No, wait a minute, that’s not a funny person, that’s another fucking cashed-up bogan in a pink polo shirt with the fucking collar turned up who’s part of the audience! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY THE HELL DO YOU LINE UP TO LAUGH AT SOME OF THE MOST BLAND, MEDIOCRE, MIDDLE OF THE ROAD SHITE IN THE FESTIVAL?

Woah, Richard, get a grip. Elitist, much?

Ahem. As you can tell, the Comedy Festival has taken its toll. I think my sense of humour will be the next casualty…

In total, I saw 39 shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival; and I lost track of the number of late nights I had; and the amount of alcohol I consumed.

Now that the festival’s over, there’s several more comedians I should review, but to be honest, it’s getting late, I only got home from work at 9pm (lost two days out of the production schedule due to ANZAC Day and moving the office from Richmond to the city) and right now I really should be trawling through the 150 emails in my inbox to plan my radio show for this Thursday. So here, in brief, are the remaining shows I saw at the festival this year:

Fiona O’Loughlin. I definitely enjoyed this alcoholic, trouble-prone, housewife superstar’s show in a low key sort of way. Instead of constant guffaws, she generated constant smiles and regular chuckles, and the occasionaly fervant prayer that she wasn’t my mother. Three and half giggles out of five.

Dave Bushell – Dirt, War and Why I Don’t Eat the Fishies. From Nazi relatives to the death of Princess Di, and zombie cows to Morrisey, this was a joyous, occasionally slackly-paced romp through the major events of the 20th century. Needs to either tighten up his material or write some really killer jokes, but given that this was Dave’s first solo show in the festival, bloody enjoyable, even if the average audience member (who appeared to be aged between 15-18) were too young to get at least half his jokes. Three regularly-spaced hoots out of five.

The So-Called Elite in Once Upon A Coffee Cup. I really wanted to like this show. I didn’t. The John Howard puppet was cool, though. Shame the humour was forced and laboured. Two vague smiles out of five.

Introducing Beau Heartbreaker. The award-winning drag king was suffering from a tummy bug on the night I saw her, so rather subdued but still sweetly funny, in a low-fi kind of way. Two and a half droll laughs out of five.

Josh Thomas – Please Like Me. A 19 year old comedian from Brisbane who reminded me too much of too many semi-autobiographical novels by young authors: you can actually write about things that haven’t happened to you, you know. I went into this gig expecting great things, due to the hype Josh had generated, and got only good things, so perhaps it’s partially my fault for beliving the hype that I was vaguely unsatisfied by his tales of small testicles, schoolies week dramas and MSN messenger stalking. Nonetheless, his delivery is strong, and given time, he should be bloody good. Three ‘oh my god that reminds me of myself in high school’ titters out of five.

The Infamous Spraygeltent. Sadly, because my second show of the night ran overtime, and then I was so exhausted after the previous night’s Barry Awards afterparty, I only got to see part one of this three part show by Glenn Manton and Jim Lawson. What I saw, though, I really liked – although I was eternally grateful that I wasn’t called upon to do pushups or walk across burning coals, unlike some of the audience. If this is what life is really like in an AFL team, I’ll stick to being a spectator!

The Glass Boat. Absurdist theatre that occasionally didn’t work, but when it did, dear god – what superb flights of lunacy! Giant frogs that terrorise autistic children; girls raised by wolves; a bush Christmas that recalls every Australian rural cliche goes horribly yet touchingly wrong; mail-order zombie brides who talk to their suitcases; and much, much more. Deadpan when required, wonderfully exagerated at others. Delicious. Although the performers might want to wash their costumes before the end of their run, next time – they were a bit whiffy! Four strangled shrieks of mirth out of five.

And that, ladies, gentlemen and trans people, was my 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Well, almost…

This next lot of reviews will perforce be brief, in order to get through several of them in the one post before I head off to the ANZAC Day game between Collingwood and Essendon. Go Pies!

