The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Joe Sutherland

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Joe Sutherland is a stand-up, actor and writer with sold out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe who has appeared on Roast Battle and Hypothetical, acted opposite 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer on Urban Myths, and picked up a walk-on role on EastEnders as a Head Judge of a Walford beauty competition!Joe has also done tour support for the likes of Sophie Duker and Ellie Taylor, as well as RuPaul's Drag Race stars Trixie Mattel, Alyssa Edwards, Kate Butch and Sasha Velour. In this episode, we discuss:our shared history with a youth drama clubbeing smuggled into a comedy club as a child by his dad to see comics he now performs alongsidethe process of piling up one-liners then organising with a throughlinechoosing to lean into being perceived as an effeminate gay man rather than let others weaponise that perception firstrefusing to soften material for straight audiencesand we find out if Joe is happy...Join the Insiders Club at Patreon.com/ComComPod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to exclusive extras where we discuss how doing stand-up on a gay cruise saved Joe's life after lockdown.👉 Sign up to the ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok.Catch Up with Joe: You can find Joe on Instagram @jomodity, and keep up-to-date on future live dates at joesutherland.co.uk.Support our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod:✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes✅ Exclusive extra content with Joe✅ Early access to new episodes where possible✅ Exclusive membership offerings including weekly(ish) Stu&AsPLUS you’ll get access to the full back catalogue of extras you can find nowhere else!Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE ON TOUR, find out all the info and more at stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy. Discover my comedy about the climate crisis, for everyone from activists to CEOs, at stuartgoldsmith.com/climate.Get in touch: If you’re listening and thinking ‘I’d love to work with ComComPod on getting something out there’ or ‘there’s someone you should absolutely have on’ - drop us an email at [e-mail]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart here. You can go to Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy for tickets to my national tour. That's right. I'm taking my second ever climate comedy show. It's called Canary. I'm taking it to the Edinburgh Festival for the last two weeks of August at the Monkey Barrel, Cabaret Voltaire. And I shall see you there in the last two weeks of August. And then it's a national tour for this guy. Cambridge, Glasgow, Oxford, Manchester, Cardiff, Maidenhead, Sheffield and Birmingham, culminating in my biggest ever tour show at Bristol Old Vic. Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy for all your tickets. Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Stuart Goldsmith today. Very excited to be talking to Joe Sutherland, a stand-up actor and writer. He's sold-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe. You might have seen him on roast battle or hypothetical. He's acted opposite 30 Rocks Jack McBrayer on Urban Myths. And he was also, he had a walk-on role in EastEnders as a head judge of a Walford beauty competition. And he's also, and this will give you, I love knowing who people have done support for, but he's done support for Sophie Duker. and Ellie Taylor. So already you start to build a picture of who this Joe Sutherland is, even more so. He's also been tour support for Trixie Mattel, Alyssa Edwards, Kate Butch and Sasha Valor, who you and I know are RuPaul's Drag Race stars. And if you don't know me, you might think I'm being facetious, but I do know them, and I've seen many of them live. We are going to talk about, we're going to talk about mine and Joe's shared history with a youth drama club in Warwickshire. We weren't there at the same time, but we have lots and lots of people

common lots of mutuals from way back then, and we try to work out whether or not he saw me in a show when he was like six. We'll talk about him being smuggled into a comedy club as a child by his dad to see comics that he now performs alongside. We'll talk about shifting persona to belong in rooms built for different class backgrounds, and we'll talk about the process of piling up one-liners and treating comedy as a creative pursuit and a job in equal measure. So all of that is coming up. There's never been a better time. Never. Imagine if there was a better time to support this independently produced podcast. You can't imagine it, can you?

Because there's never been one. Three pound a month or more. All of the full video and audio. Extra content with Joe. I'll tell you more about that later on. The new format, Stu and A. There's lots of fun and sort of insight into what I'm, what's pinging and rattling around my mind if you don't get enough of that here.

But it's kind of different flavour. They're quite fun. And, of course, just basically knowing that you're supporting, You're one of a thin slice of listeners who I don't want to sound at all catty here. But I love the fact that it's a few of you. Loads of people listen. I listen to loads of podcasts. I don't contribute to.

But the ones I love, I do contribute to. And you could be one of those people. And what a lovely, fuzzy feeling that is. Here is Joe Sutherland. Thank you for coming along, Joe Sutherland. it's lovely to have you on the show at last. Thank you for having me. We're just discussing you being a comedy baby.

And you mentioned a cinema. Now, because I know that you're from Coventry and we share in the annals of our history, we share a youth drama club, I believe. We do indeed. So as soon as you mentioned a cinema, I saw the Coventry Showcase. But it wasn't that because you mentioned Little Dot. You were in London by then. I've just got this sort of collage of what your youth must have been.

I must have been like. So Cammer, do you? mind? Is it too? Like if I start an interview with someone and they want to talk about street performing, I'm like, it was years ago, man. But even though it was a long time ago, can you just briefly tell me about your association with the Playbox Theatre that you and I are both alumni of as children of the West Midlands? Gosh, I hope you do a sort of playlist of all the acts that you've spoken to who came through Playbox at some point. There are none. It's you. What? Yeah, it's rectify this immediately. Oh my God. Who else is there? Are there loads I don't know about?

Well, there's Dan Wye, who does wonderful stand-up, but also incredible drag as Seonce. Oh my God, I have no idea. Go on. Yeah, they were like a year or two younger than me. And then other people, I don't know. I definitely know of a few who sort of started comedy, were in and out of it for a while. I don't know how many have sustained it. I know that there are people who are definitely in the biz. Tabby Lamb is a wonderful playwright. But who, God, there must be more in comedy. Oh, no, that's, but listen, if any crop up, let me know now or later. I would love to know that.

That's so funny to me because I mean, I don't want to bore the listener or you by banging on about the sort of distant, distant past. But it's so lovely to me. I'm like, oh, yeah, you're a, you're from back then. We didn't know each other then, did? We did we meet? I've got what I think of is a memory of a young you. but I think the age gap between us is sufficient that we can't have. That's sort of, I think I've invented that once I found out you'd been there.

Possibly. I don't know. What year were you, sorry, let's do, we can cut all this if it's tedious. I'm just sort of fascinated to talk about. What year were you, what year did you leave there or start there? I mean, I sort of started going to, you know, your little weekly classes when I was about eight or nine years old. and then I left 10 years later at about 18.

Yes. And so it was in the middle of that, in sort of peak teenage years, that I was doing their main productions as part of the kind of semi-professional. The Dream Factory Theatre in Worry, which they opened just after I left. I was hardcore,

and they built this purpose-built theatre just after me and all my gang left. Oh, right. No, yeah, I was sort of post that then. Yeah, right. Okay, cool. All right, thank you. Because we'll know people in common.

And it's funny, I credit them with a lot. And because I learned to juggle when I was there, because one of the artistic directors, Stuart McGill was obsessed with circus, and I learned to juggle, and then when I went to Edinburgh for the first time with them, so they're like a key piece of, we did like Midsummer Night's Dream at Edinburgh in like 96.

