From his early days in a duo act called the ‘Bunta Boys’ in Adelaide’s close-knit comedy world, Justin Hamilton has learned the ups and downs of the trade, eventually honing his skills to the self-sustaining position of full-time comic. It’s a luxury that Hamilton finds weird within the Australian scene; every UK comic he speaks to is amazed that Aussie comedians have to hold down a second job to pay the rent. Ours is not a large industry, and Hamilton is very happy that he has managed to make it pay without the need to take on roles that would take his focus away from being paid to be funny.

Without a doubt, Hamilton’s passion for comedy comes from the people around him. He is quick to reference the influences, peers and colleagues that are so important to him, for both social and working relationships. Wil Anderson, Tom Gleeson and Lehmo are just a few of the fellow comics he lists as integral to the development of his skills, and it is this community that drives his continued involvement in comedy as a whole. Incredibly generous to others in the industry, from young writers to up-and-coming comedians, Hamilton is keen to respect and foster the need for shared support in a struggling craft.

With his roots firmly placed in Adelaide, Hamilton started off on an ambitious project, directing the inaugural Adelaide Comedy Festival. The festival was a success on many levels, but Hamilton is not sure about its direction after many setbacks, including one comic who slept through a 6:15pm set. Whilst he can’t say what will happen to the festival in the future, it is clear that he is happy to settle in Melbourne for a while, with a few trips home to see Mum.

Leaving triple j behind for the permanent stand-up role seems to have cheered Hamilton’s spirits to biblical proportions. He now has his sights set on bigger and better things, including a children’s book and a truly inspiring idea for the 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival that, if it works, will be groundbreaking. If not, we just might see the back of Hamilton as he scuttles off back to Adelaide for the last time, and that would definitely be a shame for the rest of us.

Daniel Kitson
If you don’t know who he is then we don’t think you really care about this article. He’s nominated, and if you’ve seen him before you will know why.

Tim Minchin
After the Best Newcomer Perrier in Edinburgh, Minchin has returned to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a killer show that certainly deserves its nomination for the coveted Barry award.

Mark Watson
Within the first week of the Festival, there are always murmurs about a show that no one was really talking about previous to the performer coming out. This year, that show was Mark Watson: 50 Years Before Death And The Awful Prospect Of Eternity. Word quickly spread, and the show was selling out in no time.

Sam Simmons
After taking home the best comedy award for an emerging artist at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Simmons is at it again and up for the Barry this time. His show is most often described as bizarre but is probably more aptly described as ‘eclectic’ or ‘different’, with music, songs, stories, jokes and a touch of the absurd.

Charlie Pickering
The little local who could, Pickering has done it how you should. He’s toured the country, moved to Sydney for a radio job, come back to ‘keep it real’, won the Piece of Wood award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, been nominated for the Perrier??I suppose it might be time for a Barry.

Demetri Martin
So his apartment burnt down and now we have to give him an award? Don’t the Americans have enough already? Please, people, let’s not give him a Barry??or, okay?? just because he’s ‘good’ maybe we should.

Three weeks in, three issues of The Pun and time for some disagreement! It is time to throw a bone amongst the dogs and watch everyone tear each other apart as they try to be the King Bitch of the litter. But who amongst us would ever dare such a thing? Why I, your humble writer of this column, a bon vivant sheep wrangler with an axe to grind. Feel free to disagree with everything I write, but please have an opinion??preferably your own.

It was with quite a bit of interest that I read the column ‘I Am Not A Comedy Junkie’ by Mel Campbell, expressing her God-given right that spruiking at the Town Hall is a terrible job, nay the ‘??ultimate humiliation!’ Now I agree with Mel that spruiking may not make my top ten lists of things I would like to do with my time but the ultimate humiliation? Now I am not one for hyperbole but this is the most outrageous comment I have ever heard in my entire life! I can think of many worse scenarios that would lead to the ultimate humiliation.

