“I gave up my job, my car, I live savings, so I can do this”

Comedian Jo Jarvie, based in Belfast, revealed how to return to comedy after a 12-year break helped her to “fall in love” after the divorce.

Initially, in Stand Up, during the University, in 2012, Jo acknowledged that her comedy trip was “quite unique”.

“I practically entered the comedy because I understood someone,” she confessed while talking about coffee.

“I studied the drama at Middlesex University and, in the third year, I saw this type and we both made a module called solo performance.

“I fell in love with her and started taking a stand-up comedy module in the next semester and things really took off.”

The following summer, Jo continued to support Dublin Comic Ed Byrne at Edinburgh Fringe and came to rub his shoulders with the appraisals Dara ó Briain, David O’Doherty and Ardal O’hanlon.

However, after struggling with alcoholism in her youth, she finally came to the conclusion that the comedy scene “was not a healthy environment (for her) to be at that time” and decided to take a break in 2013, when she got married and moved to Co Down in the following year.

“I continued to sabotage these opportunities and, instead of dealing with them and moving on, I would delete, block and move on,” she says.

“And when I met my ex-husband, it was like:” Oh, I don’t have to do this anymore because I found someone who wants to be with me and raise children with me. “

“So, I deleted everything from my past, including comedy and I just focused on getting married and taking care of my family.”

I am hungry for this, I gave up the job, my car, I live savings, so I can do that. Every day I send e -mails, DMS and try something new so I can enjoy this trip

– Jarvie

Although the couple’s relationship later was broken, I confess that this experience helped her rediscover her passion for stand-up and develop a more positive perspective on life.

“My former remarried last year and I was so frustrated and so close to take a drink again, but then I saw this advertisement comedy club (now Belfast Comedy Club) and I thought:” I will put my name. “

“I will never forget it -I shook myself and, although they had a complete line, they slipped and gave me a five -minute slot.

“I didn’t write anything and I had no idea what I was going to say, but I did it and then I was asked the next week and the next week and I didn’t really stop since then.

“It was the first time in eight years when I felt like myself again.

Jo has officially returned to the comedy circuit on August 6 last year and has continued to return and mc nights of comedy, as well as to open for the local Kings Paddy Raffy and Paddy McDonnell comedy.

“The experiences and opportunities I have received in the last six months have been amazing,” she explains.

“But I’m hungry for this, I gave up my job, my car, I live savings, so I can do that.

“I never want to be in a position in which I stopped competing because it was so many years in which I tried to get out of bed and the comedy really learned to love my life again and offered me a way to open me and gave me a reason.

“Finally, it feels like I have something to offer to the world – the comedy was a real rescue boat for me.

“And I love the circuit here.

Continuing this ascending trajectory, Jo is about to bring a new crazy, stupid, funny show at Belfast’s accidental theater on March 28.

“The singers go through a separation and write an entire album, go through S ** t and I wrote a whole show,” she laughed.

Inspired by the song Crazy Stupid Love by Cheryl Cole, the set will be divided into three parts, focusing on events and key experiences in Jo’s life, since an Irish mother and an Greek Orthodox father, to the meeting scene for thirty years.

“The crazy part focuses on my education and the way I never felt like I really fit when I lived in London,” she says.

“Then, the stupid part is to marry in the twenty years – what waste – and the funny part is to be a single woman in the middle of thirty -I have to sail, to be a parent and to literally find in stressful situations.”

Coincidentally, taking place on what would have been Jo’s 10th anniversary, there will be a variety of special guests, including the makeup artist at her wedding, her divorce lawyer and the woman who was in charge of putting a panel that promotes the show in the middle of the city, where her ex-husband lives.

“I was pregnant when I got married, so I had to look at the aisle, which was not ideal,” she remembers.

“So, I said that for our 10-year-old wedding anniversary, we would save ourselves and we will make a big renewal and we would have a party and, honestly, it was one of the things we were most to miss when we broke up.

“When I was offered this theater date, I could not take it and in this way it means that I still get a party only now I celebrate the little girl, I get to do what I love and be surrounded by big people.”

“It is also a great marketing plan – when I had the idea of ​​putting the advertising panel,” she says.

“I think many women appreciated that I could do Carrie Underwood on him, but instead I chose to become creative – there were several reasons to do it than to do it.”

JO hopes that the show will give people the space and the opportunity to relax, laugh and “be themselves”.

“My spectacle is for people to come only and laugh and be their cruel, animal, authentic self – I will be the same and it will be hilarious,” she says.

“All the things we go through can be fun, we can always find the bright side and if I can talk about how we found the bright side in my life, then that may help someone find the bright side in theirs.

“That’s what I want, I want people to come to free their inner teenager and just laugh at how stupid and frustrating, but eventually bright.”

Jarvie Crazy’s solo show, stupid, funny and the accidental theater, Shaftesbury Square, Belfast, Friday, March 28th. accidentaltheatre.co.uk