The Long view: Alternative Comedy Trio

At the start of June, Colston Hall’s Lantern welcomes The Alternative Comedy Trio, an assemblage of three kindred spirits – and, indeed, three of the most exciting, leftfield comedians in the country.

Kevin Eldon, a surreal, inventive and often hilarious sketch and character comic seen to great effect on 2012’s The Kevin Eldon Show, is joined by the ever-inventive, comedy-rulebook-shredding performer Simon Munnery – and by the beguiling and insatiably curious Josie Long, one of a bunch of stand-ups (see also Daniel Kitson and Robin Ince) who have shifted the comedy goalposts towards storytelling, lyrical prose, knowledge-sharing and even saloon-bar philosophy. 

Here’s Josie to tell us more about this happy meeting of three brilliant comic minds. 

So, Josie. How did The Alternative Comedy Trio come into being?
We all work with the same live producer, Tom at Show and Tell, who’s great at facilitating really unusual and interesting things. He’s done great things with each of us individually – for example, he did something with Simon called La Concepta, a ‘conceptual comedy restaurant’, which was just fascinating.
And I’m a massive fan of both these comics. Simon is one of my absolute comedy heroes. Everything he does is so consistently inventive, intelligent. And I always love seeing what Kevin does next. So it’s basically an opportunity for me to hang out with two heroes.

Do the three of you share comic genes?
I’d love to think that I was in the same vein as these two. In fact, where they are surreal and inventive, my stuff is a lot more like boring, conventional chatting. But there’s a common sensibility – wanting to experiment, to pursue things that may lead in all kinds of directions. 

So what can we expect from you?
I’m writing a new show at the moment, in which I’m simply trying to experiment as much as possible. I don’t really know what it’s about yet. I worry that that makes it sound like it will be unpolished. What I should say is: it’s really fresh!

And from the evening as a whole? 
I think the shows will be fun, silly, anarchic, experimental. There will be space for us to interact with each other, to muck around with each other’s work. It’s a mini-tour, and something different will happen each night – so each show will be an event in itself.

I’ve always got a sense, from your stand-up, of wide-eyed wonder at the world… 
Definitely. I try to be anti-cynical, and to keep a healthy curiosity towards the world. I like doing stand-up about things I am interested in and learning about, and there is so much to be finding out about and be interested in.

So do you think holding an audience’s interest, or exploring new topics, can be as important as people laugh?
I think they can mesh together. You’re always making and writing comedy, that’s a given. It’s what you do with it that’s important. As a younger female stand-up, you get a lot of, ‘ooh, its gentle, it’s smiley’. And OK, I’d like to think that my stuff is always full of laughs, but there is no shame in trying to do other things too. There’s usually some other agenda to my shows – what I care about, what I’m thinking about. I really like comedy where there is other stuff going on besides the laughter.

The Alternative Comedy Trio play The Lantern on Thursday, June 2. 

For more Comedy listings, visit www.bristol247.com/comedy

Read more: Review: Gary Delaney/Andy Robinson