Try standing in a store and a Jessica Simpson song is played and you find yourself singing along? What about making love to a beautiful lady only to call out the name of your Mother? How about performing in a room to no one? Yes, there are many worst humiliations (And only one of the above has happened to me??I will let you choose which one.), and while spruiking is not necessarily fun, it is necessary. It is a great way to build your audience from the ground level up. In the past four festivals, I have experienced the travail of this ultimate humiliation and now have people who come to my show who remember speaking to me outside the Town Hall. If you don’t have the money to tackle the big comedy promoters (And God knows who does? Not even God I would wager.). This is the best way to find your way in the world of comedy.

I would hazard a guess that Mel is not meaning to place a dampener on the spirits of the good comedians who do spruik their cute little arses off at the Town Hall, but rather than putting them down we should celebrate their endeavour, their spirit to go out there every night and find a crowd that they entertain with mirth and mayhem. I know I do, and even though this year I have people I pay to flyer for me (a ‘luxury’ five years in the making), I often go down early to chat to these people because they are not only comrades in the war against seriousness but also fine friends.

Thank you for your time and enjoy the rest of the Comedy Festival.

Justin Hamilton
Patron Saint of Spruikers

Of course, nobody I know seemed to share my excitement. I was all, ‘Come on! Don’t wee-eeze the jui-uice!’ and, ‘Buuuuuuddy!’ and, ‘He dated Kylie Minogue during the filming of Bio-Dome, you know.’ But no biscuit. It doesn’t help that Pauly’s playing Little Vegas, aka The Palms at Crown Casino, which just seems so far away from the Town Hall and the rest of the Festival action.

So I still haven’t made that pilgrimage to see Pauly. But a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine got a phone call that had her leaping about the lounge room with excitement. Seems a friend-of-a-friend of hers is in charge of chaperoning Pauly during his Melbourne trip. Telling him where the cool bars are, what restaurants to visit, et cetera.

‘So, um, if Pauly is looking for some girls that, like, know how to party, you’ll call me, right’? said my friend. We were both very excited.

But we were not actually planning to sleep with Pauly Shore. You see, we are not comedy groupies.

Just as well, really. Because my friend never got that call. Oh, the nights spent dully at home when we could have been enjoying Pauly’s laconic Californian company. Oh, the parties that ‘Pauly would’ve really liked.’

This all made me wonder why I got excited about him in the first place. Is it irony? Is it nostalgia? Perhaps Pauly Shore represents the excess of the Comedy Festival’its strange ability to attract the lumbering, rhinestone-encrusted rump of fading celebrity. For amid all the excitement about the hungry young up-and-comers, the hot local acts and international superstars at the top of their game, there are also white elephants: acts a little too daggy, too pass‚àö? to find an audience among the sought after young demographic.

But secretly, we want to see ‘em. We want our eyes to measure them against our memories. We’re telling ourselves they’ll be deliciously kitschy and crap, but secretly we want them to come through and be indisputably awesome. Who knows’perhaps Pauly is funny. So Pauly, if you’re reading this, get your people to call. We, like, totally still wanna party.

Andy Muirhead‘That happy chappy from ‘Collectors’ is also an incredibly talented stand-up comic. His show, Andy Muirhead is??Perky shows off his day job.
Dave Callan‘Surely you’ve heard his dulcet tones on triple j? Part Irish, part mad (in the best possible way), Callan returns to the festival this year with The Sunshine Factory (Part Two). Considering Part One was hailed as quite the success, it’s probably worth catching it this time round.
Adam Hills‘Music host by night, comedy all-star by??other nights. ‘Spicks and Specks’ host Hills will make you laugh over more than just music in his show Characterful.
Christina Davis‘Most known for her days on ‘Big Brother’, this smiling face presents a stand-up show Christina Davis ‘ The Secret Diaries of Unnamed Fraser, showing she has far more interesting material than reality TV to talk about.
Adam Richard‘Yes, he’s Fabulous, and if he floats your boat with his gossip and bitching on FoxFM, you’re sure to enjoy a full hour of his shtick.
Greg Fleet‘He’s done radio, sure, but he’s old school comedy mafia. He’s da man and, while you may have liked hearing him on any of the airwaves, he has far more passion and pull on stage I assure you. Now let him tell you all about it in Word Up where he talks about talking.
Helen Thorn‘Did you catch ‘Vulture’? Well that smart lady talking about Art, she’s doing it for an hour at the festival. Helen Thorn is Arty Farty is all about Helen Thorn. And Art.
Charlie Pickering‘Another familiar voice, Pickering has been heard on triple j but is much more entertaining in an hour where he shares his own stories in Auto.
Justin Hamilton‘You’ve seen him on ‘The Glass House’ (Well I have, anyway.) and heard him on triple j, but to us he will always be that kick-arse comic who comes up with an hour of solid gold material each year. Justin Hamilton??Smash! is pretty much what it says, a smash.
There’s a rash of talented comics who worked their butts off on TV series ’skitHOUSE’, which was really a distraction from their other funny work: Australian Fast Bowler Tom Gleeson in Non Stop Tom, Tripod singing up a storm in Self Saucing, Cal Wilson discarding her New Zealand rugby-loving ways to explore all things AFL in Up There, Cal Wilson, Damian Callinan laughing it up with not one but two shows (Damian Callinan has Spaznuts and Damian Callinan is Babysitting) and Michael Chamberlin spreading the holy word in Michael Chamberlin and the Ten Commandments.
The Pinch‘These lads may take over your fave local radio station, 3RRR, but they also weave their live magic at festivals over Melbourne. This year they combine both with a live broadcast in The Pinch: Radiolive.

