Multi-award-winning “absurdist genius” (Entertainment Now) Joz Norris has finally completed his life’s work, and is ready to unveil it to the world – but what exactly is it? And what will he do next?
What did “completing your life’s work” actually mean to you, and when did you realise the show had become that?
My previous show before this one had been such a huge effort to complete that I remember thinking once I finished it I would unlock this higher state of being as a reward for all my hard work. But whenever you finish off a huge project, your life actually just sort of…carries on? It’s always very confronting. Then a little later I had this idea about a guy who was so excited to be giving a TED Talk that he forgot to do it. Those two ideas collided together, and the show came to be about a guy who has literally poured his entire life into the thing he’s making, but doesn’t really what’s going to happen when he does it. As for what “the life’s work” actually is – I couldn’t possibly spoil the big reveal…
After such a successful Fringe run, how did you approach bringing the show to audiences beyond Edinburgh?
The last time I made a show that had a successful enough Fringe run to justify trying to take it on the road to reach audiences around the UK was in 2019, but then sadly a pandemic shut down all of civilisation. Me not being able to tour a show in which I put on a fake beard and sunglasses and danced around singing “I’m Mr Fruit Salad” was undoubtedly the worst thing about this period of history. This time round, I just reached out to theatres I love and they were all very keen to take it, which was lovely. Now I just have to hope no major global disasters get in the way. If they do, then the message from the universe will be very clear.
How do ambition and closure—two big themes of the show—intersect in your own creative process?
Like I said, the last time I had that bump back down to earth after making a big project, it threw me for six a little bit. So this time, I really wanted to embed that message into the thing I was making, so I didn’t get lost in my own expectations for the work – I was making a show ABOUT the fact that you have to make stuff because you love it, not because you have expectations for what you will achieve through it. That way madness lies. So this time I was able to just make stuff from a very pure place of loving what I was doing and it felt very freeing. For a show all about delusion and failure and frustrated ambition, it was incredibly joyful and playful to make.
- What surprised you most while developing this show compared to your previous work?
I gave myself certain rules for the show before I started – minimal props and costumes and tech, a sort of “acoustic show” that was supposed to be as close as I could get to just writing an autobiographical stand-up show. Not one of those rules stuck – it became clearer and clearer that I was writing another absurdist meta narrative character show that was going to be full of musical setpieces and pre-recorded voices and required a silly costume. So I guess the big surprise was, it doesn’t matter how you try to short-circuit your own creative output, your brain wants to make what it wants to make.
Do you feel differently about the show now that it’s finished and out in the world, and if so, how?
It’s lovely when you do a show and it has a great response and that nervous little voice in your head that goes “God, I hope this is good and people like it” turns into a more confident voice saying “Hey, this IS good and people DO like it!” You’ve got to not get carried away, of course – I’m INSISTING that the statues people make out of me be fashioned from bronze not gold, because I am after all just a normal human man. But now it exists and it’s out there I guess I’m just really proud of it and excited for more people to see it! I’m proud to have made something that took a very specific feeling inside my head and turned it into something that lots of people connected and related to.
What do you hope audiences in Oxford take away from this performance that they might not expect?
There are obviously a lot of thematic things people took away from it that seemed to really resonate, but judging from the reactions in Edinburgh, it seems like the thing people take away from it the most is that the final 10 minutes or so hotwires their brains. There was a lot of “Nothing can prepare you for the final act of this show.” Obviously I cannot give away any details about what that involves, but quite a few people said they couldn’t breathe. I don’t know what the big deal was myself – to me the final act is the inevitable and logical conclusion to all that has come before, but a lot of people just didn’t seem ready for it. Let’s hope Oxford come prepped!