And that was like a key. unpealing head thing. And I feel bad because I never mention it on podcast, because why would you? So let's not spend any more time talking about it. Now, other than to say, you were a young man in Coventry, were you theatrically inclined? Were you thinking a life in the theatre? Or were you thinking this is something to do at the weekend? Oh, I... Sorry, when I say theatrically inclined, that's not a euphemism for gay. I'm genuinely me. I was light on my feet, we'll say that much. I... No, I was a show off and my mum definitely had, I think the reason I even went to a young person's

theatre company is because my teachers sort of took my mum aside and they were like, take Joe to something like this. I don't know if it's because they were sort of saying, can you please, yeah, burn off some extra energy. He needs to stop interrupting everybody else's learning. But then that's, but then it was also, I'll match your story with Edinburgh. and actually the first Edinburgh show I have memory of watching is probably in about 93, so I'm what, five years old, and it was Playbox's Pinocchio. Oh my God!

I'm pleased to say I was in the original Pinocchio. I don't know what cast you saw, but I may have been in that if you were five. No, that was in Edinburgh, so you can't have been. How were you saying that in Edinburgh when you were five? Oh, well, my dad's Scottish. Yeah, Scotcha. Okay, you weren't born in Coventry.

Um, no, moved around a lot in early years and then also during, so I would be in Scotland every summer of my life anyway, uh, in that sort of classically Victorian way where you're like sent up on the train to your grandparents for a few months. Um, but, and then also my dad was a, uh, an English and a media studies teacher in a six form college and he used to, you would never get away with this now, but in the sort of mid 90s, he would take groups of 16 and 17 year olds to Edinburgh for a week and just let them run riot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we did. It was amazing. Insane. Yeah. Holy shit. But now he actually, yeah, he actually has people contact him on LinkedIn and say, you know, I was your student and because you gave us that freedom, you exposed us to all this

art and stuff and like that encourage me. I became a music journalist or I did this, I did that. Sure, sure. So, yeah, it's mad. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. We will, at the end of this, when we stop, when we actually finish the interview proper. And there's no reason, like, I'm embarrassed to it. I'm embarrassed because I also view you as a very real and very funny comedian. And it's, I feel, I don't want to undermine you as the guest by going, hey, this thing about when you were five, I think I may have been in that show. So let's work out later on whether or let's see if the dates matched up.

Because I was definitely in Pinocchio. That would be glorious. But now, to return to your actual life and comedy practice. So energetic, distracting child, getting in the way of other kids learning, you suspect. Yeah, I think I was a bit of a smart ass. And so if I'd sort of done the work, I was like, oh, well, that was easy enough. I felt like, let's put on a show. And it was always a bit of a case of, in fact, I have a bit at the moment about this,

about like finding, actually my brother found my old school reports. And it is so much along the lines of like, he's very bright but incredibly chatty. and, you know, we love his contributions, but he's really slowing everyone else down. Yeah, so that's sort of poisoned, barbed feedback, like backhanded compliments, I suppose. Yes, yes, for sure. So you're, and did you at that time see kind of either theatre or performance as a potential thing you could do with your life? Was there a moment for you at any point in your youth where you kind of went, hang on a minute, this month? might be the thing? Or was it something that you had to play with and then put down and... I don't know that I was even looking for... I was in such a fantasy a lot of the time.

So maybe yes, because I was like, like thinking, oh, if... Do you remember, okay, also a Midlands group, Cleopatra, the girl band. Okay, I didn't know they were... Come in at you. I swear they were from Birmingham. I might be wrong. A certain kinship with them, so maybe I didn't know who they were from the Midlands. But they had a TV show, I remember, like a kid's TV show. And they themselves were quite young.

And so I think it was like in that era of like child pop stars, maybe that's where. Oh, this is gross. But maybe that's, you know, then they were followed by sort of S Club juniors. And maybe like seeing young people working started to make me think. like oh actually like you can you can funnel this you don't just have to like live in your head you can actually do it out loud in the world a little bit um and then yeah and then i suppose at this young person's theatre company was uh able to audition for larger productions and occasionally yeah film producers would come by to try and find uh you know a certain boy wizard and

you know so they started to be audition were you i don't I don't remember, I don't know what the sort of timing is, but did you or your friends audition for, for Potter? Yeah, not, not around the first, but definitely like for the second and third films, yeah. That's so funny, because there's a, there's a kind of like, um, I've been so nervous in my life. Oh my God. There's like, there's like a stand up generational thing whereby I know, um, Josh Whitacom auditioned to be a hobbit. So there's like different, different franchises coming into different strata of comedy. So what's, what role did you? Let's just spend them. it on this. I promise we'll get to your actual comedy, but while we're ronping around your

childhood. No, leave it. Um, God. Actually, actually then, I remember one of the lads, uh, who played Charlie Bucket to my Willy Wonka. Um, he actually came very close. He was second in line for the role. It was in the second film. And I don't know, maybe they even cut the character, but it's definitely a character in the book who's a sort of like slightly pathetic boy. I can't remember the name. I'll be honest, I've deleted most of that franchise from my mind's library. Fair, no, absolutely understandable. Having given it the best part of my life. But yeah, it was definitely second film, yeah, a sort of like a, like a Neville Longbottom part two sort of character. It was like another one in that mould, yeah. Yes, okay, okay. And then presumably

with occasional kind of auditions for big movies and stuff, was that, again, was there a glimmer there of like, hey, this could be a thing or is this? Maybe, but I'm not, I feel like I'm setting this up as if it's a sort of a trap, as if you go, what, did you, did you not want to life on the boards? You know what I'm just sort of interested in like the, the kind of the roundabout way that you found yourself in comedy. Well, I think it was also, it was just such a brilliant escape from regular school to go and live this, a bit like a superhero, to go and live this whole other life on weeknights and

weekends where you were sort of glittering and talented and popular, which is all, you know, the kind of inverse to what regular school was like. Yeah. That's exactly. I've often thought, I've probably had this thought first in like therapy 20 years ago, like, oh, if you wanted to create me with all of my sort of passions and challenges, what you should do is put a kid in a school they have. hate and at the weekend let them go and show off in a drama company. And you're like, well, there we go. That's not we've laid the groundwork. Okay.

So what were your first, what was your first understanding of stand-up comedy? Again, quite early and largely at the fringe. Well, I mean, no, my dad and his wife are big fans. And actually, during their courtship, they would go to the Glee Club Birmingham, quite a lot. And so I remember they would get one of their students to come and babysit me. But I would then, I'd be trouble and I'd kind of run rings around the babysits so that I just wouldn't go to sleep so that I could be awake when my dad and Dawn got back and I could quiz them about it. I'm like, what is this place that you've been to? It sounds so weird that people kind of

stand up and tell jokes, but then other people in the crowd like shout at them. What's going on? And so I'd like get those stories relayed. And only a couple of years later, again at the fringe, far too young to be doing it, but my dad would sort of sneak me in to shows and sit me at the back. Unlike the audacity of some parents these days who will bring their 11-year-old. The other night, oh my God, front row of the 99 club, an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old. It was nightmare. But I remember seeing them being like, sit at the back.