Organising an event of this magnitude is no easy task, explains Susan Provan, the Festival director, and there’s certainly no time to relax once things are actually under way.

“The Festival is absolute bedlam,” she says. “Meetings and administrative stuff all day every day, and then shows every evening. It feels incredibly daunting. I wake up at five o’clock each morning and think ‘Oh my god, I can’t do it all.’??

Provan looks forward to the festival each year despite the stress, and believes that now more than ever it is an important cultural event, and one that provides a much needed antidote to the tense global times in which we presently live.

‘Most stand-up comedians talk about what’s going on in their social and political environments and they do it in an amusing and often challenging fashion. I think this festival will contribute to that tradition. We’ve had some tricky festivals, like the one where we opened the same day as the Americans invaded Iraq; that was big,’ she laughs, ‘but clearly the more interesting times we live in, the more grist for the mill.’

While the festival hub is firmly focussed around Melbourne Town Hall and nearby venues, this year sees Carlton’s Trades Hall playing a major new role. Comedy @ Trades brings together a range of local talents, from cabaret and vaudeville to cult cinema, and even a women’s response to Puppetry of the Penis, B-Cuppery, under the one roof.

‘The Town Hall precinct is focussed on international and high-profile stand-up, so what we’re doing is quite different,’ explains Linda Catalano, the Artist and Program Manager for Comedy @ Trades. ‘We’re creating a much more independent vibe that’s focussed on things like music and circus. It’s an alternative program. We want people who aren’t so interested in stand-up to come and see something else that’s funny, because humour is so much broader than that traditional comedy style.’

Tamlyn Henderson, who makes his Comedy Festival debut this year in the absurdist postmodern play A Porthole into the Minds of the Vanquished at the Town Hall, says that mounting a festival show involves enormous risks.

‘We’ve done the rounds at the Adelaide Fringe and then a season in Sydney, and now the Comedy Festival, and we’ve spent about $20,000 staging the show all up,’ he says. ‘When you’re really not sure if you’re going to get any returns, that’s really risky, but if you know it’s what you want to do, you just hope that you can redeem some of that money somewhere.’

While the finances involved are daunting, Henderson says that their audience’s responses make it all worthwhile.

‘It’s been really amazing, especially the season we just finished in Sydney, which has put us in a great headspace for Melbourne. People have said that there’s nothing like our show out there, which is really amazing to hear. One bloke told us afterwards that he’d developed a six-pack from laughing so hard. People have been pissing themselves basically.’

This article originally appeared in MCV #275 on Friday 14 April

The first week of the festival has been a bit surreal. I am also working full-time as a manager at King Pin bowling at the Casino. This means I’ve been doing the show, then going to work and finishing at eight in the morning. By the time I got into bed on Friday morning, after opening night, I had slept for 1.5 hours since Wednesday afternoon. That’s 48 hours! 1.5 hours sleep in 48 hours. Can someone please get me a coffee?

