29 May 2026
Reading the Room
Rich talks to comedy historian and former stand up and agent, Jonathan Grant about his much needed work about the state of stand up comedy in the 21st Century. They chat about Jonathan's reasons for writing the book, who he talked to, the difficulty of summing up two decades worth of stand up, how we're at a place of opportunity and variety in stand-up but how doing the actual job is being squeezed, whether comedians come from doing proper jobs like in the old days, how online comedy can be a boon or a burden and how lock-down and the internet has led to intergenerational cross fertilisation (mainly in comedy terms). Plus the wonder that is Chris Evans (not that one) and gofasterstripe.com
Buy the book here - https://gofasterstripe.com/cgi-bin/w.cgi?showfull=69222
Audio mix by Ben Evans (NTO)
Thanks to Chris Evans (NTO)