Have some decorum. Like, if you're going to put your child at the front, you're obviously then the target for the entire night. But yeah, so we would sort of sit the back and it's terrible because now I'd like gig with some of those people that I remember watching and I do not want to tell them. Like, yeah, I used to watch you when I was 12 years old because I don't want to make you feel heinously old. Oh, go on. Like who? Like who? Who did you see? Oh, like Edburn. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we get, understandably, you wouldn't be the first person.

I'm sure to tell Ed Byrne you'd watched him as a child. I mean, let's just, I think that sentence is absolutely fine. I just, you know, I hate to put someone in that awkward situation. But it is always there in the back of my mind when I see him. I'm like, I remember like, yeah, sort of fan girling as a child over you. Yeah. Yeah, and others. And then I feel like I remember going to see.

what year would that have been? It was probably talking, what, like 99, 2000? Oh my God, we're really dredging. Well, I just think it's quite unusual in a newer, I know, we had this conversation last time I saw you at the comedy box. I was like, oh, I think of you as a newer comic. And I'm like, oh, you've done 15, every show, whatever. But I just like, generationally, it's like, I feel like,

oh, yes, Joe, one of the new guys. But it's quite unusual for a comic to have seen that to have been at the Edinburgh Festival as a child. Like I remember embarrassing myself in front of Harry Hill when I was 16 and I shudder every time I sort of see him in person. I'm like, oh my God, in the Pleasant's Courtyard because I was there, you know, with the playbox there. I remember, funnily enough, I had a playbox theatre sweatshirt as you're encouraged. You see people in the high street wearing the garb to advertise the show. I went up to Harry Hill. He was talking to Tim Vine.

I was 16 years old. I said, oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. They were talking. I just barged in. I was like, sorry to interrupt. I just want to say I'm a really big fan. Completely ignored Tim, who I'm now also, a really big fan. I was like, I know who, I know Harry Hill is.

And he looked at me and he looked me up and down, and he said, oh, thank you. I'm a very big fan of the Playbox theatre. And I was like, what a gent. That's, that's slick. Yeah. Super slick. So you saw lots and lots of stuff. Like I always assumed, I think when I started comedy, I assumed that every.

everyone else was a big comedy fan who'd been to Edinburgh, who'd been to festivals, who'd seen loads and loads of shows. And a lot of the time it wasn't like that at all. And they were just people with regular jobs who thought, oh, I'll have a go at that. They'd like see some on telly and just gone, oh, I'll try that. Have you not spent the last 10 years of your life chasing after Harry Hill and the Pleasants courtyard? So I think you had, you must have had a slightly similar experience to that of like having

seen a huge, like a kind of a gamut of different styles and possibilities. Oh yeah, definitely. really early on that it was like kind of open playing field and you know me and my friend finn then as teenagers we would just quote eddie azard suzy eddie azard endlessly at each other uh we knew every vhs sort of back to front um but then i also yeah and then uh that sort of carried through i guess through to the early days of youtube then i was like oh i've got access to people around the world and would sort of be watching clips of Australians and Americans shot on probably like really crappy DV cams pre you know video smartphones so yeah I guess

it was just always this like ongoing little obsession but it didn't really click for me that that was what I wanted to do until I was until I was the grand old age of I don't know 24 was something yeah yeah which at the time feels so old when you're 24 you're like oh my god I'm past it like everybody who's cool is like figured out their thing and so and then but then you sort of start doing open mics and you realize like oh no I'm alongside people who are like can you believe it in their 30s yeah and you sort of think oh I might be I might be fine well I want to come back to age because I know age and your age and you're like you've you've had a lot of comic mileage and kind of persona out of the sort of in the show that

you sent me with all the aging twink kind of framing of that show there's a lot and I've seen as other clips of you talking about your age. There was some I was watching this morning about, there was a line you had about, because I'm going to be 35 in just four years. Do you mean? Like you really kind of... Oh my God. Well, that dates that clip, yeah.

An older bit, you know. So we'll come back to the idea of ageing. But just in terms of like what happened then, did you go to university? Did you study? Like, what was the interim period before you actually first picked up a mic? Yeah, I sort of went around the houses of the art. Like I'd kind of been doing, obviously been doing the youth theatre and had joined their professional wing, which sort of trains you for drama school auditions. And then at the last minute, changed my mind about that.

I think I developed a bit of a chip on my shoulder about class, kind of realizing that to be in a theatre group in Warwickshire coming from Coventry, realizing like the proportion of people in States. schools versus private schools. I was a bit like, oh, something, something interesting is happening here. And I sort of started to see myself through other people's eyes in a way and was like, oh, maybe then I want to try some other things. They didn't like put me off performance. It may be just like the image I was being given of what drama school would be kind of made me think like, oh, everybody's going to come from a private school and sort of look down on me, maybe. I don't know. Not that that was my universe. experience at Playbox, it was just, there was, it was, it was, it was just something about, I don't know, you're 16 and you're trying to like develop a personality. So I think I read like two pages of

Karl Marx and was like, this is me now. Yeah, understandably, as you're, as you say, discovering yourself and building yourself and that moment, I mean, life is just, particularly the life of adolescent is full of just paradigm shift after paradigm shift where you're kind of going, oh, this isn't, I've made all these assumptions about what. this is and who you are and who I am and kind of learning what those things are. So then, so then where did you go? Did you, did you, did you end up working or what did you? So then I actually did, I went and did a B-Tech in fashion and textiles at Warwickshire College, which was a bit of fun. But then again, with in mind, I was thinking, well, I'll go and study

fashion. I'll go and do a degree in fashion. But then again, had the same sort of thing, almost. two years later where I was like looking at what the industry is and thinking like, well, then really you're, that's just, that's a luxury industry. That's the machine. It's like you create stuff that, you know, you aspire to be working in this echelon that caters to the whims of the billionaire class. And then there's the sort of trickle down of it. And maybe that's, and again, maybe I was sort of starting to get a bit of like climate consciousness. And I was a bit like, no, then I won't do that. And so then I pivot. And then I went. And then I went. did a very, a really fun, but perhaps in hindsight, poorly chosen degree. And I chose it because

it was basically the same one that both Jarvis Cocker and MIA had done. So it was like fine art sort of video and four dimensional practice. Oh, nice. Where was that? So that was, I was at Wimbledon College of Art in the University of the Arts, London with like, and then I was kind of doing other bits in the other colleges. And so, but in a wet, like, I do look at what I kind of do now and how much of what I do exists online. And I've always loved making videos as well. And so actually, the hard skills that I learned there are still in practice today. So I at least got that out of it, like a sense of how you make video on a nothing budget and how you just like train up your skills and how you experiment with stuff like that.

So I've at least got that. And yeah, but it was just, it was the timing of it. I think I started that degree and then two months later, the great financial crash of the late naughties occurred. And so the very idea of having like a kind of tapestried creative education that you could then apply in various directions really shifted. And so yeah, so then I came out and. was then, yeah, just like working bit jobs, trying to like get a job in a gallery.

