Justin Moorhouse: Whose The Daddy? Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 2007
Justin Moorhouse: Ever Decreasing Social Circle: Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 2008
Justin Moorhouse: Seven: Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, 2009
Ivan Brackenbury’s All New Hospital Radio Show (Guest): Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 2009
Justin Moorhouse: The Boiled Egg on The Beach: Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 2010
Best of The Fest: Assembly @ George Street, Edinburgh, 2010
Justin Moorhouse: This Is What I Am: Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, 2014
Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights Live: Manchester Phones 4U Arena, Manchester, 2015
Headliners Comedy Club 13th Birthday: Headliners Comedy Club, Chiswick, London, 2015
Justin Moorhouse: Destiny Calling: Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, 2015
The Best of The Comedy Store: Udderbelly Festival, Southbank, London, 2016
Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of The Fringe: Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, 2016
Justin Moorhouse: People and Feelings: Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, 2017
Headliners Comedy Club: George IV pub, Chiswick, London, 2018
The Best of The Comedy Store: Udderbelly Festival, Southbank, London, 2018
Justin Moorhouse: Northern Joker: Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh, 2018
Comedy Store Manchester King Gong: Online: 2020
Always Be Comedy Online: Online: 2021
Return of The Craic Online Comedy Club: Online: 2021
Headliners Comedy Club: George IV pub, Chiswick, London, 2021
Justin Moorhouse: Stretch and Think: Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh 2022
For sheer laughs, Northern comedian Justin Moorhouse is one of the best. I first came across him performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007 with his show Whose The Daddy? Having only heard of him being part of the cast of Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights, I was intrigued about how he would come across as a stand-up comedian on stage. At the Edinburgh Fringe that year his show featured a routine about unintentionally performing a sexual act with a household appliance that was so brilliantly conceived that I could not stop laughing at this jovial funny man. After his performance that night he told the audience that if they had nothing planned after his show, he recommended the show next door to his. I took a stroll along and watched popular comedian John Bishop deliver his first show to audience of six people. Bishop has elevated to playing arenas to vast crowds and Moorhouse like many other great comedians unfortunately has not yet.
Moorhouse has the added ability to make the audience want to listen to him. He is warm, sincere, and charming on stage as well as being very funny. He is also very clever such as when Phoenix Nights did a series of live shows at the Manchester Arena in 2015, Moorhouse’s character Young Kenny was last seen in the series trying to get remove paint from his face after a family fun day in order to raise funds for the Phoenix Club. The paint would not come off and Moorhouse was seen for the rest of the series with a face painted like a cat. When he appeared some years later on stage in the live version of the show, he was still wearing the face paint.
Moorhouse always make me consistently laugh out loud and when my friend came along to one of his Edinburgh shows I have never seen her laugh so hard when he described one of his lazy children as being ‘a yawn in a hood!’ He is so easy going on stage that he can say anything to the audience and get away with it. So much so, that he has become an Edinburgh Fringe favourite as I know I am always going to have a great time in his very funny company.
I watched Moorhouse perform at Headliners Comedy Club in London in February 2018, feature in The Best of The Comedy Store for the Southbank Udderbelly Festival in June 2018 and appear in his own one-man show Northern Joker at the Edinburgh Fringe in August 2018.
I have seen him perform many times on stage and Moorhouse always has a great cheerful personality. He delivers hilarious storytelling combined with a quick wit in response to audience reaction that makes for a great set. He was warm and convincing with the crowd and greatly entertaining, but not without causing moments of awkwardness. He’s an out-and-out northern comedian – being Northern myself, relating to his gravy routine and the cancellation of a Beano magazine subscription that he performed in his Northern Joker show in August 2018 was brilliant, clever and absolutely hilarious.
Britain’s most famous comedy club The Comedy Store based in London and Manchester has been staging live comedy for over 40 years. In fact, it was the first comedy club I ever went to in London in 1988 (Richard Morton compered and Charles Fleischer (later to voice Roger Rabbit) headlined. I have been to both venues many times and have seen some wonderful acts there, so I was delighted during the epidemic year to watch the famous King Gong show from The Comedy Store Manchester online in July 2020. It was an absolute joy to see Moorhouse compere the new acts show. He was effortlessly funny with the audience and the acts and each act had up to three minutes to perform. If the audience judging panel showed three red cards during the performance, the act was stopped and the next one appeared. For the show I saw, there was fifteen acts of varying quality. The new comedians were: Mike Wardley, Danny Fields, Chris Rafaelson, Vindoo, Mickey Dee, David Broadbent, Miss Muriel, Leon Bukowski, Ben Lawrence, Katie French, Chris Wright, Phil Henderson, Steph Starstein, David Putansky and Farook. Fields, Broadbent, Miss Muriel and Lawrence were all finalists lasting three minutes and were invited to so thirty seconds more to decide the winner It was a close call between Broadbent and Lawrence both delivering great sets with Lawrence the eventual winner receiving a future live set at either the London or Manchester venue. This was just one of the weekly shows that feature at The Comedy Store with Fridays and Saturdays providing the best in stand-up comedy acts as well as the infamous improv show The Comedy Store Players.
The comedian was a guest for Always Be Comedy Online and Return of The Craic Online Comedy Club in March 2021 and live for Headliners Comedy Club in October 2021 delivering side-splitting routines about family life, his pet dog and coping with lock-down. They were two brilliantly delivered routine from an experienced comic determined to make the audience laugh.
In August 2022, I watched Moorhouse perform his brand-new solo show Stretch and Think at the Edinburgh Festival. Convulsing with laughter at the delivery of his stories and routines on all manner of subjects from shoplifters, getting older, yoga, funerals, middle-aged cyclists to hating football fans but loving football, not drinking, Madonna, dogs, and the menopause, the gag rate was incredible high and for sheer laughs, this was one of the best shows I watched at the Fringe from a superb and extremely likeable comedian.
Moorhouse is a fantastic comic who always produces wonderfully funny shows and for sheer laughs, he is highly recommended.