Kim Hope in Rollercoaster. An entertaining night of stand-up with an edge. Hope’s delivery is never less than sharp, incisive and hilarious, and even as the show takes a turn into darker territory, dealing with the vagaries of alcohol and depression, this laudable comedian keeps the laughs coming with her intelligent and audacious comedy. From pitch-perfect evocations of 1970s dinner parties to a hyper-animated discussion of ways to pick up men, Hope’s show is not always hilarious; the London-based section of the show could be a little tighter; but when she hits her mark she’ll have you in stitches. The greatest problem with this show was that the brave material (and I know that’s a cliche but in this instance its fucking appropriate) is not always suited to what is essentially a fairly mainstream festival that attracts a very suburban crowd. Performed in the Fringe Festival, Rollercoaster would be winning greater acclaim and attracting larger houses. I definitely recommend it. Three awed silences followed by shrieks of mirth out of five. (Portland Hotel til April 29)

Alison Bice in The Wizard of Bice. A Moosehead award-winner, Alison Bice’s festival show this years shows real promise – Bice has a wonderfully dry delivery and stage presence – but overall fails to work for two main reasons. Much of the material is structured around her interaction with pre-recorded video segments, during which, partially for timing reasons, all the energy drops out of the show. She’s also too caught up in in-jokes about other comedians, and if you don’t know who they are, or about their reputations, then too much of the show is going to leave you scratching your head. A worthy but largely unsuccessful production. Two forced laughs out of five. (Town Hall til April 29)

David O’Doherty is my name. Yawn. Another bland international Irish comedian whose middle-of-the-road humour was lapped up by a sychophantic crowd. To be fair, the night I saw O’Doherty he was getting over the flu, so had little energy in his performance, but even then the majority of his material left me cold. When he sat down to sing his twisted little songs I started to enjoy myself, but these only punctuate his material sporadically, and his actual standup struck me as tedious, in all honesty. Two and a half occasional chuckles out of five. (HiFi Bar til April 29)

Thank god for someone like Sam Simmons in the Sex and Science of Boredom. In a sea of middle-of-the-road stand-up, his surreal, unpredictable humour had me in stitches. Exploring the versatility of bread, how to maintain your inflatable pool, and bringing new life to lint and slideshows, Simmons is definitely not everyone’s cup of lukewarm tea. Given that I hate tea of any sort, I adored this show, and definately recommend it to anyone seeking more challenging or creative comedy at the festival this year. Three and half howls of laughter out of five. (Bosco Theatre @ Federation Square til April 29)

Lots of odd images and definitions came to mind: the garnisher of restaurant meals (‘Hey, kitchen-hand! Spruik that plate for service.’), a speciality cleaner or redecorator of some sort (sounds like spruce), kid’s shenanigans (‘You’ve been out spruiking all day, haven’t you?’). And it went on like that.

So, encarta.msn.com defines spruik as follows: ‘Australia. To promote goods, services or a cause by addressing people in a public place (humorous).’

The definition can be applied to a healthy portion of the advertising industry, all of it if you tweak the meaning. Television is as public a place as any, in a private sort of way. Think Franco Cozzo and Ken Bruce: funny at first but capable of driving us all completely mad. Think shonky get-rich-quick moguls who generously help you part with your hard-earned savings through seminars and schemes. Are preachers and televangelists spruikers? Debatable, but that’s a whole other article.

Subscribing charity workers fall under the spruiking tag too. On the street, they can turn a ‘few seconds of your time’ into half an hour, albeit for a good cause. Then there are microphone-wielding earbashers who spout bargains outside department stores. They sound like wedding MCs if you don’t automatically block them out
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Last in this basic overview of spruiks are the flyer-wavers. You see them everywhere: street corners, in front of buildings, at the airport, anywhere with steady foot traffic. Mood dictates reaction. Sometimes, we take a flyer out of interest or empathy; sometimes, we walk past with a ‘no thanks’ or without making eye contact. Sometimes, we glare, shake our heads; sometimes, we tell them where to go.

Eventually, it became clear why I didn’t know the term (besides the fact that my vocabulary needs work). I already had a name for spruikers cemented in my stubborn brain: annoying bastards. That’s a bit harsh, my conscience chides, we all need to work, which is mostly true. And what about telemarketers?