Like I really wanted to be like a gallery technician, which I did then eventually start doing for a couple of years when I started comedy. But yeah, there was just, there was those interim years of like working. Okay, no, I won't skip over everything. Then I did a bit of modeling, made no money, but had my first experiences of kind of something very similar, I suppose, to comedy in that you are like a self-employed, practitioner, you have an agent, a manager, things like that. And I sort of have my early experiences of that and hated it so stopped and then, yeah,

picked up the microphone maybe a year or two later, something like that. These are all, you mentioned the word luxury in the context of kind of textiles and kind of fashion. And it's interesting, as you have gone round the houses of the arts, they're all quite luxury like sort of video expression gallery to, they're quite high end. Like I feel I went around the houses of the arts, but it was like a bit of pub magic and some juggling on the street. It's a little bit kind of grubby. But these are like, these are sort of quite, do you think there was something, you mentioned class before. Do you think that there was something either aspirational to kind of join a sort of luxury class through art? Or was it a sort of combative, I can prove that I can be

part of this despite the lack of a private school education? Wow, what a question. It's giving therapy. I would say, yeah, I think I've always had a bit of a drive to sort of prove, prove that I can do things in certain realms that maybe weren't as easy for me or someone of my background or otherwise to access. Yeah. sort of prove that I but also I don't know maybe I'm quite cheeky maybe I quite like sort of dipping in being like yeah see I can do that next

and then move on something else yeah maybe there's something of that and also I don't know I'm just I'm a bit of a magpie I've got expensive taste you know on a on a on a prececo budget I was remembering your bit

about the Louis Vuitton handbag but I was also reflecting on whether whether anyone on the five hundred 112 preceding episodes of this podcast has said something like, I've got expensive tastes. I love that. That's lovely. Big part of the persona, part of the approach.

So bringing yourself then to comedy, having done it, having you established a lot of groundwork there. Can I ask, if there was something about class in those different sort of things, how does that interface with comedy? Like I've got an understanding, I guess, of the basic mechanisms whereby class and comedy interface with each other such that if you've got to earn money, you've got to be invited back so you can't take as many creative risks, so you can't fail. So there's a risk of ending up a kind of like journey person. Do you mean, I've got a kind of a basic sense of, like I was very lucky in that I've got, you know, very sort of middle class background. But also when I was in London starting to be a comic, I was a street before. so I had a very flexible job that I could do whilst doing open mics. And only afterwards am I like, Jesus, that was lucky.

Like, holy shit, because, like, the ability to turn down a shit gig. I had the ability to turn down a shit gig, and that's an absolute privilege, isn't it? So what was your experience of those first few years of bringing yourself to comedy? And just keep one, let's just have an exterior lens on the kind of class relationship. Well, yeah, I was working, but I kind of quite quickly, you know, got hooked, loved the sensation of both in the writing and the performance, like when something clicked, really felt like, oh, I just, I want more of this. And as we've mapped, I'd been aware of, like, comedy as an ecosystem as a landscape. my whole life. So I knew it wasn't impossible

that you can turn it into a job. But that did mean that from the very beginning, that was my mindset. Whilst it is a creative endeavor, it's also, I want this to be a job. I want to be a business. I want to be an entrepreneur in this regard. And I want to find my way towards that.

Because otherwise, it sort of felt like too much of a folly. Like, would you really, sacrifice so much for something that doesn't give you any return. Like the idea, even to this day, I kind of find myself in certain situations and I'm like, God, if I told my grandma where I am right now for this money, she would slap me across the face. So, so yeah, so there was that mind and. Yeah, I don't quite know how successful that has been this far.

But I've tried to then I've tried not to let that hinder the creative goals. I still try to sit down and ask myself, well, what is it that I enjoy in the creativity of it? but that's always got a lens of like and how is that monetizable like the two are not inseparable for me they're not they're not you know mutually exclusive um yeah but then but then that is also something that i like and i think it applies well to my writing style i think i i i like quick jokes i like to kind of run to a what are those things called that a metronome yes a metronome yes um and i think that that applies very well to a lot of formats, be they online or live. And so I like the creative challenge of that. I like the creative challenge of looking at existing forums and formats and thinking, okay, how do I bring myself to that rather than pushing other boundaries?

I don't know. I'll never be a clown, is what I'm saying. Sure. I'll never sort of sacrifice my ego to that degree. Yes. Oh, that's interesting. Yes. Well,

I think one of the things that's really impressive about your comedy is the gag rate. And certainly that clip I was watching this morning, and as well in the show that you taped that I saw, which is, which one did I see? Was it, um, uh, Miss World. I forget Miss World, of course. You great titles.

Was your debut called model slash actress? Hell of a cycle. Hell of a title, so great. But something, in that one as well, but particularly in this clip, which was the section on the spice girls that I happen to be watching this morning, the gag rate is phenomenal. It really is. It's done like what the Americans call. You've pressed all the air out of it. It's just like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Really, really impressive. Oh, thank you. With your kind of entrepreneurial spirit in mind, how deliberate is that and how is that a happy accident, given that that stuff lends itself very well towards socials and tiny little short jokes that you can bang out and snip up. Like if you've got a 10 minute set taped, I imagine you can get 30 clips out of it, as opposed to some comics who'd get two clips out of it and they'd both be a bit too long. And by some comics, I mean me. I'd say, I think it is a happy accident.

I think actually the two have collided, because actually the people I was drawn to when I was watching those YouTube clips. and, you know, the style that I am most electrified by when I watch other people's work and their write-it, which isn't to say that I disregard people who do more long-form. Like, I think I'd just love to watch someone doing what they do well. But the people that I was, I've always been most attracted to are a bit more one-linery. And so either they are one-liner joker smiths or they do, the delightful Tim Renko once said to me, and it's a compliment that I hold in my heart and take with me everywhere. And whenever I feel a bit low, I bring it back up to myself,

which is, he said, I love your style because you do jokes disguised as a story. Yes. Yeah. And actually, I think he really nailed it there. Because it's like, okay, I know I've got this like umbrella topic or I know I've got like this frustration, but I want it to essentially, I want to kind of pool together seven couplets. And then I'll decide on the order of them that they go in. You know, I'm not doing a linear A to B.

Like, I feel like this about this and here is my conclusion. I'm kind of like splurging it all down and then siphoning through and being like, well, these ones feel a bit more like set up and these ones feel a bit more like conclusion. But they're not, yeah, I'm not being, I'm not getting them out in a linear fashion. I'm sort of, I'm just piling them up and then organising them. So this is Joe. You can keep up to date with him on. On Instagram at Joe Modity. Joe modity.

You could also find out his live dates when he has some. He's not on tour just now, but if you go to joe sutherland.com. UK, you can find out. And I tell you someone who is going on tour, that's me. For the first time in a long time with my new show, Canary. Thank you to everyone that came out last night at the Guildford Comedy Festival. I'm going to Shrewsbury. I'm going to, I've got a bunch of London previews still coming up.

