Comedy Christmas

When you hear the word 'Christmas' what do you think? Probably turkey, mistletoe, presents, family. How about comedy? It's hardly the first thing that jumps to mind, but a Christmas without laughter isn't much of a Christmas at all. That's probably why December is our busiest month of the year; with numerous sell out shows and people partying with us til the early hours. Laughter is the perfect way to unwind and make the most of the time you have with family and friends.

With only a week of shows left (acts including Gary Delaney and Ivan Brackenbury) our minds are now turning to the best ways to get yourself giggling when your favourite comedy club is closed for the week.

FILMS

There are literally hundreds of films on over the holiday period butt some are always worth watching year after year. The awesome slapstick of 'Home Alone' never fails to delight, helped along by the surprisingly decent acting of the young Macaulay Culkin (or Mac has he no prefers).

 Having just bagged the 'International Achievement' award at this years British Comedy Awards (much to the chagrin of our friend Johnny Vegas) Will Ferrell's comedy classic 'Elf' will surely get a prime time slot sometime in the next couple of weeks. It manages to be one of those few films that genuinely ticks the box for both adults and children alike.

Similarly Jim Carrey's performance in 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' raises the film up to be more than just a kids film. Well worth a look if you've not seen it.

BOARD GAMES

Whilst Monopoly and Ludo tend to reduce families to tears rather than laughter there are plenty of board games kicking about today which are actually (dare we say it) fun. Balderdash has been kicking about for quite a few years now but it never loses it's shine. A per-cursor to the TV show 'Would I Lie to You', the object of the game is to convince your friends and family that your lie is in fact a far-flung fact.

Articulate is another great game, partly because the concept is so simple. The game sees you trying to describe everyday objects without using 'rhymes with' or 'sounds like'. This simple concept becomes ten times harder when you include a timer and your families natural competative streak.

Also it's not a board game, but Christmas would be Christmas without a game of Charades, even if your uncle does insist on trying to do Free Willy every time.

SONGS 

Most Christmas are played ad nausea from about the end of August to the start of the new year. Despite this, there are a few great comic songs which you never get to hear on the radio. Take Weird Al Yankovic's 'The Night Santa Went Crazy' for instance; there's guns, bling and decapitation a plenty here which means no radio station in their right mind would touch it, but  it's still a good holiday listen.

Peter Kay's comedy creation Geraldine McQueen may have only had two hits to her name but to be fair one of them has done pretty well for itself. 'Once Upon A Christmas Song' manages to both satirise and embrace everything about the traditional Christmas tune. It's repetitive and juvenile but also kind of brilliant. You'll be singing it over and over and over again.

Not really a comedy song but instead a brilliantly heartfelt seasonal number from musical comedian Tim Minchin. There aren't many songs which really capture anything with such honesty and humour as this one, and if you've never heard 'White Wine in the Sun' then you really should. It might just be your new favourite yule tide tune.

TV 



If you've never seen the IT Crowd before then now is the time to jump on 4OD and cram before the final episode is aired on Christmas Eve. A properly good show that has all the elements of a great sitcom: farce, slapstick, ridiculous characters and brilliant pathos. Providing it doesn't go tits up in the last episode it will be one of the few British sitcoms to not have outstayed its welcome.

1:30pm, Christmas Day, you've got everyone round, what do you stick on the telly? Well we defy anyone not to enjoy 'You've Been Framed! At Christmas'. Whether your 7 or 97 it's always funny watching someone get knocked down by a toboggan, that's just a fact of life.

Although 'The Big Fat Quiz...' formula has been milked to death recently, much like anything Jimmy Carr is involved with (8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown' anyone?), its yearly outing is still worth a watch, if only to see what comment the Daily Mail will try and work up in to some media furor. It's like going to the pub quiz, only you get to sit inside and eat left over turkey.

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Man, too much Christmas talk has left us craving a mince pie or five. Merry Christmas Tonic fans. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.

Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival (part 2)

In a lot of ways working at a comedy club is much like working anywhere else; it can be stressful, mundane and tiring. But in other ways it is a lot more fun than a regular job. Last night for example some of the Just the Tonic crew headed over to the City Rooms in Leicester for the launch party of the Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival 2014 brochure. OK, so maybe it isn't even 2014 yet and the festival doesn't start proper for another 72 days but that's not going to stop us having a good old knees up.

Of course there is something far more important here than getting a bit giddy and taking photos of promoters with their tops off; the official launch of the Comedy Festival Box Office. You can now book tickets for hundreds of shows from the box office website.      

Now the question on your lips will be 'what shows should I book to see?' (of course it might not be that but let's assume that it is). Well fair comedy fan let us delight you with another selection of some of the shows we're most looking forward to hosting.