Every year, Melbourne International Comedy Festival generates a new breed of flyer-waving spruikers into ephemeral existence. Whether outside the multitude festival venues or walking with the erratic flow of Melbourne’s streets, festival-goer or not, you’ll see and hear them peddling their promotional wares.

Orange festival flags wave north up Swanston Street. It’s seven and dark already. The cloudless sky adds to the autumn chill, and Town Hall’s second empire architecture is dressed up for the funny season.

Three disco balls hang from each side of the colonnade and spin freckled light over the flagstones below. Stage lights rest above the second floor balcony, ready to transform the hall. The lanterns, branching from the facade, shine their coloured light, and giant orange boards, painted with street directions and that arrow-tailed, curl-headed, gaping-mouthed, dog-person logo thingy, adorn the columns.

The city is its usual self, a million moving voices talking at once. Packed trams clunk over intersections, car horns blare their complaints, the little green walk-man ticks pedestrians across streets.

They seem to be the only ones standing still. They’re not though. The city moves around them as they bounce on the balls of their freezing feet and offer flyers with an outstretched hand to the stream of people passing over the portico. They work in small clusters or alone, either side of the colonnade, in between its columns or on the steps in front of the doorman’s post. Some smile; others talk above the city hum.

‘Stand up comedy show?’, ‘Interested in stand up?’, ‘Show at Hotel Generic Name.’

Here, it feels different from the norm. It’s as if the festival’s comic spirit has been instilled in passers-by. There’re plenty of smiles, even with refusals. People take flyers and actually read them with interest. Some stop to talk. Directions, information, freebies, whatever: the spruikers oblige the chance to chat with animated hand gestures and jovial gusto.

A zealous young man, long curly locks and MICF lanyard, crosses Swanston Street to the Town Hall corner. He’s an Arts student, chosen to shoot a documentary for comedian Michael Connell, and is tonight handing out free tickets to the show.

‘It’s been good to see how it all works behind the scenes,’ he says.

He’ll be spruiking most nights of the festival, armed with an honest face and a fistful of tickets.

‘Sometimes, you get bad reactions. At first, it can get you down, but you get used to it. Mostly, people are friendly,’ says Sydney comedian Justin D Lodge, who is handing out flyers by the colonnade for his show Life, Death and Komodo Dragons. He’s been in the stand-up game for three years, and this is his first MICF.

‘Selling your own show can be seen as selling your soul. Most comedians do, unless they can afford to pay people to do it.’

The public react warmly to Lodge’s sociable grin. He jokes with them, tells them about the show, and scribbles on a few flyers to get them in for free. You couldn’t generate better pre-show word-of-mouth.

These aren’t your average spruikers, and their wares go beyond mundane, hand-delivered junk-mail. Most are volunteers, comedians, directing you to entertainment, walking and talking festival guides with a penchant for conversation.

If you like a good laugh, and there aren’t many who don’t, then it’ll be worth your while to stop for a few seconds (not charity subscriber seconds) and see how a spruiker can help you out. And anyway, at least they don’t call while you’re eating dinner.

This analysis of comedy would assert that depressing and confronting fodder such as heartbreak, rejection, family dysfunction and addiction would make a highly successful comedy routine; logically, one would declare Greg Fleet to be one of Australia’s most successful (if not slightly tragic) comedians.

Fleet is a festival veteran, having braved and entertained the comedy connoisseurs both at Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Fringe. He’s done a stint on the Austereo radio network (the subject of Judith Lucy’s scathing invective at last year’s festival) and enjoyed widespread public recognition for his role on ‘Neighbours’. What drove Fleet to give soap-opera job security the flick in favour of the fickle mistress of stand-up comedy is anyone’s guess, but soon enough, he was getting paid regularly to make people laugh.

His comedy festival experiences have been overwhelmingly upbeat. In particular, he enjoys the ‘cool and creative vibe’ that Edinburgh Fringe and MICF exude. The crowds behave well, as if they were ‘watching theatre,’ Fleet marvels, and he suggests that even the hecklers at the festivals serve a productive purpose.