They are, yeah, have a look at Stuart Goldsmith.com and click the comedy tab. and you will see not just the tour dates, which I'll tell you in a second, but also the work-in-progress dates, because the more, the merrier for those. The one in Guildford was a lovely mix of old-school Neil, Neil, Orange Peel Peters was there, lovely to see him, some old-school infinite sofa fans, some pod people, some people who've seen me on tour way back when, and loads of new sustainability people as well. Well, I can't call them new sustainability people,

because some of them were not very new. But they're new to me, and they were a glorious audience, and the show is really cooking now, man. I've got the bit between my teeth. I'm in exactly the right place. I'm recording this on the 9th of July, and that's it. I've got it. I've got it by the throat, man. I'm so excited.

It's going to be at Edinburgh at Cabaret Voltaire from the 17th to the 30th of August. I would never normally say Cabaret Voltaire long hand like that. I'd say Cab Val, like all good-hearted people. 2.25pm, Monkey Barrel, Comedy. And then I am going on tour. I'm going to be in Cambridge. I'm going to be at the new Glasgow stand. I'm stoked about that.

If you're in Glasgow or know people in Glasgow, come along, send them along to see me at Glasgow. That's the 16th of September. Really looking forward to that, not played that room before. I'll be at the old fire station in Oxford, the Fairfield Social Club in Manchester, Sherman Theatre Cardiff,

Norden Farm Maidenhead, the foundry in Sheffield, and a lovely chat with Toby Foster yesterday on BBC Radio, Yorkshire. And I'll be the Glee Club in Birmingham. And then, I'm pleased to tell you that the biggest headline show of my sweet career is Bristol Old Vic on the 18th of November and the stalls have almost entirely gone. So we've got

a dress circle, we've got some sides, and I think we've even got a couple of boxes if you're a high roller, but the stalls are now almost sold out. So jump on that. I'm so glad I'm where I am with that, because that's a big number of tickets for yours truly. Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy to find out all about that. You can also sign up to the mailing list there for Comcompod. In the second half, we are going to talk about choosing to lean into being perceived as an effeminate gay man rather than letting other people weaponise that perception first.

We'll talk about refusing to soften material for straight audiences and we'll find out whether or not the bastard's happy. All good gear, let's get back to Joe Sutherland. How often do you write? Are you disciplined about it? Does it fall into your head or not? What kind of writer are you? It's like I've kind of

decided to open a door and in that door is everything pertaining to, for instance, age. Like every feeling I've had about age and aging, my age, how my age is perceived, how I feel in my body as it ages. Everything is in that cupboard. And so sort of open that door and then I'll ignore all the other doors for a few weeks.

I'm just looking at that one and I'm kind of like pulling everything off the shelves and hoping for something to kind of stand out. and then like maybe sit with that one for a while. So it might just be, so how to make that. It's like splurging on a page a little bit. Sometimes I need to like kickstart the engine a little bit. Yeah, why not add another metaphor? So I'll, you know, sort of think like, okay, this element, like the number,

the next number approaching, I'll be 38 at the end of the year. So I'll like put that at the top of the page and it's just like, blah, blah, blah, 25 minutes. of fill the page. Was there anything in there, even if it was just a refrain of three words that I can then highlight, pull out, take away, put it in a sentence. And then sometimes nothing comes of it, but you've at least planted a seed and two weeks later, something pops into your head, which kind of comes from that. And if it has the structure of a joke, then it's more likely that I'll kind of start on a run of like, okay, I've got that joke. It's got that.

but um bum boom here's a tag here's a tag and then it's kind of it's opened another door within a door so then i i can kind of yeah i can repeat yes gotcha yeah gotcha okay yes and it's like that is i think that's an important thing is as soon as you've got a bit to end on like sometimes i'll as soon as i go like okay i've got three things on the four things on this subject one of them is good enough that i can put it at the end and end on it and then i can get on stage and what i would normally do is sort of have some ideas of jokes and then piss about improvising knowing that I can get to an end point that's to do with the subject.

So do you ever, like, do you know what I mean? It's like stretch it out to see if I can put myself in danger and try and make some creative leaps, knowing that there's a good one at the end. Do you ever do that or are you all, is everything you say on stage written? No, yeah, both. Sort of bouncing in between the two.

So it's like I've got those, those bits, those sort of couplets perhaps and you know maybe I've arranged three of them in a row and that's a sort of stepping stone and then I know that I've got some more over there but I know that there's a little bit more which is often based in like feeling or I know that it's going to like need to respond to a reaction so say like I've got a bit that I feel like I really only just finished and it was in the Miss World show but now the version that I've got of it is way better and it's because I've found And yeah, well, I've got it filmed. I'll put it out as a clip. It'll live its life yet. Yeah. But with that bit, for instance, like I'd found a funny angle and then I'd found like some punchlines.

But the kind of setup of it wasn't very, it was like a bit off, a bit aggressive. And it was going to kind of have quite an obelior. like response from the audience if you just like posit it as a straightforward. I'll I'll break it down. I'll run you through it. So go on, go on. The original kind of seed of the joke was sort of imagining say you're a teenager with two like very catty gay dads like absolute stereotypes, like 1990s TV stereotypes of gay men as your dads. And you're going to leave the house and your dad turns to you and says, oh, you're not going out dressed like that. You don't have the thighs. Yeah. Yeah. And so it just started as that. Just that as the little run of words, the thought. And so then I'm sort of stepping back and trying to frame it. And so my original framing was like, do I think that gay men

shouldn't have children because of this? And I was like, well, no, I don't believe that. That's not rooted in truth. And also to say that, people are then going to respond with like, how dare you? And so, like, I'd sort of run. I think it evolved. It went. through a few different angles. And now the framing of it that I think has been the most successful is to kind of say, like let the audience in on a secret, which is that I believe everyone should be allowed one really bad opinion. And mine is that 99% of gay men should not be allowed to have children because 99% of gay men

are, say it with me, terrible people. So then it frames it that it sort of says like, Like, no, there are good gay parents, but there is also like this existent stereotype. And I'm lumping myself in that. I'm sort of putting myself in the position of like, oh, if my child kind of came to me, like, this would be the most likely response. You know, they'd be getting gassed and bullied by their own dads. So yeah, that was a sort of like having to turn something over three or four times. And that largely came from having the kind of the stepping stones, but then in the live, like responding to people's responses and realizing that I needed to couch it in a way that works.

Yes. So is that reframing? Like I have a bit that I've spent ages reframing and now it's an absolute peach of a bit. It's probably my favorite bit that I've ever written about going mental in a forest. and it forms a part of the beginning of my Edinburgh show that's going up this year, which is about not knowing, like feeling like everything's fine, life's great, and there's a moment where you're like, oh God, no, what was I thinking, everything's dreadful, and then flick, no, no, everything's fine again. That's the kind of the world of it. It was too destabilising for an audience because they'd be like, I think my audience care about me.

You know, the contract I make with them is that they quite like me. And if I talk about something as exposing as feeling like, you know, feeling like a piece of shit, then they don't really like it. They want me to be okay. And now I've found a way to frame the whole bit as, I don't know if this is relatable, but, and then I can do the punchline and then look at them like, is that relatable?

