Joe Morrow

Quick-witted, acid-tongued and filthy-minded, the dandy prince of cabaret, Joe Morrow is one of the UK’s most sought after comperes and cabaret artistes. He performs weekly in London’s top cabaret, burlesque and variety venues as well as up and down the country and across Europe. A renaissance man for the Tik-Tok generation, he is a performer, writer, director, composer and more. A Joe-of-all-trades, if you will. The Stage has called him “irrepressible"", the Guardian; “impishly spiteful” and one person on TripAdvisor; “about as funny as syphilis”, but you can’t please everyone.

Although he craves a rags to riches story, Joe didn’t crawl from the gutter to the stage, he just sauntered vaguely towards it and refused to leave. He trained at The Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, worked extensively as a professional actor and then began performing cabaret after someone told him that it wasn’t frowned upon to sing songs and tell jokes with a glass of wine in your hand.

He burst onto the London Cabaret Scene in 2013 and within a year was nominated as Best Compere at the London Cabaret Awards, had residencies at the Cafe De Paris and Proud Cabaret (London’s top two venues) and had hosted the ill-fated show Burlesque: On Ice. How he got involved in the last one, he’s still not sure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. He’s played in historic venues such as The London Hippodrome, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and Madame Jojo’s in Soho. He has also compered private events for the likes of Alan Carr, Ant and Dec, FKA Twiggs and charities such as CALM, Mind and The British Heart Foundation.

He has been Cabaret Director for West End venues Bunga Bunga, Barrio, Circe’s and was the created of the award winning “The Silencing of Miss Scarlet” which played in London and Brighton for two years. He has been guest curator of a number of shows at Cafe De Paris and has created bespoke shows all across the UK. He has directed non-cabaret productions including a stint with the world’s longest running sketch show NewsRevue at the Canal Cafe Theatre, FEAST! for Woolwich Works and the UK tour of the musical Spring Awakening for Stairway Theatre Company. This is his third collaboration with The Lost Estate, having worked on ‘58th Street’ and ‘Paradise Under the Stars’.

As an actor he’s appeared in theatre both regionally and on the West End, where he originated the roles of The Cat In The Hat in the UK premier of ‘Seussical’ and Ferripoti in ‘NotMoses’. He played Touchstone in Northern Broadsides’ 30th anniversary production of ‘As You Like It’, combining his cabaret improv work with the words of Shakespeare. Television work includes ‘My Parents Are Aliens’ for ITV, “All At Sea” for the BBC and playing Joe in the sitcom “Hapless” for Amazon Prime, a guest role that was written for him by Gary Sinyor.

As a composer he worked for Grindstone Theatre on their Jack the Ripper musical ‘RIP’ at The Kings Head Theatre, scored 5 pantomimes for Such Stuff Productions and is currently in development with a brand new musical ‘Aunt Tittie’ based on an unknown Noël Coward short story, directed by Benji Sperring.