‘It’s usually creative and constructive, rather than pissed or angry,’ he says’although, one year, a severely inebriated woman interrupted his show by walking to the middle of the stage, holding up her shoe and loudly lamenting that it was broken. She looked at him expectedly, to see if he could fix it.

‘She thought I was a cobbler,’ laughs Fleet.

Festival drunkards aside, he can count some of the world’s most renowned comedic talent as fans; he attributes his success to Eddie Izzard and Frank Skinner attending his shows early in his career and, fortunately, spreading the word.

It’s not only his comedy routine that has made him so fascinating to the media; Fleet also endured a well-publicised addiction to heroin (He left rehab in January this year.) and a family dynamic that was (apologies for the lack of eloquence) utterly fucked.

His father was, as Fleet recalls, a ’sex addictÔøΩƒ∂a rooting machine,’ and the impetus behind his acclaimed stand-up gig I Wish You Were D(e)ad. Philandering aside, Fleet’s father faked his own suicide to ‘escape family life to the States’. It’s an astonishing incident that’s hard for outsiders to fathom. To this day, Fleet remains incredulous in his recounting of events.

‘It was genius. He was very theatrical as well,’ he remarks in his somewhat laconic yet indolent drawl. ‘He’s just mad; he’s done a lot of crazy things.’

Apparently, his father was in email contact shortly after the Edinburgh performance of I Wish You Were D(e)ad, and suggested that Fleet had ‘issues’.

Fleet laughs, once more in disbelief, ‘ÔøΩÔøΩI mean, whaddaya fucking reckon?’

Perhaps, comedy has been a form of public therapy or a much needed catharsis; in any case, Fleet maintains that his relationship with his father is probably better than it’s ever been.

‘We don’t talk much’, he admits. ‘But, when we do, it’s pretty good’.

Fleet believes comedy is linked with tragedy. He suggests that most comedians tend to focus on the topical, which seemingly happens to be dismal’ÔøΩÔøΩwar, current affairs, drink driving’ÔøΩÔøΩit’s not the stuff that happiness is made of.

‘Comedy is tragedy plus time’, he explains, and cites examples of comedians being chastised for speaking ill of the newly dead.

‘People made jokes about Diana after the day she died, and that was too much for people. It was too soon. Six months down the track and people are laughing their arses off at the same joke’.

Fleet joins a litany of comedians who tackle typically disheartening and confronting issues, but he’s adamant that he tries ‘not to have a victim’ in his jokes.

‘I’ll make jokes about AIDS’, he says, ‘but I don’t do jokes about a poor individual who has AIDS’. Rather, he would choose to focus on ‘the way we deal with the problem and the fear that’s instilled within society’.

His latest venture with Gud musician Mick Moriarty, however, seems a little less melancholy. When I ask him about his latest offering Fleetwood Mick, his response is characteristically deadpan: ‘It’s about AIDS’.

The show is, in fact, a parody of news-style programs, an inspired and anarchic invention of the current affairs shindig as we know it.

‘We’d like to see the news presented with songs, beat poetryÔøΩƒ∂with music running through it’.

Personally, I think newsreading done as a poetry slam, Allen Ginsberg-style would rate the impeccable trousers off the unstoppable juggernaut that is National Nine News. Perhaps, it is something for those commercial newshounds to consider.

Alan Brough in Top Town. A one-man show set in Helenville, a small town at risk of being downgraded to a village if anyone else moves away, in which Brough plays every character, from the lady Mayor to the most eccentric of townsfolk. The plot sees Brough roped into making a promotional film for Helenville (which welcomes visitors with a sign reading ‘If you don’t stop, no hard feelings.’), which he ends up releasing on YouTube.

While likeable, and scattered through with some moments of genuinely inventive comedy (such as Brough’s embodiment of the THX sound system movie ad, with which he opens the show), this show sadly didn’t work for me, mostly due to the fact that I never felt at any time that the characters Brough was playing were real. Too two-dimensional to be convincing – and without them and their internal lives, the drama fell flat and the laughs felt forced. Additional flaws, including laboured exposition and overly drawn-out script elements, also detracted.

