy persona. Looking back, I can see why it took me a while to gather much in the way of career momentum.

Awkward Prophet (Live show, 2014) - I was playing a paid venue with a big producer and I compromised on my show a bit and I wish I hadn’t. The work-in-progress versions of this contained weird characters and a complicated flash-forward time travel concept (I visited my own son in the future, who wore a fur trapper’s hat and a nightgown and sang “Hungry Heart” by Bruce Springsteen, all for no reason), all of which I got scared of and cut to make it into a stand-up show about dating because I thought that would be easier to sell. I doubt I’d have had the skills to pull off the more ambitious ideas I had, but I wish I’d tried instead of just going “Well, the tickets are expensive, for that money people will just want to see a stand-up show.” Lesson - Never play to the gallery. Back your weird ideas, because nobody else will.

Hey Guys! (Live show, 2015) - My abiding memory of this show is of its final London performance, after which a friend teased me by saying “Wow, what a narratively coherent and thematically satisfying show.” It was, to be fair to him, a mish-mash of random daft bits with absolutely no effort to turn them into anything more than that. It succeeded in terms of being funny and inventive, but it wasn’t a show, really. Lesson - Unless you’re a true comedy genius who can just do anything (and very few are), if you’re going to go to the effort of making a show, you ought to know what it is you’re trying to express with it.

The Girl Whisperer (Webseries, 2015) - This was a sort of adaptation of my 2014 show about dating, and came about because Ralf Little, of all people, offered to help me make a scripted project out of it, which he co-wrote with me. I was much prouder of this than of the show, and it did pretty well. It showed me that I can write good dialogue and characters, and made me want to do more scripted stuff. Lesson - Expand your skills. Try new things. If other people offer to help you try something different, take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t be afraid of the new.

Double Act (Short film, 2016) - Made this with Matthew Highton. It was a short film I wrote and that he directed, that starred Ed Aczel and Michael Brunstrom as a former TV double act trying to kill one another. I appear in it for less than 30 seconds, and instead concentrated my efforts on writing and producing. Lesson - Not everything has to be about you. Try removing yourself from what you write, and see what other stories you can tell.

Hello, Goodbye (Live show, 2016) - This was the first show I ever made that was actually about something. It was about losing someone and finding someone. It was also the first show I made that I am still objectively proud of. Lesson - Centre your work on something you care about. Audiences can feel it when you care about what you’re doing.

The Incredible Joz Norris Locks Himself Inside His Own Show, Then Escapes, Against All The Odds!! (Live show, 2017) - This show was perfectly good, but I remember coming away from it broken. I’d done six shows in a row and I was bored of myself. I took a break for two years and came back with one of the best and most successful thing I’ve made. Lesson - Nobody needs you to keep going forever. Nobody actually cares if you keep going or if you stop. It’s ok to pause. Rest is important. Do other things. Fill your life with things that actually make you feel good.

Robert Johnson & The Devil Man (Short film, 2017) - Another short I made with Matt. This had a funny premise, but we also leaned into character and story and weren’t afraid of letting those things take precedence over the laughs in places. Lesson - Make yourself uncomfortable. Don’t always reach for the thing you always reach for. See what happens when you work in a space you’re unused to.

In Search Of Something (Short film, 2018) - My first full collaboration with Ed. This was a documentary about us trying to work out what our documentary was about. All my film stuff up until now had been heavily scripted but Ed is a very improvisatory performer, and this was made with only the vaguest sense of what it was we were doing. It was all the better for it. Lesson - Plan only the things that must be planned. This will change from project to project, but always leave room for the unplanned, because it may be your friend.

The Baby (Short film, 2018) - A collaboration with Lucy Pearman, Sam Nicoresti and Lottie Bowater that combined Nosferatu and musique concrete and remains one of the strangest things I’ve ever made. This was very much the product of a collective mind - Lucy and I focused on performance and devising the core games, Sam focused on visuals, Lottie focused on music and sound. Lesson - Let other people take charge of whole parts of your project. Trust that the thing a group of people can make will be so much better than what you might have imagined it to be on your own.

Ed & Joz’s Da Vinci Code (Short film, 2018) - Mine and Ed’s second film, which was very ambitious. Sadly, our director had to pull out a few days before, and then Ed couldn’t make it to one of the shoot days either. Me and the new director therefore did a hell of a lot of juggling to extract something from what we had. He was amazing and I’d love to work with him again on another project one day under less ridiculous circumstances, because this was mad. In hindsight, it’s possible that on this one we should’ve just postponed the shoot so everyone could’ve had a less stressful time scrambling to put it together. Lesson - Fire-fighting and improvising your way out of dilemmas only gets you so far. Sometimes you just have to step back from a project and let it rest. Nobody needs this to happen now.