And then they really warm for it. So it's like the reframing, just as in that example, it kind of gives you permission to do it, like social permission to do it, and it gives them permission to laugh at it. I'm interested in whether being gay and doing material about being gay and material about elements of a gay lifestyle, whether the relationship to a largely heterosexual audience,

you know, which I'm sure you often play as well as other audiences, whether the framing of it has to be, is a challenge, is a different challenge. Like do you need to, or do you find that you naturally frame different bits differently for different audiences, or is it a case of finding one frame that works wherever you are?

I think, I think my yeah I think I always try to find a universal framing because I would hate to feel like I'm adapting myself for no offense straight people if anything if anything I feel like I need to do more work to adapt to say say if I'm on a gay cruise I realize that like everybody's already got like 60% of the kind of requisite information. So actually, and like, and stuff that does exist, like, stuff that works better in out in the real world because it's existing in a place where the audience is going to be more diverse than that, maybe won't land as hard in a gay cruise context.

So, yeah, so I find myself having to adapt more in that. But I think maybe you have to do that whenever an audience is sort of too much of one type of person. I don't know. Sure, sure. But otherwise, no. My goal is really like, yeah, to be as gay as possible in as many people's faces as possible. And yeah, and I quite enjoy. like teasing the audience in a little bit.

Like, you know, I'll bring them in and we'll have stuff that's like incredibly relatable. Like, look, this is just about a relationship. This is just about having a family. This is just about being in a body. Always knowing that some, not everybody, but I'm very aware of being seen through a certain lens as an effeminate gay man. And therefore, people bring their own baggage to that. And so rather than rally against that, I'd almost rather take it on, but like, like, head on and be like, well, if I'm already going to be perceived like that, then I might as well run into it, have some fun, tell some really dirty jokes. And then veer over here and do what I want to do over here and then come back at like, you know, it's mine to play with just as much as it is anybody else is to sort of.

throw at me. Yes. Yeah, yeah, well, that's, I think that's a kind of, that kind of thing of like,

reappropriating, not just language, but reappropriating people's perception of you. Like that's a kind of, that's a, a, a, um,

I don't mean, if I say it's a well, it's a well-worn path, a well-trodden path. I don't mean that like you, you're doing it in a well-trodden way. But I think that's, that's an understandable approach.

I think that, that, you know, that people are taken before to go, You know, even like the reappropriation of the term queer or, you know, any kind of something that started off as a slur and then became something to be proud of. When you said before that you want to be in, like,

get in their faces and be as gay as possible in their faces, I'm really interested in that. I think that's like, is that a side quest? Is that the purpose? Is that like the bedrock of the thing? Just talk to me a little bit more about that because I love how you do that. I've seen you do that live.

I've seen you do that on video. And even just when you're talking to me going, no offense, straight, you know, like that whole kind of framing is like, this is my basic position of, like the,

just then, I know it's a passing joke, which I'm sure you said before, but like, no offense straight. It's like a brilliant example. That's like a crystallized example of turning on its head

the traditional kind of heteronormative gaze. Is it a side quest? Is it the main thing? it's I suppose it's a side quest in so much as like the thing I do love doing is writing and performing jokes and you know I was brought into it by watching and loving people performing jokes and but then maybe coming back to this idea of like you know being attracted to like exclusive spaces luxurious spaces like having a chip on my shoulder wanting to like prove that I can maybe I do just still have hello therapy maybe I do just still have like unheeled you know sort of

scars from say school age and whatnot where it's like the label is put on you you are seen in only one way and therefore like you're sort of held back and I think that's largely because that has unfortunately been quite prevalent in in doing comedy as well whether that's um you know other acts kind of being a bit, you know, just like their banter in a green room overstepping the mark where it's like using certain language and it's like, mate, I don't know you. You don't need to be talking to me like this. Or it's audiences who, you know, maybe it's like a stag do want to like kind of get some power over you and so they try and like, you know, become the dominant force in the room. Or it's even, you know, it's a review that like opens with a paragraph which is doing.

it's utmost to try and keep you in your box and sort of saying like, oh, like, you know, it's another camp affair from Joe Sutherland. And it's like it's the people perpetrating that might not be aware of it as homophobia. But if you've like been on the receiving end of it for three and a half decades, you know, you know it when you see it. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a way of like, owning the room and owning like the power of the space. I'm,

I can't change. I'm a decent actor, but I can't like change who I am. Nor do I want to sort of, um, uh, pander. I think,

uh, yeah, I think that's sort of the worst thing we can do. And we can all be guilty of it at times, especially if like a gig is going badly, you sort of feel like, oh, what can I do to please these people?

But, um, But yeah, I want to be able to do me in a way that I retain. Is this arrogant? But I, you know, I want to keep the power in the room. I want to own it. Like, that's the reason I'm literally on stage with a microphone. And so I think, you know, fully knowing that I will be viewed through a lens as like an

feminine gay man who, you know, we've, you know, there are, there's, there's a lineage of them and they, and they've been allowed to succeed in certain ways, but maybe not others. And I guess I don't quite know what my point is here, other than, no, I'm going to need a prompt to get me out of this. No, that's, I've dug myself in a, no, no, I know where you're coming from and it's very difficult to talk about. I can only imagine how hard it must be to talk about without, it's like, say, For example, I remember talking to Nick Mohamed about writing sitcoms. He said, if you've got brown skin and you write a sitcom that isn't about the fact that you've got brown skin, then people are less interested because they want a particular thing from you.

They've made a decision as to what it is that you have to offer. And the reason I mentioned that is we were saying it's very hard for him. He has to choose his words very carefully so as not to seem ungrateful for all the things he has gotten. and, you know, all of those, even I'm having to choose my words carefully, so I don't misrepresent him. You know, it's like, it must be incredibly hard. So I appreciate that it's difficult to talk about. I remember talking to Daniel Fox about this as well, particularly about reviewers. And I've read a couple of those reviews of yours.

I think I've read the one that you're referring to. And it was really this kind of swinging review where he literally sets out a stall by going, ho-hum, yet another camp-act sort of thing in a way that, that doesn't speak to you and what you're doing at all. It's such a, it's like offensive. Yeah. I remember, just to toot my own horn, like, after one show in my second Edinburgh run, I remember having these two women come up to me and it was like, it really sort of like, it was a bit of a gut punch, but they said, thank you for the way that you just talk about being a minority. Like, we're not white gay men, but we like felt that.

and I was just like, oh, okay, yeah, this is, this is, I'm onto something here. So I guess, yeah, I guess what I'm trying to like frame is that it's never quite been a conscious goal. It's always been a response to the world in which I find myself. And, and caught a lot of conversations that I have with other queer and effeminate, largely male comedians. And actually, that was something that I really, really loved at last year's fringe. was the amount of camp male presenting acts who just fucking did it. Like Dylan Adler, James Barr, like loads of people were just like going for it and being being that camp and gay without sort of being scared of it.