Tim Vine's Chat Show

Parkinson, Frost, Paxman: superb interviewers with a knack for exposing truths and getting to the very core of people. Tim Vine is nothing like them! Enjoy the combination of Vine's silly humour and hilarious anecdotes for two hours of comic brilliance. We have already sold out our allocation of tickets for this show meaning the only to get some is through the DLCF website. Book early or you will miss this Edinburgh Fringe sell out show.  

11th Feb - Just the Tonic Leicester

Romesh Ranganathan - Rom Com

For just £5 this show is an absolute steal. Romesh is currently setting the comedy world alight having won the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the year 2013 following that up with a nomination for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe. Come watch Rom Com (awarded best show at Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival 2013) and see what all the hype is about. Now appearing as a regular on Channel 4's 'Stand Up for the Week'.

8th Feb - Just the Tonic Leicester

Paul McCaffrey - Work in Progress

You may recognise Paul from BBC3's 'Impractical Jokers' but we know him as one of our favourite comedians on the circuit. We book him as often as we can because he always delivers the funnies (if you saw him at our Leicester venue last month you can attest to this fact). Being a work in progress we don't know much about this show but we're sure it will be worth every penny. 'A total natural, his storytelling is utterly unique, never anything less than gut-bustingly hilarious' GQ

7th Feb - Just the Tonic @ The Regent's Club 
Joke Thieves

This is a show any good comedy fan will love. Take a bunch of comedians, get them to do their normal routines then make them all swap; live on stage. Sometimes chaotic, sometimes beautiful, always laugh out loud funny. This was a complete sell out at the fringe this year and we're looking forward to hosting this unique event at both our main venue and our new venue on Regent's Road.

 8th Feb - Just the Tonic Leicester
21st Feb - Just the Tonic @ The Regent's Club

Hopefully that's given you a few ideas. There's plenty to get excited about.

Catch you on the flip flop
JTT 

Interview with Paul Myrehaug

 We promised you we'd bring you the odd exclusive interview and we weren't lying. This week we caught up with hilarious comic Paul Myrehaug about moving from and working in his native Canada as well as his experience of this year's Edinburgh Fringe.  

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JTT: Being a comic means traveling all over the place. Does the nomadic liftestyle suit you?

Paul:Yes. Over the last two months I honestly don’t think I’ve been in my bed for more than two nights straight. Today I woke up in Copenhagen and flew here. I like it; my main priority when I moved to Europe was to travel as much as possible, so I’m still in the zone where I like it but I can see me getting a bit tired now. The travel in Canada is tough too because it’s such a big country. The flights and drives are long and hard. So I’m just starting to feel like I could use a more solid base.

JTT: What could you see yourself doing?

Paul: I’ll never not do stand-up. I guess trying to get a writing gig or something like that. Opportunities are definitely be more in Canada than here in the UK because I’m still a bit of a new kid here. I’ll probably try to move in that direction but certainly not right away.

JTT: Was it hard starting when you moved to the UK?

Paul: I would never say in Canada I’m a household name but it’s easier for me to book gigs there. It was hard though, it was a cool challenger because your nervous to do all the gigs again. I don’t have the currency over here to be like ‘oh that was a shitty set’ and the club owner to be invite me back. I’m still only getting to know everyone so a shit set means I’m not coming back. That fear makes it fun. 

JTT: Are you doing xmas shows in Canada?

Yeah I’ll be doing no comedy clubs, just Christmas parties in Alberta. It’s in the middle of the country where I was born and raised but it’s also where all the oil is. So all those oil Christmas parties and functions there’s normally more gigs than there are comics so it’s a good place to be around that time. It scares the shit out of me every time! It’s a little different because you’re booked to do 45 minutes to an hour and you have to be corporate clean the whole time.       

JTT: Do you think Canadians have a slower style of comedy to English comedians?

Paul: Definitely. I think that’s because of the landscape. We’re all slower storytellers because you’re forced to do a lot of time quickly. If you have a car in Canada you can be opening a club within 3-4 years of starting comedy. I was dong half an hour sets early, way too early so I think when you have five minutes of material and you’ve got to fill half an hour you’re talking super slow, doing these stupid stories from high school, so I think that’s why we all have that slow drawl. It’s a completely different speed here.

 JTT: How close do you feel your on stage persona is to the real life you?

Paul: It’s starting to become more level now. Guys that have been doing comedy a long time say it would be at least ten years until you start talking even closely to how you should be and I’m hitting that time about now. I think it’s like a blown out personality of what I really am. On stage I’m the guy I’d like to be if I could have no filter, it’s who I’d like to be because it’s juvenile and juvenile crap makes me laugh.

JTT:You did Big Value this year. How did you find it?