There is a real poignancy to some of the show, which references Brough’s father’s death last year, but even these scenes, coupled with a (forced) moral about the compassionate nature of small towns, failed to save the production. “Was that supposed to be funny?” asks a Helenville resident after the premiere of Brough’s promotional short for the town, three-quarters of the way through the show; a question which I found myself asking as the house lights came up… Two and a half occasional giggles out of five. (Town Hall til April 29)

Russell Howard. This charismatic, quick-witted and queer-friendly young Englishman, who demonstrated an adaptive, positive and slightly goofy take on stand up during Thursday night’s performance, rattled through a show exploring threesomes, relationships and dreams, pretending to be a fish, fox-hunting and much more, and which provoked constant laughter. While his regionally-oriented jokes didn’t always translate for the Melbourne audience, his engaging personality and hyperactive energy more than made up for the occasional blunder. Managing to mock local accents and attitudes yet also appear awed and delighted by what we say and how we say it, Howard rapidly ingratiated himself with his audience, who responded with undiluted joy. Restlessly inventive, spontaneous and fucking funny. Four shrieks of mirth out of five. (Town Hall til Sunday 29)

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.

Like the advertising material in the dank subways of London’s Underground, posters follow the gradient of the stairs, and heavy steel beams hold the roof centimetres from your head. Each step of the main staircase has sunken bowls from the many thousands of feet that have trampled it over the centuries.

There are two late night bars at Trades Hall. Upstairs lies Bella Union Bar, a mess hall style space with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. As the green room comes off this bar, the chances of you rubbing shoulders with some big names are pretty high. This is the hangout of Tripod, Craig Wellington, Ben Payne and Lawrence Leung.

It was in this vibrant watering hole on Friday night that I met John, a jolly punter, and his intoxicated wife, Gwen. I’d already seen two shows that night and my comedy buddy had piked after the second, claiming he was still recovering from a hangover. There was about an hour to wait before the next show began.

John proudly announced that he and his wife had just managed to talk a restaurateur into giving them two free bottles of wine with their dinner. Or so they claimed. He, like many other patrons in the Bella Union Bar, was at the word-slurring stage of inebriation and was grinning like a monkey in a banana plantation.

My initial desire to move as far away from him as possible subsided as he pleasantly gabbled on unselfconsciously and openly about himself and his wife. We three got talking a bit more and eventually I explained that I had to walk around the venue to see more of the place. They leapt up ecstatically to join me in my travels. So off we went.

The smallest theatre at Trades is the TARDIS-inspired Police Public Call Box in the Banner Room, which seats about 20 and is no bigger than a standard kitchen.

In the Banner Room earlier that night, I saw Courteney Hocking: Un-Australian, a witty show combining stand-up with music and visual comedy. I got a real kick out of stepping through the TARDIS door. (As did John, who tried to open the door while there was a show on. Needless to say, he was promptly escorted back to the bar.)

Other theatres are much larger, such as the Quilt Room, where Lawrence Leung explains the excruciating and hilarious stages he’s gone through to become cool. Or there’s Old Council Chambers, which has circular wooden benches lining the walls.

John, Gwen and I moved downstairs to the Banner Room, which houses another bar, the perfect place for a quiet chat or a relaxing pre or post-show drink. Vintage Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence couches and peeling paintwork supply a charming ambiance. With heaters and soft lighting, this trendy hangout has the high-ceiled space of Transport and the downbeat moodiness of St Jeromes.

In fact, the Banner Room could be just about the coolest hangout at the festival. Half the room is sectioned off with heavy, pale curtains. This space is used for shows such as Ben Payne In His Yellow Ute, in which Payne uses’yes, you guessed it’a yellow ute to entertain swaths of small children and their families. (John thought the idea of a yellow ute hilarious; it was a good few minutes before he’d calmed down enough to have another swig of beer.) Jazz and blues music plays unobtrusively. Although the beverages list is limited, what is there is good and reasonably priced.

