Joz Norris, comedian, writer and University of East Anglia alumni spoke on how paramount East Anglia was to his career.

Joz’s career began at UEA. He said: “I didn’t really figure comedy out until I was at uni, and joined the comedy club called Laugh Out Loud.

“I think in Norwich it really felt there was the space to just try things and build a scene for ourselves.”

Over his time at UEA, he found his absurdist/alternative act.

“I created this character for myself quite early on that was essentially the character of an incredibly deluded, aspiring artist who wants to be a comedian and wants to be a rock star.

“Except he doesn’t see how terrible he is.”

Since graduating Joz won the Comedians’ Choice Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019 for his show Joz Norris Is Dead: Long Live Mr Fruit Salad.

This show helped Joz define how comedy can express certain feelings.

He said: “In the show I disappeared and I’d been replaced by a cartoon character that was very clearly just me wearing a fake beard and it was about having an anxious breakdown.

“There is something about live comedy where you just get to be something very weird and somehow it’ll connect with a bunch of other people.

“There’s that sense of shared agreement around the thing, which I think is really nice.

“It feels like a great way of seeing and celebrating the ways in which people are weird or stupid and letting that be very pure rather than having to go through a lot of jumping through hoops to express it.”

However, it has not been all positive. Even though Joz has reached success since UEA he has still faced difficulties.

“There was one show where just nobody laughed at all for the full hour.

“I didn’t know what was going on because every other day went really well.

“At one point a woman shouted, shut up at me. 

“The tech broke halfway through the show, so we had to stop the show and get every tech in to try and help turn the lights back on.

“I tried to make light of it but the audience were already hating it so much that, that just wasn’t charming. 

“Then a woman in the front row who was the only woman who’d been enjoying it up to that point had a panic attack five minutes before the end because a big monster rabbit came out and it turned out she had a Watership down related trauma from childhood.

“It’s crazy, I have been doing this for 10 years and that can still happen.”

His advice for aspiring comedians.

” I think if you try  too hard to think about what would a comedian version of me do, then you’re going to start to get away from just finding out what it is about you that’s funny.

“So I think just trying not to be too self-conscious or imitative and just think about if there’s something that you do that makes you chuckle to yourself, do that.”

Joz Norris returns to Norwich next week in his show: You wait. Time Passes.

“Essentially, this show is the culmination of a lifetime’s work.  

“I am going to unveil it for the first time ever at Norwich Theatre Royal Stage 2 on the 31st of January.”

Image credit: Miranda Holms