I feel like maybe when I started comedy, there was a lot of like people were sort of rewarded for being like, oh, he happens to be gay. Oh, he just happens to be gay. Sure. You know, it sort of had to be this thing over on the other side. Or there were certain people who I felt at the time were pandering to a straight lens and who have since evolved and I think do great work. But yeah, well, I just, I've really loved. And I really love seeing it in this next wave of queer acts as well, where I'm like,

oh, you just, you don't like give a shit for that anymore. It's so good. Because it also allows you to tap into the pantheon. You know, like there is a great lineage of, especially in this country, of queer acts and especially camp male acts. And so the freedom to like, to reference them and, and know that there's like, that you have a shared history there and a space in the entertainment world, whereas it felt like a sort of dirty thing like 12 years ago. Yes. Yes. What's the... Thank you for that. It's one of those things I think that it's one of those elements of comedy like class that is just not really... It feels so niche. It doesn't...

People don't realize the extent to which it's everywhere. Do you know what I mean? And I think that... I'd be interested to know your feelings on the relationship between camp and authenticity. Or like camp and... and like an authentic persona in the way comics do they kind of chip away at themselves

not all of them but some of them will chip away at themselves and going who is the most real me the me that I am like one way of looking at it might be the me that I am with my friends and if you're also camp with your friends then that's you

so just I'm, do you know what I'm interested in what your understanding is of the relationship because I do wonder whether whether it's just kind of homophobic or internal, like, unwitting homophobia on the part of critics, or whether what they, what they are perceiving is what they think is in authenticity.

Yeah. Because someone is adopting elements of a, like you say, a pantheon, elements of a way of speaking. And I wonder, not to, do you know what I mean? I'm sure it is homophobia, but I'm interested in what your thoughts are about the relationship between camp and authenticity. I see Camp as, I think it's historically, it's a mode of behavior that is a shield. It's a suit of armour that allows one to kind of navigate the world. And I think it's a really unique gift and it's something that I really appreciate because I've seen so many queer acts,

both in comedy and in other, in cabaret and in drag. And actually it's something that I've really learned to appreciate through doing gay cruiser. and working with so many queer acts and so many drag queens where I'm like, oh, actually, like, we all have this shared language of camp and we all understand that nuance. We understand that actually what it is, is not artifice. It is like it is, I think RuPaul talks about how when you put on the drag is actually when the true you comes out. And so people might struggle to get their head around that sometimes because it's like,

oh, but you're putting on a layer of artifice to then be authentic. and it's like, yeah, sometimes because actually if you've kind of navigated the world feeling very vulnerable and being attacked before you were ready for it, then you had to kind of develop something. You had to put a layer in between. And that is your, I don't want to make it sound like it's a layer of distancing. Actually, I do think it is a key because it is a lens through which to view the world, like especially if you've been a little bit frozen out, a little bit cast a little bit like reduced in people's perception, then it's a lens through which you can kind of, maybe sometimes it's arch, maybe sometimes you're trying to step above and like look down.

Maybe sometimes you're looking from the side, but it is a way of seeing, check, Susan Sontag, that allows you to bring your authenticity to it. Is this making any sense? No, absolutely. I think very well said. I think very well said. Absolutely. I think that what it reminds me of is, and it's, this is like a kind of, I think this is quite a pathetic analogy that does, I think, a disservice to the point you're making. But one of the things it made me think was that I find it easier to be silly if I do a voice. Like if I put on a, you know, a Welsh accent or something. Or if I'm doing an act out, let's say. If I, if I'm, if I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, I've got a joke about broccoli and if I can be broccoli briefly. I'll be more creative because it's unlocking it. It's like a vehicle in which to be more creative. And that creativity maybe is more real because it's ideas that I'm having

instead of me feeling trapped in the person that I'm presenting. Do you see? I mean that the role that I've decided I am in front of people or that I've found that I am in front of people, that's still a role that I'm playing. So if I can be a silly version of that, you know, whether a bit of a glimpse of a character or an object or embodying something, then it enables me to be a true aversion of myself.

I hope that isn't an offensive analogy to the pantheon that you're saying. But I feel like that there has something in common with that. No, that is perfect. I mean, could you imagine being only one person for like your entire, how boring? We are, we do contain multitudes. Like you've got to. And so, yeah, I think actually like pivoting and playing around. is the way to get to more authenticity,

even if it is layered. Like, you just made me think of actually how there are certain points, certainly in the show that you've seen and in other stuff that I've written, where actually if I've touched on something that's actually a slightly seedier or, like, darker psychological element of, like, a gay experience, I'll actually go into a really laddie voice. Yeah, okay. You see, I'm sort of doing the inverse, but it's because it does allow me to, like,

get some, like, slip a little truth in there, but make it funny and, and lift it up and highlight it. And, and that laddie voice still does feel like me. Like, it's not, it's not entirely a cat, like, it's, it's fun. Like, we all, we're all just assemblages of references that we've picked up along the way. Like, I don't know. Um, so yeah, I think that's, I think everybody should be trying to put on and take off multiple hats. I think the idea of trying to present one idea of like your authentic self is perhaps the most inauthentic thing you can do. Oh, that was a very wise thing to say, Joe.

I think before we leave this part of the subject, I think the, I just wanted to reference the three, I think there's three different sections in that show, Miss World. that you do at pace where you you kind of speed through a very tightly written and learned, kind of drilled piece of political thought. Yeah, diatribe. Diatribe, if you will, but the framing of it, again, when you're talking in the final, I think in the final section of it, you say, meanwhile, trans and queer people are in danger,

and that's only because liberal governments are leaning to the right to attract fascists. that's a kind of half-remembered hastily written version of it. But the framing of it is such that, but what do I know, I'm just a dumb slut? And that's what I love about that. It's such a cake and eat it kind of moment. It's such a delicious sort of moment to kind of be able to, like, tell me about the kind of the genesis of that bit

and how that bit is to perform and frame like that. Because I really loved watching that. And I'm just interested in what the impulse was behind it. That's perhaps become one of my little tropes, actually. I think I've done it in probably every show. And I think it's like evolved. And maybe this was the most successful version. No, no, they've all been successful.

But yeah, it's a thing that I've not even consciously done. It's just something that I found myself doing in structuring a one-hour show is having these moments where perhaps I've like gone somewhere really high octane. I've delivered you a lot of like, you know, camp. quips over stuff that's a bit more relatable and then I've taken you somewhere else and then I sort of slip into these moments of having like my actual genuine um blummin you know preseco socialist beliefs slipped in but I but I try and do it in a way where I yeah I have something that is like delivered with an air of authenticity but usually quite sped up and then I pull the rug and have

something else so I had in my third show uh I only just rewatched this bit and had one of those moments where you really pat yourself on the back and you're like, that's good writing. But in my third show, it sort of mapped the Spice Girls reunion onto Brexit. And so because there had been this backlash in the kind of growing, you know, it was like peak woke 2019 internet culture. So they'd been this backlash to the Spice Girls over them saying like, oh, yeah, we're coming back. But this time it's not just girl power, it's people power. And like some parts of the internet had said like, oh, well, that's actually, you know, that's like the equivalent of saying all lives matter.

