Irene Korsten
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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.
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Northern Light, drops us straight into the life of Lucien (Raymond Thiry) and his late-teens son, Mitchell (Dai Carter). It has been two-years since the death of Lucien’s wife and daughter (and of course Mitchell’s mother and sister). It is clear that Lucien is not coping and lives only for his work’teaching boxing to local kids. He seems to have no time for his surviving son, and when he does he is angry and negative towards him. At a family gathering there is a ghastly scene between father and son, …
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Manslaughter, directed by Danish film-maker Per Fly, tells the story of high school teacher, Carsten (Jesper Christensen). In his 50s, married with grown children, he is having an affair with former student, Pil (Beate Bille). Pil is a left wing activist who joins two others on a politically motivated raid, during which a policeman is killed. The investigation leads to Carsten, exposing his affair and forcing him to choose between his wife and Pil, who is now in serious trouble. Carsten decides to stand by Pil.
His devotion to Pil is …
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This is low-budget film-making at its best. Steven Soderburgh directs and Coleman Hough writes.
Martha (Debbie Doerbereiner), a middle-aged woman who lives with her ageing father, goes off to work everyday in a doll factory and sews dolls’ clothes at night. The only other significant person in her life is co-worker Kyle (Dustin Ashley), a much younger man, who lives with his mother. They are the working poor of America.
Along comes Rose (Misty Wilkins), a young woman hired by the doll factory to help with extra orders. Energetic and talkative, she …
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If you are tired of slick one-liners, political satire and jokes about bad sex then spend this Comedy Festival at La Mama and, in particular, spend some time with Nicola Gunn in An Unfortunate Woman. An extraordinary and poignant physical performance will be your reward.
This is a solo show with a cast of many characters including a lively childlike clerk, a boring and boorish psychiatrist, and an American nymphomaniac. Although a little confusing at the beginning, it is well worth the wait when in the end all the threads come …
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