From a young age, if ever there was piss available, I would take it – which I’m sure is a quality that drove my parents and older siblings quite mad.
At 18, I was – on reflection – an arrogant little shit from Essex who stumbled face-first into Cambridge with some vague idea that I was going to ‘do comedy’ and ‘be cool’.
I managed one of those.
HOW TO LAST THREE MINUTES
My first ever gig was a Cambridge Footlights ‘Smoker’ – these were regular gigs run at the student theatre where everyone got three minutes – and I remember it going pretty well, but I was only doing three minutes to a very friendly crowd.
Those student gigs were basically a soft play area; I barely even knew what a stag-do was.
Joshua Perot
A GAP YEAR GETS OUT OF HAND
By the end of uni, I had a couple of Edinburgh Fringe runs under my belt and no intention of getting a real job, so I decided to do the next logical thing: move to Russia.
I’d taught myself Russian and, having been a few times, I thought it would be a laugh to live there for a bit (sorry, no space to explain further). Anyway, I was doing this expat gig in English in a bar in Moscow and I got scouted to do stand-up on TV by a group of producers who, I can’t stress this enough, spoke no English.
I spent two and a half years doing stand-up on Russian TV and touring the former USSR performing at objectively insane gigs. Scrapes included, but were not limited to: being detained by the police at Oryol train station because they didn’t believe we were comedians and only getting released when the youngest policeman I’ve ever seen walked in and recognised us; dying a sublime death at a corporate gig for lift engineers in St Petersburg; and having to follow an old lady singing Soviet-era ballads who was flanked on either side by two strippers in Chelyabinsk.
In 2018, I came back to London, focused more on my podcast Trashfuture (a comedy show about politics which has gradually done irreparable damage to my brain but has greatly advanced my career), and set about the task of building more of a career in the UK.
Joshua Perot
EXPLAINING THE JOKE
Just after moving back, I drove fellow comedian Ali Woods up to the Midlands where both of us were doing an open spot for a well-known promoter. We both had a decent gig, but at the end the promoter started picking apart our sets in order to get us to do another unpaid gig for him.
Ali had a joke at the time that because he’s ginger, when he goes on holiday with his mates they come back with a suntan and he comes back with chlamydia (the audience laughed). The promoter was arguing that this didn’t make sense and he should have said he comes back with sunburn.
I must have argued with him about this for ten minutes, repeatedly saying “but that’s not how a joke works” until eventually Ali himself went, “just leave it, mate.” Needless to say, I haven’t been back at that gig.
DEBUT HOUR
I did my first Edinburgh Fringe solo stand-up hour in 2019, titled Pindos – all about how I got famous in Russia. I had two people in on the first day, a pair of OAPs who laughed valiantly throughout and gave me £40 at the end.
My dad died suddenly five days into the run and I had to go home to my family, but we decided that my dad – being a man who had more or less worked until he dropped dead – would have wanted me to carry on.
So, two days later, I went back to the Fringe and was very fortunate to perform my show to a full room of (mostly) comedians. Sometimes comics who were there still mention it to me as one of the best gigs they ever attended – but I do think the fact that my dad had just died sort of makes it cheating.
Joshua Perot
THE THIRD SHOW WRITES ITSELF
My second Fringe hour, ‘Voicemail’, was all about losing my dad – but my mum, never one to be upstaged, died a week before the Fringe festival started in July 2022. I never really set out to be an ‘orphan comedian’, but I had it thrust upon me that year.
Mum, inevitably, got her own hour of stand-up at the Fringe in 2023, titled Sentimental (which I’m taping on 27 September in London – details here).
NEW TOUR
Since 2022, I’ve been nominated for awards, recorded countless podcasts, and also done three Australian tours, including of my latest show ‘How Revolting! Sorry to Offend’.
That show is touring the UK this autumn and is, for the first time in a while, not about a sudden parental bereavement occurring during the Edinburgh Fringe.
So, if you hate hearing about orphans, you can rest assured that I won’t be mentioning it – in various cities around the UK. All details here.