Sure. Yeah. That's like, that's like erasing the feminism. And so I kind of took that as a starting point and ran with it. And so I kind of looked for the ways in which like if the spice girls had always secretly been right wing, like here with the clues, they made the two northerners do all the work. Like all of this stuff. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. And but then use that as a. an avenue into actually having like a two-minute diatribe on the then Tory government, which I then punctuated with singing, taking is too easy, but that's the way it is, because that is a very Tory sentiment to take very easily. And so, yeah, so again, with this, I think it was just actually with this show in Miss World. So what you're talking about is a moment where I present some T-shirts. And in response to the Connor Ives T-shirt Protect the Dolls,

which was a fundraiser for the Trans Helpline in America, which then became a very memeified T-shirt. A lot of people, like a lot of cheap knockoffs sort of proliferated, which didn't necessarily raise any funds. And it sort of became a bit of a fashion statement rather than like an actual act of collective organizing and communal help for that community. and I

so the genesis of that was I knew I wanted merch in that show and so I came up with the t-shirts first but then you know I wanted to explain my thinking and I wanted to couch it and it's interesting because actually I

so I had one t-shirt that said protect aging twinks and that in the context of the show made sense but when I put it out on the online, it was devoid of context. So it looked like I was just jumping on this trend.

Oh, and just co-opting the Protect the Dolls T-shirt? Just co-opting that. Yes, of course. Yes. And so I... Whoops. How many had you printed by then? I think I had about 40. Okay.

And I'd probably sold about half. But so it was, so experience some backlash. and so kind of scrubbed it from my Instagram but then I wanted to respond to that backlash as a way of further explaining my thinking and I think it definitely made the bit better and I'll put that clip out online eventually but

yeah that was a weird sort of thing where the bit actually evolved because there was external backlash So there had already been in the show, they'd already been the diatribe and sort of saying like, you know, we need to do better than simply like merchandise. We actually need to come together with collective organizing and like,

you know, overthrow everything and give trans people the power to lead us into like a glorious revolution. So that was already in the show. But yeah, but then what happened after that? So I then responded and I made two other t-shirts. in response to some of the backlash. So there was one very poorly written comment, which I love, and I'm so grateful for,

but somebody was sort of like, I can't believe you're making a silly t-shirt about Twinks when somebody else made a serious t-shirt about the struggles of trans women. And I just thought the very idea of a serious t-shirt, girl. So then I made one saying protect serious t-shirts. But I didn't want to end on that tone. because that's so aggressive. So then I wanted to unpack further and be like, no, no, no, no. I'll show you what I really, really mean here.

And so I made another one which printed out the whole speech on the T-shirt. And it said, you know, it said, protect the dolls with fundraising, but a T-shirt isn't enough. We need to be doing more. We need to be organizing. We need to be doing this. As Audrey Lord said, the tools of the, you know, we will not overtake, throw the master with the tools of this. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I can't remember the quote. And anyway, now it's the print deadline. So here, please buy this T-shirt. Gotcha. Yeah. So that, yeah, so that was a, so I, yeah, in short, I already had that kind of trope of like giving an elongated speech and pulling the rug under. But this one was evolved in a more interesting way because it had a real life response, which I then kind of baked into a further evolved version of the bit. And two of those t-shirts are available and they do raise my.

money for five for five, which is a communal aid fund for trans people based out of Scotland. Very good. Very good. Can I ask you what you, what would it feel like to do those sections at pace, those kind of like, this is the political thought injected into this moment? What would it feel like to do them without the punchline on the end of? But what do I know? I'm just a dumb slut? Have you ever done, have you ever done that just like, this is. the political statement bit, look at them. Or do you fit, is there a reason? Yeah, okay, so tell me about that. Tell me about that. Oh, God, no. Do you not, have you not earned by that point in the show? Have you not earned the right to tell them your opinion? Or is it always, must it always

have a joke on the end, even if it is a complex and layered kind of, you know, like a joke like that? For me, it has to have the joke on the end. Otherwise, it's not. It's not. not. It's just not my, um, I sort of, I know it, it maybe feels like it's not that big of a difference to like do the exact same bit and remove that button off the end. What do I know? I'm just a dumb slut. Like that's, you're removing two seconds of, of script there. But for me, the first version where, where you don't have that button, that's not what I do. That's not my wheelhouse, the way I do what I do is to always be bouncing in between sincerity and sincerity, looking over, looking sideways, looking below, like, that's my energy. That's what I do. I'm

always kind of like hot footing between like, am I your friend or am I judging you? Well, no, I try to never truly judge the audience. I only want to judge people who are not in the room with us. but yeah so without that without that button or without a rug pull I cannot I cannot countenance the very idea I would feel disgusting that's a great answer thank you so to finish up are you happy

I today yeah I think it's I'm always reticent to like apply something like that and say like across the board you are or you aren't because then you can kind of paint yourself into a bit of a corner maybe. Especially it's something that through therapy that I think I've learned is like no map it in

the moment rather than try and label because otherwise if you're like having a bad period you might be like I am depressed at the moment and then you might like live under that label for three months whereas actually if you do kind of just check in with yourself and say but do you know, know what, yesterday I had a really good half an hour. So actually, yeah, today I'm very happy. As I say, all the things we've just talked about, building an ecosystem. That's the sort of stuff that excites me, writing to a brief, like creating my own stuff. And especially having like the immediate feedback and building an audience is,

oh, it's just really nice. Thanks, man. So that was Joe. Keep up to date with him on Instagram. at Joe Modity. Joe modity. You can also find out his live dates when he's on tour

at joe sutherland.com. com. Join the Patreon. The extras, we get a lovely story from Joe about how doing stand-up on a gay cruise saved Joe's life after lockdown.

Absolutely superb to hear that. Great story. And that is only available to the Insiders Club, patreon.com.com, for three pound a month or more. So tuck in all of the extras you get to see.

The video versions of all the episodes and extras. ad-free, all of that kind of gubbins, get stuck in. You can find out how to see me live if you wish to do so, and I believe you do wish to do so now, if you've been waiting until the show is good before you see a work in progress.

Now's your chance. Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy. Thank you to Joe for coming on the show. Thank you to Susie Lewis for logging the show. Thank you to evil producer Callum for evilly producing the show. Thank you to our insider producers, Hacker Spiller, Dave Powell, Simmons, Alan, Lucas, McClellan, Swarbrick McCarroll, Swaddle, Wormel and Burry. We should have a big party for all of you.

Sort of it out yourselves. And a great big thank you to our two special insider executive producers. Neil, he was there last night, Peters, and Andrew, where the hell was he, Dennt, and to the super secret one as well. Thank you so much. No post-amble today because I am going to go and do some, I'm very, very excited to do some sort of finishing touches writing type stuff to a workshop that I'm running for the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership. So I'm going to go and put the finishing touches to a tweaked version of that just for them. So I'm going to run off and do that now. And then I'm going to drive Shrewsbury in my sweet electric wheels. Speak to soon.