Paul: It was nice because I was going to Edinburgh to do another show [The Canadians of Comedy] and that was on at 11pm so that was all I was doing and then I got invited to do Big Value pretty late in the game. My manager was like ‘You might as well’ because I’d never done Edinburgh before, I’d never set foot at that festival. Then when I got up there I was really thankful that I was doing the show because it was a room of 100 people every night. Obviously out of 30 shows you’re gonna have a few that don’t go perfectly but most nights were awesome. They were really fun, such a good experience. All of a sudden I wasn’t fearing the festival anymore, so then when I went to do late and live and shows like that I had material I knew would work for those crowds.

JTT: Was there a reason you chose not to do a solo show at the festival?

Paul: When it came down to it my manager said ‘no one knows who you are’ so he didn’t like the kind of venues I could get [if doing a solo show] then we got the phone call about the triple hander and thought we can go back in a year’s time to do an hour. I want to go up there next year to do a solo show but looking back I’m so happy I didn’t do an hour. Without seeing it first, my game plan for going up there probably wouldn’t have been a great fit for doing an hour, having never seen a one man hour show before. In North America there isn’t anything really like it, we have fringes but [one man shows] aren’t popular in the mainstream at all. So I had no fucking idea what one was but now I do. 

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Make sure to look out for Paul when he returns to the country in February!

Dave's Leciester Comedy Festival 2014

It's late October, and whilst we may still have Halloween, Bonfire Night, Bodhi Day, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, New Year and Hedgehog Day (2nd of February if you don't have your diary handy), there's something else we're getting excited about. The 7th of February, otherwise known as the start of Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival 2014. Leicester may only be the10th largest city in the country but it boasts the biggest comedy festival in the whole country.     

At the 2013 festival Just the Tonic put on some awesome shows, sold thousands of tickets and bagged ourselves a nice award (Best Venue over 200 capacity). But for 2014 we're determined to out-do ourselves, so we've revealed our line up extra early and tickets are available to buy from our website right now. It'd be impossible to list all 80+ shows here in one post but below are some of the gens we have on offer to whet your appetite.

Mark Olver's Dancing About Architecture

Quite simply one of our favourite shows. Mark is an award winning comedian in his own right and is adored on the circuit for his awesome compering and warm-up work for shows like 'Deal or No Deal', 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks', '8 Out of 10 Cats' and many others. Dancing About Architecture is a chat show for comedians about comedy. Interesting and hilarious in equal measure, every show is unique and boasts some of the best guests from the comedy world.

8th, 9th, 15th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd Feb - Just the Tonic Leicester

Brett Goldstein Strikes Back (Work in Progress)

It might be a bit presumptuous of us to be getting excited about this already but Brett bagged the award for Best New Show at the DLCF 2013 awards ceremony. He's also a very nice man who we loved meeting last time. His show will be in our new venue at the Regent Club on Regent Road.

21st Feb - Just the Tonic @ The Regent's Club

John Cooper Clarke 

Britain’s best loved and most important performance poet is back with us by popular demand. He completely sold out our venue at the 2013 festival with people begging us to release more tickets. Biting, satirical and very funny, this show will sell out so please book early to avoid disappointment.

10th Feb - Just the Tonic Leicester

Phil Nichol Late Night Electric Watermelon

We love Phil Nichol. We work with hundreds of comedians and he is one of the funniest, friendliest, most entertaining we've ever met. This show is an album of 19 comedy songs he's written in the last decade. From the mind that brought you 'The Only Gay Eskimo' and 'Panda's Must Die', this show will be awesome.

13th Feb - Just the Tonic @ The Regent's Club

So there's just a taster, a morsel, a canape in the banquet of comedy we have in store for you. There's still plenty more highlights to come which will feature on this blog in the coming months plus full line-ups for some of our compilation shows such as the sell-out Midnight Shows.

Keep laughing.
JTT

Just the Tonic Joins the Blogosphere

Check 1,2. Are we live?

Hello there intrepid internet adventurer and welcome to the new Just the Tonic blog. Whilst we're always pretty active on Facebook and twitter, neither platform really give us a chance to ruminate at length, so hopefully this blog will do that, whilst providing you with some interesting stuff.

Of course you may be wondering what Just the Tonic is? Well, we are a comedy club.We have been running for over 20 years,  have branches in Nottingham and Leicester plus run one of the biggest venues at the world renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We book loads of other gigs around the midlands and the south, won Best Venue at the Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival awards this year and support comedians at every level of the circuit, from fresh faced newbies to comedy giants. Basically we're pretty bloody good.

So, what can you expect from this blog? We'll be using it to keep you up-to-date with what we've got planned, we'll have some exclusive interviews with comedians, hints and tips on becoming a comedian and general news from the comedy world.

We hope you'll enjoy it.

Speak soon
JTT