Joz Norris Is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad. (Live show, 2019) - My first genuinely successful live show. It was successful because I finally worked really hard on a show instead of just doing what I wanted and hoping audiences liked it. Lesson - Work with other people, and work hard. Think about what you’re actually offering your audience. What would you think about it if you saw it? Actually really work on the answer to that question. The results will astound you.

Ed & Joz’s Deleted Scenes (Live show, 2019) - Mine and Ed’s live show, in which we treated an audience to a run-through of all the sketches we’d come up with that we either couldn’t be bothered to film, or had been turned down by TV channels. It was so fun. Lesson - Not everything you make needs to be a career move. Some projects can just be daft. Let yourself have fun with funny people.

Ed & Joz’s Heist Movie (Short film/TV pilot, 2019) - This was a sitcom pilot me and Ed made with the backing of Tiger Aspect. Tiger Aspect were incredibly generous, but warned us that they didn’t have a huge budget for it, and would have to keep costs low. They then asked me how much I thought we could make it for and, not wanting to lose the opportunity, I gave a crazy low number. They must have been delighted, but I’m pretty sure that if I’d given a more sensible number, they would still have helped us out. It made the shoot incredibly stressful that I’d asked for what I did, because we somehow needed to either buy or make our own vending machine for about £70, which is impossible. Lesson - Know your value, and the value of the things you’re making. Ask for the money you actually need or are worth. Lowballing does you absolutely no favours.

That takes us up to the pandemic, which feels like a natural point to break it in two. The pandemic was also the point where I actively changed my approach to what I do because I realised I wanted to do it for life, and if I really wanted that then I needed to work harder and smarter and be more committed and really prove to myself that I believed in what I was doing, as I’d just learned from the Mr Fruit Salad show. So the lessons I learned from the projects I’ve done since 2020 are probably ones that I’m still internalising and processing in the projects I’m working on at the moment. But I’ll come back to this next week to finish it off! I hope some of those lessons are useful to those of you out there making your own stuff.

A Cool New Thing In Comedy - Colin From Accounts has just returned for Series 2, which is available on iPlayer. I really love this show. When it’s funny it’s really funny, but the story and characters are also wonderful. It’s been making me think a lot about what it is I actually want from a comedy, because often when a comedy show prioritises story over laughs, it annoys me a bit. For a start, Colin From Accounts succeeds in not making it either/or - the laughs are big and plentfiul - but more importantly, it actually makes us care. It doesn’t just assume we’ll invest in the characters, it makes us do it. Everybody else making scripted comedy should take note.

What’s Made Me Laugh The Most - The doctor in Colin From Accounts saying “I’d love to help you, Gordon, but my computer isn’t on.” That whole scene, in fact.

Book Of The Week - I’ve just started The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. I have nothing to say about it yet as I’ve barely begun, but I’m sure I’ll still be reading it next week because it’s massive, so I’ll have some thoughts then.

Album Of The Week - Luck And Strange by David Gilmour. Gilmour spent the press tour for his new album claiming it was his best record since The Dark Side Of The Moon, which is clearly ridiculous as Pink Floyd released three more albums widely recognised as some of the greatest of all time after that point. In truth, it’s probably his best record since 2006’s On An Island, which technically only means it’s better than 2015’s Rattle That Lock, but that doesn’t make for a great headline.

Film Of The Week - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Miranda and I only watched the original Beetlejuice this week, to prepare for the sequel and, shocking plot twist alert - I think the sequel is better than the original. I also don’t think the sequel is amazing. It’s kind of fun, I guess. I think the original is really quite meh. You can barely understand a word Michael Keaton says and he is an annoying character who doesn’t really do anything. I don’t really understand why it’s a classic. But the sequel has a great scene with a big wedding cake and a great rendition of “MacArthur Park.”

That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought, and if you enjoy the newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d hugely appreciate it. Take care of yourselves until next time,

Joz xx

PS If you value the Therapy Tapes and enjoy what they do, and want to support my work and enable me to keep writing and creating, you can make a one-off donation to my Ko-Fi account, and it’s very gratefully appreciated.

PPS Here’s a little sneak peek at Miranda’s new short: