An award-winning comedian who is the first trans woman to be nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award is bringing her first ever live tour to Bristol. Jordan Gray is also the first trans person to headline the iconic London Palladium with her solo show and is also widely known for her memorable performance on Channel 4's revival of Friday Night Live in 2022 where she stripped naked.
Although relatively new to comedy, Gray has already made a huge impact on the scene since 2017 having worked in the music business ten years prior as well as appearing on The Voice UK in 2016. She went on to launch a successful web series called Transaction that has since been acquired for television development by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
She was catapulted to fame in 2022 through her performance on Friday Night Live of a snippet from her smash hit show Is It A Bird? that details her experiences as a transgender woman. On the TV show, she stripped off all of her clothes and received praise for her bravery, bringing trans bodies a level of visibility rarely represented in the mainstream media.
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Now, Jordan will take her five-star comedy show Is It A Bird? on tour to the UK, including starting at Bristol's Tobacco Factory on September 6, 2023. Her performance will bring together comedy and song brings focusing on Jordan’s love of superheroes, her strong Essex roots and her life as a transgender woman that resonates within and far beyond the LGBTQIA+ community.
It saw huge success at the lauded Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year and was praised as a "deeply funny" hour of comedy that showcased Gray's musical abilities alongside a stand-up show, in The Guardian. The show earned her a nomination for the Dave Edinburgh Festival Comedy Award - previous nominees include Romesh Ranganathan, Russell Howard, Sarah Millican and Mae Martin - making her the first trans woman to achieve this.
In September, she sold out her first two-week run at Soho Theatre and returned in October to sell out a further two weeks. In October, she then went on to be the first trans person to headline the London Palladium solo, one of the most famous venues in the capital.
Tickets will go on sale from April 28, 2023 at 10am through Ticketmaster. The tour, presented by Phil McIntyre Live, will visit 21 venues across the UK and Ireland throughout September and October 2023. Full dates and locations are listed below.
SEPTEMBER
- 06/09/2023 Bristol Tobacco Factory
- 07/09/2023 Birmingham Glee Club
- 08/09/2023 Maidenhead Norden Farm
- 09/09/2023 Milton Keynes The Stables
- 15/09/2023 Liverpool Playhouse
- 16/09/2023 Cardiff Sherman Theatre
- 17/09/2023 Northampton Theatre Royal
- 22/09/2023 Guildford Yvonne Arnaud
- 24/09/2023 Leeds City Varieties
- 29/09/2023 Cambridge Junction
OCTOBER
- 01/10/2023 Norwich Playhouse
- 04/10/2023 Dublin Liberty Hall
- 05/10/2023 Belfast MAC
- 07/10/2023 Coventry Warwick Arts Centre
- 09/10/2023 Southend Palace Theatre
- 13/10/2023 Nottingham Lakeside Arts
- 18/10/2023 Portsmouth New Theatre Royal
- 22/10/2023 Canterbury Gulbenkian
- 27/10/2023 London Bloomsbury
- Brighton TBC
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