In another life in the late-80s and 90s, I was a stand-up comedienne. My childhood heroes were the Python team, The Goons, The Goodies and Billy Connolly. I had crushes on them all, except maybe Harry Secombe, probably because I wanted to be them.

It never occurred to me that gender might be an issue until I auditioned for my first university comedy review at Adelaide Uni. The director and everyone else laughed their heads off during my monologue, which if I recall rightly, contained some material about carrots and bottoms (their writing, not mine!).

Imagine my surprise when I was told I wasn’t going to be in the next show because the director thought I was too funny and, as they didn’t write humorous roles for women, I would get bored. He’s since gone on to be a well-known television comic. I’m not going to name him and, of course, I’m not bitter…much. The next year he wasn’t directing the review, I wrote my own skits and joined the team.

The only female comic role model, when I growing up, was Phyllis Diller. With her ‘I’m so ugly I can’t get laid’ routine, she was the ground breaking female comic. This humour wasn’t my cup of tea, and for the first and only time in my life, I really wished I were a guy. I’d thought I could be the seventh member of the Python gang. In fact, that title really belonged to Carole Cleveland who, though very talented, was never acknowledged as a member of the team. She was the straight woman.

After I graduated from drama school in Melbourne, Australia’s comedy capital, in the 80s, comedy was raging. The Last Laugh in Collingwood’s Smith Street was peaking and during every Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the upstairs room known as Le Joke would become La Joke’women-only for two weeks.

It seemed necessary then to give us a break. At most gigs if a woman were included in the line-up, she’d be the only one. It could get a little lonely. It’s not that the guys left you out, but it was definitely more of a ‘rock and roll’ scene.

It was during this early stint with comedy, when I enjoyed some reasonable success, that I heard the term ‘women’s humour’. Like it or not, that phrase had a sense of ‘lesser than’. It generally referred to jokes about relationships, children, the menstrual cycle and so on.

The term ‘men’s humour’ was never heard. Even if you were hysterically funny, you still hadn’t proved yourself worthy unless you got away from these traditionally female topics. The thing is that relationships, children, the menstrual cycle and all that girlie stuff is so much of who we are.

I’m pleased to report that, though still in the minority, the number of female comics has increase since the days of dear old Phyllis. There’s no more La Joke at The Last Laugh, but I can still single out some of the women in this year’s Festival. These performers represent a cross section of the new and the more experienced, the traditional and not so traditional. So laugh please, there’s a lady on stage.

Kim Hope has been doing stand-up since the mid-90s (In fact, we crossed paths occasionally.). She has appeared on television and radio and works regularly with her colleague and friend Adam Smith. She’s appearing at Portland Hotel in her one-woman show Rollercoaster.

When I asked her how she felt these days about gender and comedy, she observed that it’s no surprise that it’s been a male domain because who else but a guy would think, ‘I’m going to get up in front of all these pissed guys at the pub and make them laugh.’

It’s hard to argue with that!

‘Plus,’ Kim adds. ‘Comedy always seems to have a rather masculine, almost gladiatorial feel to it. The audience is going to go thumbs up or thumbs down, and that’s it.’ I guess comics don’t use the word ‘dying’ for nothing.

Kim says experience doesn’t make performing easier.

‘I still get really nervous. I still want laughs, lots of laughs!’

Kim isn’t afraid to use her personal life as fodder, or indeed the lives of those around her. She freely admits that she harassed her sister for material about her bout with bowel cancer then felt so bad she did a show about what a terrible thing it was to harass her cancer-recovering sister.

She describes her current show as being about heartbreak, love, obsession, tears, elation and depression – the upside to being down and the downside to being up.

According to the ‘women’s humour’ criteria, this may be traditional territory. But I guarantee there’ll be nothing ho-hum about Kim’s performance. She’s not afraid to put herself right out there, and her energy is formidable.

Cath Jamison has to come in as the rarest breed, a female comic magician. Australia’s leading female magician (Magician of the Year at the Professional Stage Magic Awards), she’s toured internationally. Her new show The Secret Life of a Woman is at Trades Hall.

She’s come along way from her street performing days when she juggled chickens. Rubber that is. After talking to her, I wouldn’t put it past her to juggle live chickens. This is a woman who sounds like she’ll try anything as a performer, including swallowing razor blades during her show, No, it’s not a trick.

Cath is a fully-qualified gardener. Clearly, she’s eschewed traditional women’s roles her whole life. She does, however, squeeze in a bit of ‘women’s humour’ in her sassy, sexy, dove-whispering show, by picking a guy from the audience and taking him on a date.

