Gay comedian Jonathan Duffy has a new comedy show coming up, ‘Jono Duffy, Nothing to Lose’, that premiers June 22.
“It’s called ‘Jono Duffy, Nothing to Lose’ cause I’m unemployed, have no friends and I got nothing to lose, ” Jonathan says with a grin on his face, when asked about the title of the upcoming show.
According to Jonathan this is the first full show he’s done since he left Iceland and moved to France last year and he admits that the thought of “going on stage” after all this time is a bit frightening. “I’m fucking terrified,” he says.
However he promises new and exciting materiel, which is in part based on his experience of living in France. “I’ve been going through a lot since people last saw me and lots of that is gonna make it into the show. But of course I will also try to add some of the good old Icelandic favorites. Think of it as a hilarious update on what it’s been like to try to make things work when they don’t really want to – mixed with the wonderful familiarity that I feel when I think of a whole shelf (“heil hilla” in Icelandic).”
In short this is going to be a regular stand-up hour that anyone who knows Jonathan’s name is familiar with.
Asked what living in France is like compared to Iceland, Jonathan gives the question a thought. “One thing that’s been very different from when I moved to Iceland is that I have been forced to get better at French,” he replies. “When I moved to Iceland, I had every intention of becoming fluent in Icelandic. After a while I realized that I didn’t actually need to though because everyone in my life spoke fluent English and everything I did was in English. Eventually I just stopped learning it. I mean I can still follow a conversation but don’t ask me to tell you the four different spellings of the word horse.
In France, nobody speaks English. Even if you ask in French if they can speak it, they won’t just say ‘No’ they will say ‘Pas de tout’ which roughly translates to ‘Not at all, how dare you assume that I would ever speak such a vulgar language you uncultured piece of shit’.
So I’ve had to learn French, and in about 9 months I can operate and have conversations.”
“One day we sat down and looked at what was coming, the unemployment benefits, the apartment we lived in all that kind of stuff and realised unless we found work we were going to be eating cat food pretty soon.”
He says that another difference between Icelanders and the French is their sense of humor. “Ok so don’t tell the French I said this,” he says grinning, “but they don’t really have a great sense of humor about themselves. Icelanders and Australians, we know we can be idiots and we make fun of ourselves. The French don’t.”
But since moving to France, you’ve been making numerous jokes about France and the French on social media, how have the French reacted to that?
“Well I’ve gained quite a bit of success on TikTok from making fun of how hard it has been to learn French and they seem to respond to it well. I think millennials and Gen Z French people are more willing to be made fun of. None of them have bought tickets to this show yet so who knows.”
Asked why he decided to move to France in the first place he says the he and his fiancé didn’t really decide to move there. They kind of had no choice. “After months and months of Covid last year, we both had no work. I lost all of my stand-up gigs, and all the other side hustles I had and he lost his job too. We are both not Icelandic so we didn’t really have that family support network you have when you still live in your own country.
One day we sat down and looked at what was coming, the unemployment benefits, the apartment we lived in all that kind of stuff and realised unless we found work we were going to be eating cat food pretty soon.”
Jonathan says that his fiancé had mentioned that for a while he had been thinking about doing a master’s degree and he wanted to do it in France (his home country) so they figured that now would perfect because they had nothing else going on.
“So we moved into his childhood bedroom in a tiny town in Normandy with our cat for a couple of months until we got a place in Paris. The master’s degree he wanted to do didn’t pan out, I’m still unemployed and we found out our cat as bad kidneys. Oh, and because of Covid I’ve only seen the walls of my apartment and the grocery store. This has basically been our life since leaving Iceland. If it could possibly go wrong, it probably will,” he says laughing and it’s clear that he misses Iceland.
“Every single day. Yes Iceland has its problems like any other country, but it was the longest home I had in my adult life. I landed at Keflavík on August 14, 2015. I lived there for five years. Iceland has literally made me who I am and I’m so grateful for that every day. That’s probably why I miss it so much. I think I understand now why so many Icelanders live abroad for a while but they normally always come back home in the end. Iceland is small enough that you don’t feel like you’re on your own in the big bad world. Icelanders take care of each other. I used to make fun of this with all my jokes about nepotism, but now that I’m in a place where you might get stabbed taking out the trash, I do appreciate it.”
“I think I understand now why so many Icelanders live abroad for a while but they normally always come back home in the end.”
Do you ever see yourself moving back to Iceland?
“I think about it all the time. For now we have to stay here for at least two years since my fiancé eventually did get into a master’s program so we have to stay till he finishes it). But who knows after that. I do know that because I have a British passport if I wanted to move back I would have to go through the whole post Brexit situation.” Laughs. “But seriously when covid is over and the borders open up again, I would like to come back to Iceland for a visit and a show,” he says with a smile.
Until then Jonathan hopes to get a chance to touch base with his Icelandic fans and friends during the new show.
“They will be able to comment as the show goes, since I will doing a live stand up from my apartment,” he explains with excitement, “and after I will sit down for a Q&A if people want to chat.”
More info on the show and tickets here.