Monkey Barrel Records are proud to announce their new release “John-Luke Roberts: It Is Better.” Brought to you by the team behind the award-winning Monkey Barrel Comedy, Monkey Barrel Records is the new home of exclusive comedy vinyl records, showcasing some of the best of Live Comedy. “It is Better” is the fourth release from Monkey Barrel Records, and the first to be conceived, written, recorded and scored specifically for vinyl. 

John-Luke Roberts is a comedian and writer, who has been called “a one-man finger-in-the-dyke against the blandification of comedy” by The Guardian. He is a fringe favourite in Edinburgh, who’s performed sold out runs of acclaimed, peculiar solo shows, ("Impeccably choreographed, giddily inventive, turbo-charged hour" The Telegraph) and is the co-founder of the Alternative Comedy Memorial Society. “It Is Better” is his ninth comedy hour. 

Plans to record a live LP were scuppered by the pandemic. Roberts says “I realised my favourite comedy records didn’t have an audience. So I sat down thinking of albums like Sir Henry at Rawlinson End and Ivor Cutler’s Dandruff and grew more and more excited at the prospect. Without an audience, a comedy record can achieve a startling intimacy.” 

Roberts made It Is Better “specifically to be listened to - ideally in the evening, in a comfortable chair, by a warm fire, with a nice drink, while long-thought extinct beasts rampage through the streets outside.” 

To help achieve this Roberts teamed up with John Chambers, a composer whose work in theatre includes collaborations with Steven Berkoff (Biblical Tales and Oedipus) and John Cleese (Bang Bang), and who scored BBC Drama on 3’s critically acclaimed new version of The Cherry Orchard. 

The album artwork is by photographer Natasha Pszenicki, featuring a doll’s house scale comedy club built by Roberts during lockdown. He says “they closed the comedy clubs and the theatres, so I built one as a not-entirely-successful coping mechanism.” 

Monkey Barrel Comedy is Edinburgh's best rated Comedy Club. Scotland’s Best Venue 2020 Chortle Awards and three time Scottish Comedy Award winner. We are owner managed, independent and since 2017 (usually!) open 7 days a week in Edinburgh's Old Town.  

Launching Friday 11th December on Crowdfunder, the project has to raise £2,500 to put the record into production, with delivery due by the end of March 2021 if the target has been met. 

Link: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/john-luke-roberts-it-is-better-comedy-vinyl