‘I spend so much time travelling that I haven’t got time for meeting men, so I have to do it on stage,’ laughs Cath.

Where else is a hard-working woman to meet a guy other than at work? And she doesn’t have a male assistant.

In fact, her assistants are an act themselves, know as Perfect Nonsense, two tap-dancing, lieder hose-wearing German girls.

Not content with jaw dropping tricks, Cath likes to take her audience on a roller coaster of emotions. The show is magic, comedy, theatre and a blind date all in one, so seriously expect the unexpected.

Cath is a performer who knows where she’s taking her audience, and knows how to not let her audience know where that is until they’re there.

Courtney Hocking is a relative new comer; at only 24, she’s young but definitely not shy! Studying writing and Australian studies, she’s well qualified to give her spin on the latest political, cultural beat-up in her show Un-Australian at Trades Hall.

Politics is less traditional territory for women, not just on the stage. Courtney feels it makes her more interesting to the public.

She loved comedy growing up but isn’t someone who woke up one day and thought ‘I’m funny, I’m going to do stand-up.’

She did, however, go and see a gig so bad that it inspired her to get up and do better. Which is something I wished hecklers would do.

She won the Uni Campus Comedy Award in 2001 and has appeared at the Comedy Club and The Local. Courtney also does a weekly podcast with Lawrence Leung and Andrew McClelland, which can be heard at HYPERLINK “http://www.nonstopical.com” www.nonstopical.com

Courtney not only found that females were more than welcome in uni revues, but she also feels that there’s no sexism from fellow males.

‘They are all very supportive,’ she says.

I’m not sure if I should tell her that older female comics have told me that they suspect being ‘supportive’ is a new PC way of picking up younger female comics. Perhaps, us older gals are too cynical.

Maureen Sherlock, Lyn Shakespeare and Carole Yelland deserve an award for best title of musical ever for their show Alzheimer’s The Musical.

Jokes about growing old may not sound like a riot but to those who are heading in that direction, they’re positively therapeutic.

Maureen, Lyn and Carol are experienced performers in theatre and television, and have performed together in various incarnations, including Tragic At Their Age for the 2004 comedy festival.

I should be so lucky to be that tragic at their age. When I rang for an interview they were driving back to Melbourne from The Big Laugh Comedy Festival in Sydney and there was a lot of laughing going on in that car. I get a sense that asking them if they’re a bit left of centre of Melbourne’s comedy scene is a stupid question. They are, of course, but they couldn’t care less – one of the benefits of ageing.

Maureen, who writes all their shows, also writes children’s books. These women have no intention of slowing down. Dementia be damned. Their audience is mixed. It’s not just people praying their Depends will get them through the laughs. And it really is a musical.

Fiona O’Loughlin saw her first comedy gig 17 years ago and was enamoured with it. She had a go at it herself soon after but ‘didn’t quite get it’ and decided to stop. In 2001, she came back to the fold with her show Fiona And Her Sister (And Some Weird Guy). It was a huge hit and netted her a Barry Award for best newcomer. Since then, she’s performed at Edinburgh Festival, in Montreal and L.A, and become one of our foremost female comics, appearing on ‘Rove’ and ‘The Panel’.

Barely into her 40s, Fiona is a mother of five – quite an achievement. Fiona surprised me by casually mentioning that, on top of that, she and her husband used to foster children as well, not just one or two. Over the years, they’ve fostered 30! Her comedy career has meant letting go of that side of her life, and I would say no one deserves to enjoy some personal success more than this woman!

Fiona met and married her husband in Adelaide. Work took them to Alice Springs. She admits it took her a while to get used to it, and sometimes, she felt a bit trapped. Being at home with small children can be isolating enough, let alone living in a remote area. However, comedy and the constant travelling have made coming home to Alice Springs a joy.

The ironic thing is she is less known there than anywhere else. She swears everybody thinks she’s deluded.

‘There goes that poor woman who thinks she’s on the telly,’ she claims they say as she walks down the street. ‘Alice Springs is my personal Betty Ford clinic.’

The high from performing can be hard to follow with a quiet spell in your hotel room and, let’s face it, going out and sharing your ups and downs with fellow comics is part of the joy of it all. It might be competitive at times, but it also a community where everyone knows where you’re coming from.

It’s a sobering thought, after all this contemplation around my own experience, that, as Fiona noted, ultimately comedy is a scene where age, gender and race really are irrelevant. It’s about being funny.