But I am getting into the rhythm of things now. Except for flyering: I consider this to be the most soul crushing thing I have ever had to do in my life. This show is something that I have poured my heart and soul into, and I’ve had to compress it all onto a little piece of paper, and then hand it out to random strangers. Only to have them look at it, give me a dirty look and then deliberately go out of their way to avoid me.

Other than that, everything is going well. I’m happy with the show, and learning and growing more as a performer each night. However, I do look forward to a beer or two at the end of it, and a big sleep in as well.

Every year there’s a story in The Age about the sorry lot of small-time local comedians. The way they run up horrendous credit card debts and support themselves with menial part-time jobs. The way they play to three people a night or cancel their shows because nobody came, while people queue around the block to see pretty, pretty Arj Barker tell jokes remarkably similar to those he told last year. (Later tonight at the bar, women will do a bit more queuing for pretty, pretty Arj Barker.)

But for my money, Town Hall spruiking is the ultimate humiliation. The big producers who handle the international acts and the local celebrities employ people to hand out flyers for their various shows. Some venues also send their own staff to promote the shows they’ve got on. These are the lucky spruikers, for they are allowed to wear normal clothes, speak in normal voices, and not mind when people reject their flyers.

Then there’s you. Imagine you’re forced to dress in the costume from your show, which looks more than a little out of place on the street, and give pithy, persuasive summaries’in character’of why passers-by should come along tonight. You have to do this again and again, interrupting people’s conversations, working the queues, amping up the hilarity as the hour of your show approaches. You must look on gaily as if it’s of no consequence that people are ignoring your winning smiles and outstretched flyers. And you must do this in rain, hail, and bitter, bitter cold.

But it’s not all bad. There’s a wonderful camaraderie among the local comedy spruikers. Everyone takes each other’s flyers and tries out their spiels on one another. There are twinkles in eyes as they line up on either side of the portico, forming a gauntlet for hapless punters to run.

Tempers flare, though. Last week one spruiker put another spruiker’s flyer on the ground and stamped on it because she didn’t like his show. Come on, guys. Play nice. After all, you’re in this together.

But you won’t see me schmoozing. You see, I am not a comedy groupie.

You’ll know comedy groupies when you see ‘em. They aren’t in a show, but they get into the Festival Club for free and start disgraceful dance floor pashing scenes. They laugh at in-jokes from three Festivals ago. And they’ve got the mobile number of that comedian you’ve only ever seen on TV.

Frankly, I’m already favouring Trades. You don’t have to pay or have special passes to get in. In fact, while famous and not-so-famous people were eyeing each other off at tonight’s official opening party (complete with bouncer and door list), there’s a great act on here.

A bunch of ordinary punters put down their drinks and pick up black folders. They assemble at the front of the bar and lo! They’re a rad singalong choir called the Butterfly Glee Club. (You can join by rocking up to the Butterfly Club at 6:30 on any given Wednesday.)

And they’re singing ‘Mad World’. ‘All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces’?? I can’t help smiling. Couldn’t be more appropriate.

Comedy Festival certainly is a mad world. And I’ll be about’keeping an eye on the lunatics.

‘Yes, I say. Come to its opening.’ Guffaw and oh, ha ha. Some, like the flyers distributors for I Heart Racism, threw the flyer to the ground and stomped on it (Guys, it’s not a flamenco show!). So much for the comrade of other artists. Cheers.

Every night the show has almost sold out and for a one-hundred seater venue at 45 Downstairs. That’s not bad. But with that comes body heat, and I get so sweaty on stage jumping between over 20 characters that I become a proverbial waterfall.

Another thing is having friends in the audience. There is a scene in the show where a monkey, after humping my head, jumps off and completes its climax into the audience. I decided to pick on a friend of mine, Graeme, in the front row. As the monkey, I humped him vigorously like he were an old car tyre, his seat creaking with the violence of my thrusts. But rather than recoil with horror, Graeme decided to wrap his arms around my gyrating bum to keep me there??for some time. It was only when I bit him that he let me go. Friends!
Ah, and only 16 more sweaty shows to go and hopefully no more flyer flamenco.