#Interview By Lou with Just The Tonic’s Darrell Martin – Time To Celebrate Just The Tonic 20 Years At The Edinburgh Fringe Festival @Justthetonic @EdFringe #UnleashYourFringe #EdFringe2024 #Fringe #Comedy #Theatre @aDarrellMartin

Please join me in celebrating 20 years of Just The Tonic at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
I have had the absolute pleasure and privilege of interviewing the founder of Just the Tonic Comedy Club, Darrell Martin. The club started in 1994 in Nottingham and expanded its venues across the UK. What he has to say is fascinating and will take you places you perhaps don’t expect as he provides answers that are a real eye-opener, including tickets on sale now…

1. How does it feel celebrating 20 years at the Edinburgh Fringe?

It feels weary. I have aged way beyond my years. All this laughing at shows has taken it’s toll. My face aches, as does my belly. Especially this year, what with the addition of celebrating.

2. Who were your early mentors and fave comedians

I had no mentors. I was a lonely promoter in the East Midlands. We were like an outback for comedy. Anyone I trusted as a mentor turned out to be yet another shark on the look out for young blood to devour. Trust no one. Favourite comedians have been Phil Kay, Johnny Vegas, Sean Lock, Ross Noble, Spencer Jones.

3. You like giving new talent a platform – do you have any future plans to help young comedians?

Nothing concrete planned. We are discussing this as a group at the moment, but Edfringe has come along and swept away all time and energy.

4. You are hosting Connor Burns this year who is doing really well. Would you like to see more Scottish comedians on the JTT programme? Is that important to you? Any plans to run more comedy nights in Edinburgh throughout the year?

Connor is ACE! A really fresh face for comedy,. A young comic that is able to appeal across the generations. Really great for club gigs and solo shows. We run a monthly gig in Edinburgh at the moment but are looking to expand on that. As I am now based in Edinburgh I am more aware of Scottish acts and we make it a policy to try and be booking Scottish acts into our Edinburgh shows, and then exporting them south. Our next gig is Susie McCabe on 5th October… tickets on sale NOW!

5. How do you put your own curated / compilation JTT branded shows together – does that happen before the Fringe or do you go to see shows during the Fringe, or do people approach you?

The Big Value Comedy Show is a long process to programme. But Comedy in the Dark is sort of half done before the festival starts and then filled in on the hoof during the festival., Often when bumping into people and remembering you have gaps to fill!

6. How do you programme Just The Tonic? Do people apply, do you choose your own shows, or a mix? What influences your final decision in overall programme.

We have a number of people that just keep coming back. That is growing each year., We have people that we actively seek out, and we also respond to applications. At present it is just myself doing it, but we are looking to bring someone new in for next year to help. What with my diminishing hearing, my poor vision and my failing sense of humour, my gout and lack of memory and foul odour, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep abreast of the changing tide of the comedy and arts scene.

7. What are the biggest challenges and what excites you running venues at the Fringe? Any stories for this year in particular?

This year has been a challenge because we have a new management team. But it has worked out so well. We have learnt a lot, but overall we have succeeded as a team. It is difficult to say what excites me about running venues because I am in the middle of it and it feels like a real slog. But it is calming down and we are now able to see shows. The exciting this is when we have shows on that the public love, and they show that by coming in droves and then the performers are caught in a surprise bubble of success. It feels like a privilege to host things like this. I genuinely enjoy peoples success. No real stories this year., so far. Aren’t I dull.

8. Mental health is a big issue at the Fringe. How do you cope with the challenges and demands, and deal with the performers who might be going through a hard time? And what do you do yourself to stay calm?

The fringe can be really demanding, mentally. It is a long slog, and people are investing time and money into it. And often they are pinning a lot on it. Yes… it is a rollercoaster.

I cope by not having the 1st drink.

For further reading about Just The Tonic to discover more, please check this link out here from an earlier blog post featuring the venues and a Just The Tonic link to what’s on in Edinburgh and one for around the UK.

https://bookmarksandstages.home.blog/2024/07/15/time-to-celebrate-just-the-tonic-20-years-at-the-edinburgh-fringe-festival-justthetonic-edfringe-unleashyourfringe-edfringe2024-comedy-theatre-adarrellmartin/

What’s on in Edinburgh at Just the Tonic

https://edinburgh.justthetonic.com

What’s on around the UK at Just the Tonic Venues

https://www.justthetonic.com/

#Review of Jamie Finn: Nobody’s Talking About Jamie (Taylors Version) By Lou #FringeReview @edfringe #FringeEdin #WhatsonEdi #Edinburgh #Fringe #Edinburgh #Theatre Venue 61

