Zoe Lyons

Explicit content warning

09/07/14 • 66 min

Tom Rhodes Smart Camp

★★★★★ Tom Rhodes Radio Review for Zoe Lyons in ‘Mustard Cutter’

Zoe Lyons is one of the best performers that I saw at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I love her style, her energy, her pacing and her material. Often when you are seeing multiple shows in a day at the Fringe festival you will look at your watch during a performance and I'm happy to report I did not look at my watch once while Zoe was performing her show Mustard Cutter. I simply got lost in my enjoyment of her show.

Her and I have in common that she also has a Dutch wife and her insights on being married to a Dutch person made me howl with laughter. Her facial expressions as well as her way of expressing how she feels about the life that she is living is of the essence of what comedy is about.

I will now bestow the greatest compliment I could give any performer by saying that Zoe Lyons contains the original energy of joy.

Like all comedians, I'm sure she has experienced a bumpy road but her attitude towards life and performing comedy is what attracted me to her soul as I sat among the audience watching her perform and why I wanted to highlight her on my podcast.

She lives in the artistic hub of Brighton and is a respected veteran of the UK comedy scene, she is one of the people I enjoyed hanging out with the most at the festival after parties and it must be said that I think she has the most glorious gap between her two front teeth. As a gap toothed person myself, I find that an irresistible trait in a fellow human.

It is my pleasure to present to you now the one and only Zoe Lyons!

Intro song: Cutting Room (Hot Pants) – Oceanliners

Stand-up clip from YouTube 1: Comedienne Zoe Lyons

Stand-up clip from YouTube 2: Joan Rivers: Stand-Up Pioneer Dead at 81 - Fifty Years of Funny | The New York Times

End song: Waiting In Vain – Annie Lennox Recorded at our big wooden kitchen table of our lovely Edinburgh Festival apartment – Edinburgh August 2014

★★★★★ Tom Rhodes Radio Review for Zoe Lyons in ‘Mustard Cutter’

I will now bestow the greatest compliment I could give any performer by saying that Zoe Lyons contains the original energy of joy.

It is my pleasure to present to you now the one and only Zoe Lyons!

Intro song: Cutting Room (Hot Pants) – Oceanliners

Stand-up clip from YouTube 1: Comedienne Zoe Lyons

Stand-up clip from YouTube 2: Joan Rivers: Stand-Up Pioneer Dead at 81 - Fifty Years of Funny | The New York Times

End song: Waiting In Vain – Annie Lennox Recorded at our big wooden kitchen table of our lovely Edinburgh Festival apartment – Edinburgh August 2014

Previous Episode

Glenn Wool

Glenn Wool is one of the finest comedy exports Canada has ever produced. His comedy is philosophical, heartfelt and endearing. He is also one of the nicest human beings I have ever come across in all my years traveling the globe.

I met Glenn many years ago at the Comedy Store in London and have since worked with him at comedy festivals all over the world. He is one of the few comedians like myself that has relentlessly toured the world wide circuits proving that his comedy is accessible to laughing brains anywhere comedy microphones are plugged in.

He has recently secured a home in Vancouver but that will undoubtedly not stop him from continuing to tour the world circuits. His take and opinion on subjects is always fresh and uniquely his own which makes him one of my favorite comedians to watch. He is also the kind of friend that if we are anywhere within a few hundred miles from each other we always make the extra effort to get together.

Impressively he is a veteran of 16 Edinburgh Fringe festivals and one of the hottest tickets in town when he is there. This conversation was recorded at my kitchen table of the flat in Edinburgh that I rented for Edinburgh Fringe 2014. We sat down over hot tea to talk about life, comedy, travel, festivals and every other pertinent topic that came to our brains until it was time for both of us to run off to our shows that night.

It is my pleasure to present to you now the one and only Glenn Wool!

Intro song: Cutting Room (Hot Pants) – Oceanliners

Stand-up clip from YouTube 1: Glenn Wool @ Cracker Night 2011

Stand-up clip from YouTube 2: Sobriety - Glenn Wool | RAW COMEDY

End song: Long May You Run - Neil Young

Recorded at our big wooden kitchen table of our lovely Edinburgh Festival apartment – Edinburgh August 2014

Next Episode

Tommy Sheppard

In comedy there are certain wise men you meet on your journey that are priceless to talk with because they possess the glow of knowledge you hope to gain when you one day pass from warrior to wise man.

Tommy Sheppard owns The Stand comedy club in Edinburgh which is the heart and soul of Scottish comedy. It is as perfect of a comedy club to start in as the Cavern club in Liverpool was for the Beatles to start in.

Since opening the Stand in Edinburgh he has branched out and opened satellite rooms of The Stand in Glasgow and Newcastle. He is reputed to be an honest fair man in a business where sticking it to a comedian by undercutting his cash is often one of the occupational hazards. Comedians speak of him with respect and his employees show their loyalty by working for him for years. I was happy to meet Tommy and make friends with him this past month while I was doing the Fringe Festival.

Before going into the comedy world by opening his room in the 1990s he was a full time organizer with the British Labor party. After the Labor party decided to go in another direction ideologically he left politics and with his redundancy payment he put a down payment on The Stand comedy club.

This moment in human history is very exciting because next week Scotland has the vote to decide if they want to be an independent country away from the United Kingdom. After thousands of years of bloodshed and dying for this very concept, Scotland has the chance to do it now in a peaceful manner, without ever even firing one bullet.

Tommy Sheppard is an ardent and vocal supporter of Scottish independence and the person I sought out to explain it all to me and why breaking away from England would be the best option for his fellow countrymen.

In tis conversation I quiz him on comedy, the Fringe festival and all things Scotland but the most valuable insight of all is his knowledge on this turning point in Scottish history where the dreams of ancestors long dead and forgotten will finally be realized next week on election day.

It is my pleasure to present to you now, the one and only Tommy Sheppard.

Intro song: Cutting Room (Hot Pants) – Oceanliners

Audio Cameo: Graham Brophy from Glasgow, Scotland

End song: Bob Dylan – Highlands (live version Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA, 16 Mar 2000)

Recorded at The Stand Comedy Club – Edinburgh August 2014