What do a post-graduate masters student and a trainee librarian have in common? You may have guessed books and you would be half right, but Jorick Mol and Harry Wright have mainly come together to set up a brand new comedy club in Watford that is set to tickle your funnybones this year with a whole new approach reading.
Both funnymen have recently moved to our thriving commuter town and have brought with them their hugely successful Comedian’s Bookshelf night. They have uprooted it, kicking and screaming with laughter, from Shoreditch to its new home at Attico Arts Centre where performers are queuing up to fuse comedy with literature on the stage.
Jorick - a 28-year-old from Holland who is studying comparative literature at the University College of London, is heading the club, which will take place every second Monday of the month. He says: “When I was 21, after finishing drama school I came to the UK and did a stand-up performance for the first time in English at the Edinburgh festival. I absolutely loved it.
“With stand-up you go on a ride with the audience, not against them and I think that is what I love about it the most.”
He adds, “The Comedian’s Bookshelf was originally started by Bisha K Ali in 2014 - and we ran it at The Book Club in Shoreditch. It was a way to talk about literacy in an accessible way.
“At first it was about using my influences and bringing that to the stage,” says Jorick, who once broke his toe after trying Water Polo, “but now it is generally just about what I read. I’ve done sets on authors like Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen.
“The great thing about the show is also - you don’t have to have read the books to understand the jokes. We’ve had people do books that are also films like Harry Potter.”
Alongside the Comedian Bookshelf, Jorick and Harry have also set up a second comedy club titled Everything But The Boy. This is a LGBT friendly night of stand-up, which Harry will be leading, and is aimed at bringing alternative acts and giving minority groups a voice in comedy.
The 22-year-old, who suffers from autism says he started doing stand-up comedy when he was a student living in Leeds. “Doing stand-up at university and afterwards running the club, I found that I enjoyed making people laugh,” says Harry, who also played the trumpet up until he went to college.
He adds: “The club is about promoting diversity. Having Asperger syndrome - a form of autism - I have had experience in people judging you or thinking you can’t do something and I think it is important that we give alternative comics a platform.
“For my performances I tend to take influences from things that I have seen,” says Harry, who is currently training to be a librarian at a Watford school, “I like popular comedians Mickey Flanagan and Mitch Hedberg, and they’re who I thought of when I first started.
“But now, I often make my experience as someone who is autistic, things that have happened to me and the fact that I am autistic, a central part of my set.”
For the time being, the club is only taking bookings from people who are not straight white men.
The next show will be Everything But The Boy show is on January 26 and features Njambi McGrath, quirky performer Glittercrisis and Tom Mayhew.
The next Comedian Bookshelf is on Tuesday, February 9. Attico Arts Centre, High Street, Watford. Details: 01923 247228, atticoartcentre.com
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