Nobody’s Talking About Jamie

Underbelly, Iron belly, Cowgate 3:40pm 1hr 14 plus

Review by Louise Cannon

Nobody’s talking about Jamie… but they soon will. Jamie Finn is making his mark on the world and reinventing himself. It opens with a big song number that makes you sit up and want to know more about Jamie.
Cordelia has broken up with him for someone at the gym and life gets rather messy, until he discovers Spin Classes at the gym. There’s another woman, Lily, the spin instructor who changes his life in a platonic friendship way.
Life has its ups and downs for Jamie and you can but hope he settles, but it’s hard when your friend has broken up with you too. It’s an interesting exploration of love, friendship and what can go on when its the good and the bad times.

There’s music mixed with engaging dialogue and that playlist at the spin class creates an energetic vibe.

Nobody’s Talking About Jamie… After seeing the show, you sure will. It made me want to Talk About Jamie Finn. It’s very funny but also moving at times as he tries to find out how to move ever forwards in life. He’s easy to empathise with, especially with certain unexpected twists in this tale of re-invention and discovering a new path of life. What’s true and what’s not, the audience is told to make up their own minds.
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/jamie-finn-nobody-s-talking-about-jamie-taylor-s-version#

#Interview with Sarah Hester Ross about her #EdFringe show – Sarah Hester is What? #EdFringe #WhatsOnEdinburgh Venue 393

Interview with Sarah Hester Ross
By Louise

Just The Tonic Nucleus 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18 Aug at 2:30pm Aged 18 plus

Sarah Hester Ross is a comedian who is making it big in Las Vegas, has a huge social media following and a show on Apple TV. What she has to say is fascinating, not only about her show, but the depth she is prepared to share about this, social media and a certain movement. We also talked about the Edinburgh Fringe Show and audiences in the UK and US. It gives food for thought, especially when it comes to social media and movement.

Firstly, this a description: “Meet musical comedian Sarah Hester Ross. Following the release of her new comedy special on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, Don’t Mess With a Redhead, comes her debut at the Edinburgh Fringe. Sarah Hester Ross Is What? is a hilarious musical experience that shows you a woman being TikTok famous, who doesn’t want babies and is the leader of the Stop Giving Men Microphones movement. ‘I guess women are funny’ **** (A random guy after the show).”

Let’s welcome Sarah Hester Ross, who has come across “the pond” from the US to Edinburgh.

I wondered if musical comedy and was a path she always wanted to go down. She said:
“Definitely not!” I’ve been a musician all my life, but comedy is kind of new to me, maybe in the past 6-7 years.” It turns out she is a very talented musician. She continued to tell me that it came about doing duelling pianos, which is what she does in Las Vegas full time. It’s all request like top 40 music like Don’t Stop Believing, Living on a Prayer, Piano Man, people just write down what they want. It then is very comic driven, improv with audience participation and that’s when she realised she had a knack for comedy. She was honest about this on how it took awhile to “figure it all out”. She’s done it for 10 years now, so is like old hand now.

Sarah’s Fringe show is Sarah Hester is What? So we talked about what this is and who is she…

Social Media Chat:

She’s very popular on social media and it came about from this, but she gets called a lot of things in general. “When people don’t know who you are personally or only know you from one visual pointer, one video, one experience, the things you get called tend to be incorrect. The show is basically me mocking that concept of what I get called and then to answer who I really am and what.” She then goes onto talk about expectations, saying “well at the end of the day, I am putting stuff out into the world and how it is perceived is none of my business. I can’t control that. So, in the show Sarah Hester Ross is What, I get to control the narrative, explain who I am, how I want to be perceived and then people can do what they want” I’d hoped that people would then get a rounded picture of her, instead of just being judged on one photo etc. “It’s a nice introduction to who I am, so if you don’t know who I am through social media, you’ll see why people do like me. It definitely isn’t just a show for people who know me online.”

Pros and Cons of Being A Social Media Sensation

Her audience grew in lockdown. She said, “Lockdown was a surge for me, right place, right time, everyone was on their phones, no one was working, so I just massively put out content as much as I could, got an audience and they stuck with me, which is pretty cool.” I’d hoped they’d stick with her. She enthusiastically responded with “I’d like that, I’d like that. Honestly, it’s about consistency online. People, not out of malice or negativity, but people forget, so being consistent with my content and output. I just released my comedy special on Apple TV and Amazon Prime and that’s one of the things, I have to keep reminding people it’s out there because there’s a lot going on in the world. I’m the only one thinking about me 24/7, so I have to keep reminding people.” Which led to us talking about us all vying for some space, which she was in agreement of.

Apple TV and Amazon Prime Show – Don’t Mess With The Redheads

I was curious as to how this came about and the impact on her career.

“For the impact, it’s been the biggest thing I’ve done in my career. Being on 2 large streaming platforms has been huge for me. So far it’s been more bragging writes than anything else.” She then talked about touring. “So I started touring after the pandemic with my one-woman show, mostly comedy clubs and Comedy Dynamics is the production company that released my comedy special. They found me online and they reached out to my agent and it’s history from there. It was very Kismit! Honestly, again right place, right time. I guess that’s kinda my M.O. I’ve just got to be there to make it happen”. Which led us to talk about how sometimes we have to seize the moment.

“Stop Giving Men Microphones Movement”

I’d just heard of it, so it was intriguing, so I asked her to elaborate on what this is and what the goals were as I was taken aback by this being a “thing” and the striking title. The reply is fascinating:
“The title is quite shocking, so I understand people’s apprehensiveness. It basically came off the idea, there was a trend going round Tik-Tok, maybe 2 years ago that the male podcasts that specifically talk about making crude comments towards women’s issues, women dressing inappropriately, women shouldn’t being doing or that… blah, blah, blah. So that’s kind of where it sprung from.”

“So I wrote this song and I would do these Tik-Tok videos and people really seemed to engage with them and like them and understand by them what I mean by ‘Stop Giving Men Microphones’. It definitely is not let’s stop men from talking, sort of, because if you think about it, and I talk about this in my show a little bit that our entire society was made for men by men and men have had the power, the voice, the say so for centuries and I think it’s time for a change. I think women had the microphone more and the think this is the perfect time for it. There are so many brilliant, talented, smart, creative women out there, but, you know, a lot of them are being seen, but a lot of them aren’t and it’s strictly because they’re women and there’s no argument to it, so that’s kind of part of the whole vibe, and I do. It’s sarcastic, it’s satirical. I’m not saying let’s close the mouths of all men with staples. So everyone just calm down a little bit, but it is to start a conversation of the idea that women have things to say and the things that men say are really ridiculous, like a lot of the time…” (as she chuckles).

Mixing Music and Comedy Being Niche in The US and Victoria Wood and Differences in the US and UK for this Type of Comedy

This led us talking about comedian, Victoria Wood and how she would take a big topic and either talk about it in straight comedy or she would add music and sing it. It transpires, she “loves Victoria Wood and really has for a really long time”.
It led to me asking about marketing it to the “niche” market so she could say “hey folks, it’s comedy and music together.”
Interestingly Sarah said, “I think it’s a little more niche in America. The world of comedy is boxed in. Comedy audiences are expecting stand-up comedy. I think it’s a little different over here in the UK.”
She then divulged, “And I think that’s why I wanted to be here so badly. I think what I do, for lack of a better word accepted more in the UK, because you have huge comedians, like Tim Minchin, who is iconic” and we talked about other comedy/musicians like Bill Bailey. “These are some iconic musical comedians. Flight of the Concordes was huge in the States, but I know it was huge here in the UK, so it really is just kind of convincing people what I do is proper comedy, but at the same time, I lean more to the music side of things and it’s because I’ve always been a musician and I think also to be the extent of my music being proper good music as well is important to me. I want the recording to be professional. I want it to sound good. I want the melodies to be catchy and free to sing along to. As the musician brain of me, this side of my brain is important to me and I’m not sure that’s always the case with musical comics, but sometimes the comedy is more important than the music, but that’s one of the reasons I love Tim Minchin so much. His music is just flawless. Yes, it can be funny, but he also has this side of just gorgeous music, so I lean towards that a little bit more.

Audience Reaction of US and UK

Sarah candidly talked about this. “To be honest, I haven’t really got a good feel about it.” At time of interviewing she had done 3 shows, which were “pretty light on the crowd, but most of the people there have known me prior, so they have been walking in knowing what to expect, so they’re good audiences. They are kind and reactive, so I haven’t had an opportunity to really showcase to a brand new audience. I’m hoping that will change, but there’s a lot of competition here at the Fringe and over 3000 shows is unbelievable and there’s so much talent here.

Some fun things are “Seeing new acts. I just saw Chris Hall for the first time. We’ve been mutuals on Tik-Tok for a while, but I saw his stand-up and it’s just so very good. Another show I just saw was an American from California, T. Hall, he’s really fantastic.
I’m just looking forward to be surrounded by really talented people and possibly getting inspired. But that is also the challenge in the sense that I am trying to get that attention they are also trying to get. It’s like a frenemies type of thing, so it’s definitely a challenge.

Thank you for your time Sarah Hester-Ross for this illuminating interview.

You can get tickets for her Edinburgh Fringe Festival show here: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/sarah-hester-ross-is-what

You can also find her for her non-Fringe show on Apple TV and Amazon

#Interview By Lou with Piotr Mirowski about his AI and his family show – A.L.Ex and the ImpRobots: an AI Show for Kids #EdFringeReview #AI #DeepMind #EdFringe24 #WhatsonEdin #WhatsonEdinburgh Venue 24

A.L.Ex and the ImpRobots: an AI Show for Kids

Interview By Lou with Piotr Mirowski from Deep Mind

What an honour it is to interview Piotr Mirowski, a scientist who works with A.I. for Deep Mind, a scientific company that is becoming increasingly known. I had not expected that! Here, we talk about the show and also some of the more burning questions of the day about AI, such as when it comes to jobs etc. I feel the answers are fascinating and important.

Let’s welcome to Bookmarks and Stages Piotr Mirowski

1. What can people expect from Artificial Intelligence Improvisation and from A.L.Ex and the ImpRobots: an AI Show for Kids?

Artificial Intelligence Improvisation and A.L.Ex and the ImpRobots! are two interactive live experiences featuring professional actors, cute real robots (an Aldebaran Nao), and various flavours of artificial intelligence on stage.

Artificial Intelligence Improvisation is our pioneering improv comedy show with AI: it is for a general audience and addresses conversations about human agency (some actors wear augmented reality glasses and are controlled by AI that sends them lines) or about deep fakes, and at the same it time showcases the ingenuity of human improvisers.

A.L.Ex and the Improbots! is a show for kids and the whole family where fellow young audience members learn fun facts about science and are invited on stage to co-create stories with robots.

In both our shows, Artificial Intelligence Improvisation, and A.L.Ex and the ImpRobots, language models give strange suggestions to human improvisers, giving them an opportunity to react, to incorporate the strange material and then to shine and to demonstrate their talents and sense of humour.

2. Why did you decide to cross science with comedy with an AI robot and what challenges did you have in setting this up?

Our primary aim is to leave audiences, and the younger generations, feeling empowered to critically engage with AI, and to directly explore for themselves through co-creation with the tool, rather than passively.

The show’s creators, Piotr Mirowski (that’s me!), Boyd Branch and Kory Mathewson are academics who are passionately engaged in communicating about science. We are also theatre actors who want to bridge disciplines. Their challenge is to explain, succinctly, the complexity of a fairly complex topic to the audiences, to give them back control over a key technology in their lives. When we started the shows, back in 2016, everything sounded new, from machine learning, to patterns, to biases in data. Today, most people have already tried experimenting with text and image generation via various apps.

The real challenges now, in a way, are to manage the very high expectations about what AI can do! In our very fast paced show, AI tries to react, live and in a fraction of a second, to the mayhem on the stage, and speech recognition and large language models really struggle to keep up!

3. How does it feel bringing a groundbreaking AI Improv show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival?

Kory and I actually brought Artificial intelligence Improvisation to Edinburgh in 2017. Kory (at the time studying for a PhD in robotics at the University of Alberta) and I were doing a duet with a twelve-inch robot and performed for a week at Surgeons’ Hall. The show was very experimental and very rough around the edges, but our friend Colin Mochrie (from Whose Line Is It Anyway?) came to see our show and had some good words about us.

We came back to Edinburgh last year and this year, to perform in a larger space at the Gilded Balloon. We encountered extremely supportive production and tech that made our tech-heavy show a (relative) breeze to get in and get out each day.

As a personification of the AI, our new robot is a bit larger this year, but it is extremely cute and gets lots of enthusiastic reactions from audiences or even from crowds when we take it out to flyer with us.

We’ve also seen amazing productions in Edinburgh that involved robots and AI. Shows that really marked us were the production of Spillikin at the Pleasance in 2015, of Siri by Laurence Dauphinais at Summerhall in 2017, or Robo Bingo by Foxdog Studios last year at Underbelly.

4. How much of an influence do you think AI will have on humans in the future?

I see AI primarily as a tool for search and discovery. We have seen inspiring examples of AI tools that can make predictions about the structure of proteins, predictions which can then be verified experimentally by chemists and biologists. I have worked on using AI for making weather predictions, helping expert meteorologists refine weather forecasts, with weather agencies now evaluating how AI can help predict the trajectory of hurricanes. We know artists who have been experimenting with AI tools and exploring the glitch aesthetic of their input to integrate this strange instrument in their process and create unique art.

5. Since working in the field of epileptic seizure predictions, mapping on smartphones and more for the likes of Bing etc, what made you decide to now join Deep Mind to work with AI in the artistic field in co-creations on stages?

The work of co-creation with AI for live theatre performance is done in my spare time and through my theatre troupe, Improbotics.

In my current job, I have worked on navigation, and in recent years, on weather forecasting and applications to climate modelling. However, my exposure to the theatre world inspired me to also focus on the ethical concerns when using AI in the context of the arts, and to evaluate the usefulness of language models as a tool for creative writing. Two years ago (before large language models became so popular), I ran workshops with screenwriters and playwrights trying to write with AI tools: their contrasting reviews were published at a conference on human-computer interaction. At the previous Fringe Festival, I took advantage of my presence in Edinburgh to interview comedians who had been using AI, to understand if large language models are aligned with the cultural values of comedians, and published findings at an AI ethics conference (spoiler alert: the comedians were not impressed).

6. Perhaps the question everyone really wants to know, since everyone talks about it, is: Many people in most industries are worried about their jobs as AI advances ever forwards, how does that make you feel and do you ever worry about your own job in this context?

I believe in the need for empathy and dialogue between developers and the rest of the civil society, in order for us to realise AI’s potential as a tool that benefits everyone.

My personal belief is that we all tend to underestimate the complexity of human activities (in particular when we are talking about other people’s jobs…) and that we forget the need for human connection and for sharing our lived experiences – which simply cannot be automated. The latter point was apparent when we interviewed comedians who had tried using AI for comedy writing.

For these reasons, I do not see AI as a substitute for work or for the process of writing, thinking and creation. I know that there is more to writing than merely putting words on a page, and there is more to computer science and engineering than merely writing lines of code. I believe there are better uses of AI than for the “automation of mediocrity” and am confident we can build a future where AI tools are used to help, not replace human activity.

Tickets here via The Edinburgh Fringe website: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/a-l-ex-and-the-improbots-present-an-ai-show-for-kids

#Review By Lou of Can Duggan? Should Duggan? By Will Duggan #FringeReview @edfringe #FringeEdin #WhatsonEdi #Edinburgh #Fringe #Edinburgh Venue 302

Can Duggan? Should Duggan?
By Will Duggan

Underbelly, Bristo Square, Friesian 3:50pm (1hr)

The stand-up comedy starts off laugh out loud funny. He cleverly blends comedy with clothing styles, colours, world topics, including a touch of politics that have been seen recently on the news, the climate, navigating being a dad and more. He talked about the first 4 minutes being that moment when anything can happen. You literally cannot even guess what direction he’s going to go in.

Many of the jokes are very humorous, some even self-deprecating and ends in a hopeful message.

It’s a strong performance, but there are a couple of unnecessary, cheap jokes in there which missed the mark a bit in the darker topics as he tried to be “edgy”, which was a shame really as it lowered the standard a bit, but then it picked up again. That aside, the rest of the show is a good one, so still worth a watch.

Tickets: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/can-duggan-should-duggan-will-duggan

#Review By Lou of Ben Miller: Volcano Venue 88 @JustTheTonic #Volcano #BenMillerVolcano #Science #Comedy #FringeReview @edfringe #FringeEdin #WhatsonEdinburgh #Edinburgh #Fringe #Theatre #UnleashYourFringe

Ben Miller: Volcano

Venue 88 – Just The Tonic At The Caves – Just Up The Stairs

Ben Miller, no, not that one but another one. If you’re into comedy and science then this is something truly different for you. Age 16+

Synopsis

What happens when a comedian walks into a volcano? In 2023, Ben Miller was the artist-in-residence at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, the first stand-up comedian ever selected. This was probably a terrible idea on their part. Come watch this show where scientist turned stand-up comedian Ben Miller explores volcanology, entomology, Hawaiian history, cats, cookies and more. And yes that photo is real. Ben has made people laugh in front of a burning lava lake, and he is not afraid of you.

Review

Scientists often have a joke or two up their sleeve. There’s a scientist in my family, so I know (and no it isn’t Ben Miller). Down in the Just The Tonic Caves is scientist turned comedian, Ben Miller who certainly knows his stuff when it comes to volcanoes. Nicely, he keeps it not from turning into a science lecture. You’ll learn something and then he skilfully adds in a joke that may involve food, pets and more…
On the whole, it was very funny, a couple of times it felt a bit awkward, but then he picks it up and gets back into his stride and it becomes very funny again or very interesting again. There are times when you just don’t know where he’s going to go with a joke and that really works. It is full of surprises and the further it goes, the further this show has promise and the better it becomes, so worth a watch for something rather different.

Tickets here: https://tickets.edfringe.com/venues/just-the-tonic-at-the-caves