This month we feature Darrell Martin, who founded Just The Tonic Comedy Club in Nottingham in 1994, which has since grown to host comedy nights nationwide and at Metronome every Saturday. At this month’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival they will be promoting 215 shows across nineteen performance spaces…
Notts spot: Venus nightclub
It closed back in 1994, but that place was pivotal to my life. I started out as a glass collector and rose to become head glass collector and handyman. It was just such an amazing atmosphere. There’s been books and movies about the Hacienda, but Venus was up there and probably should have become one of those superclubs. Plus it was run by James Baillie who was responsible for a lot of good things in Nottingham in the 90s/00s, including co-founding Just The Tonic with me.
Album: Screamadelica
It’s a seminal album from my late teens and early twenties. I think the first time I heard of it I was at a party in Birmingham and the DJ put Loaded on. I remember needing to know what this music was. I’d heard of Primal Scream before it but they were more of an instrument-led band. This album changed everything. It’s followed me everywhere in my car since. I’ve driven around Spain to it and spent many hours on motorways across the UK blasting it out.
TV Show: Spike Milligan’s Q
A lot of people won’t know what this is, so hopefully this might give them a reason to search it out on Youtube. It debuted on the BBC six months before Monty Python in 1969 and many believe it helped pave the way for their success. It was just total off-the-wall idiocy from one of the true greats of comedy and was full of these sketches that would lead you round in circles without a punch-line at the end. Then they’d cut to the camera and go “what are we going to do now?” Odd stuff.
Inspiration: Sean Lock
I’ve picked him out from a few favourite comedians, but he was so funny. I worked with him at the Edinburgh Fringe in my early days and in one year I must have watched his show more than twenty times. On the last night he recorded it and after he told me the loudest laughing was still mine. He ended up getting famous for panel shows, but his 15 Storeys High sitcom was also just seminal. He was the kind of talent who could be funny on anything.
Film: The Big Lebowski
This is definitely the film I've watched the most in my life. It’s the Coen brothers at their very best. They did good films before and after this, but this is where they hit their peak. It’s got brilliant characters and quite a dark story. But it’s also really funny and light-hearted. There’s some brilliant cinematography and some of the acting performances are just amazing. The Dude is just an amazing central character and then you’ve got this virtuoso performance from John Goodman. Plus it proves that big men are allowed to cry!
Book: The Gruffalo
I realise this might not be the most literary choice, but it’s important. The Gruffalo and all the other ones by Julia Donaldson have helped so many parents enjoy reading with their kids. Before I discovered her work, I just felt that most kids' books were full of dreary namby-pamby middle-class nonsense. You read them and just wonder who’s writing them and how have they been published? So yeah, The Gruffalo and all of her books changed reading with my kids from being a chore to being a joy!
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