Josh Jones: ‘I can give you an amazing stand-up show and make sure you go home happy’

The city of Manchester has produced its fair share of amazing comedians over the years, from more recent examples like Rachel Fairburn, Scott Bennett, Stephen Bailey, Jason Manford, and Justin Moorhouse to great names from the past such as Caroline Aherne, Les Dawson, and Bernard Manning.

And interestingly, Josh Jones, another Mancunian - who will be bringing his new show, I Haven’t Won the Lottery So Here's Another Tour Show to Cambridge later in the year - has a story about the latter.

“Do you know Bernard Manning had a club in Manchester?,” asks Josh (I did), speaking to the Cambridge Independent via a Zoom video call from his home in the Manchester area (he had just been to Tesco to buy the ingredients to make a moussaka that evening).

“And me gran always told a story about how she went there with her sister, and her sister was quite serious, and they had a topless dancer at the comedy club - they wouldn’t do that now.

“But yeah, they had a topless dancer on before the comedian, and then me grandma’s sister put a coat over her [the dancer’s] head and put her head on the table for the full dance, and she was mortified, apparently, so when I hear Bernard Manning, I always think of that…”

Josh started out performing in clubs in the North West - at the age of 22 (he’s now 32) - but notes that “Quite early on, I was up and down the UK”.

“In my opinion we’ve got probably the best circuit,” he says of the Manchester comedy scene, “I think - very biased - a lot of us who started in the clubs in the north; there’s a lot of flat-roof rugby club gigs and that can put hair on your chest as a comedian. It kind of gets you ready for everyone.”

Josh reveals that he initially wanted to be an actor, and studied for a BTEC in drama with the intention of pursuing a career in said field.

“My drama teacher at college was like, ‘You need to think about creating your own stuff’,” he recalls.

“What she actually said was, ‘With a voice like yours, the only job you’ll get is a nurse in Coronation Street’.

“So she went, ‘Make your own stuff’. So then I was making me own plays and stuff like that, but then I ended up around people who did stand-up and I ended up being talked into it.

“I was actually quite against doing it for a while, but I were talked into it, and now I’ve been doing it 10 years.”

Fellow comedians Josh admires include Nina Gilligan, Mick Ferry, Morgan Rees, and Lindsey Santoro - he also loves actress Suranne Jones and the Manchester-set TV detective series she starred in with Lesley Sharp called Scott & Bailey.

“A lot of me friends are, in my opinion, some of the best comics working in the country,” he says, “so that’s quite lucky really.”

Josh, whose many television appearances include Would I Lie to You?, The Jonathan Ross Show, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Comedy Central Live, Dancing on Ice, and The Stand Up Sketch Show, describes his new show as his “least blue” effort, adding: “This is the cleanest material I’ve ever done, really.”

Elaborating on I Haven’t Won the Lottery So Here's Another Tour Show, he continues: “I wanted to do a new tour show, and my only goal is to just make it as funny as possible, so I’m not really having any serious themes or whatever…

“Because a lot of comedians who have tour shows, there’s like a really serious theme holding it together…

“I think those shows can be brilliant, but my goal with this show is to give everybody the best night out I can give them.

“It won’t be the best night out of their life, because I’m not ABBA, I’m not Cher, I can’t do that. But I can give you an amazing stand-up show and make sure you go home happy.

“Also, I think I’m a lot better than the ticket price; I think you’ll be like, ‘Do you know what? He were worth the money and it were good’.

“That’s what I want everybody to think.”

Josh Jones, who says his “biggest career goal” would be to write and direct his own play, will be appearing at the Cambridge Junction (J2) on Tuesday, 21 October.

Tickets, priced £18, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Josh, go to joshjonescomedy.com.