Tape 163: Don't Forget, You're Supposed To Care
Just A Cute Lil' Life Lesson
Just a quick one this week because, having decided to make my own sitcom pilot, I now find myself in the ridiculous position of having to make my own sitcom pilot, which it turns out is a nightmare and there is always something else to do. So this week, just a quick life lesson from a recent gig.
Last week I was booked to play ACMS, where I generally try to only ever perform things the audience haven’t seen before. Most of the bits from my show that I’ve been actively trying to work up at gigs recently are things I’ve already done at ACMS before, so I found myself trying to come up with something on the day that might be fun to play with. I came up with a dumb character called Michael Spinach.
(“Oh no,” sighed John-Luke Roberts when he overheard me asking Alexander Bennett to introduce me as Michael Spinach at a different gig earlier this week, “that’s such a Joz Norris character name.” Thirty seconds later, as I got Michael Spinach’s wig out of my bag, he sighed again and went “Of course he’s got a wig.” None of these are unreasonable reactions to Michael Spinach).
As you might guess from the fact that I have gone on to perform Michael Spinach at other gigs, I performed him at ACMS and really enjoyed it. To be clear, this character is rubbish, but many of the best things I’ve ever done have sprouted out of the seeds of really bad ideas. There’s something about really bad ideas that connects me directly to the thing I most love about performing, and if you water the seed of that connection with actual hard work, the eventual end product is often surprisingly good.
Could this be the most exciting new character act on the UK comedy scene? Time will tell. Probably not, though.
So last week I decided to split my set at the wonderful cult alternative comedy night Pinata in two, and perform Michael Spinach for the first half, then fall back on some more tried-and-tested routines from my new show for the second half - Pinata isn’t a new material night, so I didn’t want to stink the place out with something potentially awful. But I was enjoying this character and wanted to keep trying it out at nice gigs to see if it actually had legs.
The Michael Spinach stuff was really fun - I was still figuring out exactly where the big laughs were, but I felt genuinely connected to something funny, and plugged into the act of communicating that thing to the audience. After I moved on from that character and started doing stuff I was more familiar with, I noticed something change in the energy in the room - I had expected the new character stuff to potentially feel more hesitant or uncertain, and the old stuff to then build more energy into the room, but instead things now felt somehow more flat for a moment or two. Partway through performing this thing I’ve performed dozens of times in the last few months, I said to myself “Don’t forget, you’re supposed to care,” and something about that sentence completely transformed my experience of the gig. I remembered I was supposed to be performing this bit in the same way I’d performed Michael Spinach - as though it was a new idea just occurring to me that I was actively enjoying digging into, not something I had learned by repetition that I was now reciting from memory.
I don’t really know what I did next to change how the rest of the set felt. I don’t know what physically happened onstage that suddenly made them laugh more. Perhaps I opened my eyes a little wider, or the tone of my voice changed, or something shifted in the way I was standing or moving, but suddenly the energy crashed back into the room, and the rest of the set was an absolute delight. It’s so easy to think that being familiar with something and knowing it inside-out is the same thing as it being reliably good in front of an audience. It’s easy to think “OK, time to go onto auto-pilot now, I know this bit.” And of course, that will always kill whatever it is you’re doing. Audiences can tell when you’re not with them.
This is all obvious stuff that every comedian knows, of course, but every now and again you rediscover the live, in-the-moment experience of seeing how much it transforms a gig to reconnect directly with a routine rather than reciting it without caring. But what I’ve been enjoying this week is seeing how well that one sentence, that reminder, has mapped onto life in general.
“Don’t forget, you’re supposed to care,” I say to myself while washing up. Suddenly, the washing up stops feeling like a chore. I start to enjoy the act of tidying my home.
“Don’t forget, you’re supposed to care,” I say to myself while doing the strengthening exercises I’m supposed to be doing for my bad shoulder. Suddenly, I stop resenting the time it takes to manage my pain. I start to enjoy the act of taking care of myself.
“Don’t forget, you’re supposed to care,” I say to myself while clearing my inbox and getting back to messages I’ve missed. Suddenly, I stop typing out hasty replies designed purely to clear the decks and start putting some effort into writing something that engages with the person at the other end. I start to enjoy the act of communicating.
I had no idea that coming up with Michael Spinach would give me such a new lease of life and remind me how to live like a mighty river, but there we go. Good feelings come from the strangest places.
A Cool New Thing In Comedy - Miranda and I have just released our latest short sketch, a makeover show entitled Make Your Life Good Again. I had the idea because I’ve always wanted to see an episode of Queer Eye that doesn’t work. It was written by me and Miranda, directed by Miranda, shot by Max Brill and stars Christian Brighty, Sooz Kempner and myself. Everyone did such a brilliant job on it and I’m very proud of it. I hope you enjoy it!
What’s Made Me Laugh The Most - I watched Naked Gun 2 for the first time this week - somehow I’ve never got round to it before. I know people like to say “They don’t make things like that any more” too much these days, but honestly, films simply are not as funny as this any more. The scene where Richard Griffiths’ wheelchair goes haywire reduced me to a cackling wretch.
Book Of The Week - This Is What It Sounds Like by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas. This is basically my dream book. I couldn’t conceptualise a book more perfect for my brain. It’s about why we respond emotionally to music in the ways we do, and what we can learn about our own psychological makeup from the kinds of music we respond to. It’s also written by Prince’s old sound engineer. I’m one chapter in and it’s already shot to one of my top books of the year. Absolutely loving it.
Album Of The Week - Bad Love by Randy Newman. This is good, despite being essentially Randy Newman-by-numbers. He does acknowledge that at one point though, singing “Every record I make is like a record that I’ve made, but not as good,” and there’s another great bit where he tells his backing singers to shut up, then apologises for getting carried away. It’s good fun.
Film Of The Week - Paddington In Peru. I think this has been very unfairly maligned. It’s a really fun, silly, loveable adventure. It’s not as perfect as Paddington 2, but I think it’s on a par with the first one. Go and see it, it deserves more respect than it’s getting.
That’s all for this week! As ever, let me know what you thought, and if you enjoy this newsletter enough to send it to a friend or encourage others to subscribe, I’d really appreciate it! Take care of yourselves until next time,
Joz xx
PS One final reminder that we’re still crowdfunding for my sitcom pilot The Happiness Chain, drected by Ben Kent and starring Roisin O’Mahony, Huge Davies, Rosalie Minnitt, Phil Ellis and Donna Preston! We’ve got 1 week to go and are very close to our target but could still do with your support, so if you feel like donating, or sending the project to friends who you think might like to support, we’d be ever so grateful!
PPS This week’s live music highlight - Bonny Light Horseman at the Roundhouse. I love these guys so much:
