Comedian Jonny Cole’s meteoric rise has seen him graduate from the back rooms of pubs in his native Black Country to comedy clubs, theatres and - for one night this autumn - Birmingham’s Utilita Arena. His overnight success has actually been a decade in the making, and the former diesel salesman is determined not to leave anything in the tank - as he explains to What’s On...

The past couple of years have been nothing short of extraordinary for Black Country musical comedian Jonny Cole. His current show, Armagudd’n, kicked off in September 2024 to little fanfare. Eleven shows presented in and around the Black Country struggled to gain traction, with gigs in Tipton and Bewdley on the verge of being pulled - after barely selling 30 tickets between them - and the remaining dates struggling to sell half their seats.

Everything changed when manager and promoter (as well as friend and fellow comic) Wayne Beese put a few clips online that he’d filmed at a 2023 performance at the Glee Club in Birmingham. Two went viral, getting more than a million views each, and Jonny became a star overnight. All 11 shows sold out within days, and the tour was extended by 90 dates, culminating in a sold-out gig at Wolverhampton Civic Hall at the end of 2025. That was supposed to be the finale, but another 64 dates were then added for this year. The final show - which Jonny assures me really will be the last one - takes place at Utilita Arena, Birmingham’s biggest indoor venue, in November.

Despite being as surprised as anyone by the stunning turnaround in fortune, the affable Wednesbury native appears to be taking success in his stride, and seems completely unfazed by the prospect of an arena show.

“I’m often just blindly led by Wayne,” he admits. “He’s come into the dressing room and said ‘If you had the opportunity to do this, would you?’ Firstly I said, is that even a conversation? And secondly, do you think we’d get anyone to come?”

With over 50 million views on YouTube and more than 150,000 followers on social media (“Wayne does all that - I don’t really understand it”), there are serious grounds for optimism. Jonny’s hardly expecting to fill the venue, but a crowd of around 4,000 will still comfortably be the biggest of his career, either as a comic or as a musician gigging in bands for years prior to the switch to stand-up.

Had he given much thought to performing in such a vast auditorium? It’s clearly a different beast to the three nights he’s playing at Katie Fitzgerald’s in Stourbridge (capacity 120) just weeks before...

“I’m more intrigued than nervous about it, to be honest. I started out doing the backstreet pubs and clubs, which really did me a lot of good, [making me] pretty thick-skinned and relentless. It’s grown to the bigger stages, so I’m aware that when I’m performing, it’s got to be a bit bigger. My mannerisms have got to be a bit bigger, I’ve got to travel a bit further, and my exclamation needs to be a bit larger.”

The expanded audience is also likely to include more people from further afield, as this year’s tour has seen him performing all over the UK. Given that his act - a mix of gags and comedy songs with a Black Country twist - relies heavily on local dialect and knowledge, had he been surprised by its success, or felt the need to water down any elements when performing away from home?

“You know, I think it isn’t so much a Black Country thing as a working-class thing. Wherever you go in the country, you’ve got pockets of working-class people that have got exactly the same sort of culture as we have in the Black Country and the Midlands, so I think that’s what travels. Sometimes, though, I will slow down the accent a little bit, just to make sure they’re actually understanding it.”

That being said, Jonny’s use of, and riffs on, the Black Country are precisely what people come to see. The two clips that went viral are a case in point. One was about how locals speak in letters rather than words, the other a routine about what Disney would’ve been like if it was located in the Black Country.

Better yet, his initial breakthrough came from a song he wrote about Wednesbury.

“I woke up with a hangover, wrote this tongue-in-cheek parody and sent it to my dad to give him a laugh. He put it on YouTube and it got a couple of thousand hits. He told me I should do more of the comedy ‘because no one likes your other stuff’.”

Jonny still runs new material past his dad, as well as a couple of mates, all of whom he credits with helping make things funnier. He also admits that members of the audience or people in pubs have provided some prize material - such as the punter who gave him the title ‘No Woman No Sky’, about a man whose partner takes the remote control when they break up.

“I don’t profess to be any sort of genius,” laughs Jonny, suggesting his Black Country ‘family’ are naturally funny and a constant source of inspiration. “It’s so easy to pick up on little ideas and bits of banter that you hear in pubs. I’ve been doing a gag for years about the pronunciation of the word mosque because I remember when a mosque was something the Lone Ranger wore.”

Endearing the accent to non-natives is one thing, but he’s also delighted when people who have migrated away from the area turn up to shows when he plays further afield, suggesting the tour posters are effectively “a bat signal” to lure them in.

“You put that up and Yammers far and wide come to have a look what’s going on and support it, just because it’s Black Country and we look after our folk.”

He also admits he’s had to start looking after himself in recent times, giving up alcohol four years ago after it was doing him rather more harm than good.

“I’d get very drunk before going on stage - I mean really drunk. So that just had to stop. I came from a rock & roll background, where you’d get hammered and then go and play. When I transitioned into comedy, no one told me that wasn’t the gig. One night, when I was warming up for Joe Lycett, I drank a whole bottle of JD Honey. I then went on and did the same song three times!”

Sobering up has improved his ability to perform, as well as changed his mindset about the whole endeavour: “I’m a lot sharper on stage now. I can think two or three gags ahead, and my timing’s better. Personally, when I was pissed, it was all about how much fun I was having, but since sobering up, it’s about how much fun I can get [the audience] to have. And, coincidentally, my career has gone from strength to strength.”

Jonny Cole plays Utilita Arena Birmingham on Tuesday 3 November Check out all of Jonny’s upcoming gigs at funnybeeseness.co.uk/jonnycole

By Steve Adams