It was in the Banner Room that John began telling me his life story, which I’m certain would have been fascinating had I been able to interpret what he was actually saying. When I mentioned I’d be seeing Tripod later that evening, he and Gwen decided that they might as well see the act with me, since the only alternative they could come up with was to head to another bar.

The stage at Bella Union Bar upstairs comes to life around 11:30pm for the Midnight Trade @ The Bella Union, with a different act almost every night of the week. On Fridays, Enuff inspire daggy dancing from the audience. Many are conversing at a decibel level well above normal by the time the band walk onstage. What better moment than this to bring in some terrible twanging tunes from the 80s?

That is not to say Enuff aren’t good. They have that rare ability to dress appallingly, play terrible music, and have the audience performing the craziest, most tasteless dance moves imaginable.

The band’s act is fabulous: hot red imitation patent leather pants with leopard print shirts, bleached blonde mullets that challenge the height of the Eureka Tower, and they perform cringe-worthy music with such skill and flair that the audience are on their feet in a matter of seconds.

It’s a sight for sober eyes to see the more enthusiastic audience members putting their reputations on the line for a manic 80s-inspired dance session.

At quarter to midnight, John, Gwen and I went into the New Ballroom to see Tripod: Idioclips, and, although I had nowhere near the blood alcohol level they did, I reckon I laughed just as loudly. A fantastic end to the evening.

Matt, Phil and Stevie D left Brisbane by car at six on Sunday morning. (Imagine how early that would have been had daylight saving still been on! Well…It would have still been six in the morning’Brisbane is already too far behind the times to put their clocks back any further.) With 24 hours of driving ahead of them, they raced against the clock to make it to Melbourne in time for their favourite TV show ‘The Biggest-Dancing-Celebrity-Idol-Dog-School’.

Devastated by the news of its cancellation (It was replaced with reruns of the 1984 season of ‘Big Brother’.). Hooray’ stopped over in Sydney for the night, planning to enjoy the cities beautiful nightscape. Unbeknownst to them, the Government, under pressure from Sandra Sully, had reached a plea bargain with eco-terrorists: one night with the lights out for the head of Tim Flannery.

So under the cover of darkness, Andrew Bolt took another life. For the first time ever, there was not much of Flannery left and Bolt was not in the right.

Hooray’ high-tailed it out of Sydney faster than real estate capital. Twelve hours later, they finally arrived in Melbourne to find they’d missed the flower show. Stricken with grief, they went to Trades Hall, their venue for the festival, only to be accosted under a bridge on Lygon Street by a restaurateur who wouldn’t let them pass until they’d ‘eaten these pizzas three’.

Escaping with their lives and a delicious calzone, they scraped themselves into their home for the month, share-housing with fellow Brisbane comedians Fiona McGary and Josh Thomas

by Matt from Hooray for Everything

This year, however, I am going to survive the 26 glorious days of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival completely sober.

Why? Well, as I mention in my show Rollercoaster, I had to abandon the joy juice for personal reasons. I drink too much, especially at festivals. I’m an all-or-nothing kinda gal, so this year, I’ve chosen…nothing.

It’ll be a challenge. There are a lot of comedians who do not drink; I’m just not one of them. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt bad. I’ll probably catch myself looking longingly at the beautiful window displays at Dan Murphy’s on Chapel Street (Oh, those happy, bubbly Yellowglen girls.). But I am determined to see it through. Gazing enviously at folks as they imbibe or going home early to cry, I will get through the month of April without the buffer of booze.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival is wonderful. I adore it. Would marry it, if the law and Susan Provan would allow. So, I’m quite looking forward to giving it my full, undivided attention, to wake up remembering conversations and avoiding shame spirals.

I’m wondering what it will be like to see the whole thing through without the foggy pain of hangover hell. What new friendships will grow in its absence and which long-standing ones will drop to the ground (not unlike me at the end of a big night)?

I’m just going to head off to Chapel St to weep. No serious relationship ends without a few tears.

John Howard says we mustn’t paint Hicks as a hero, and I think he’s right. Hicks’s lawyer, Major Michael Mori says Hicks was captured while running away from the frontline. We’ve found the face of terror and looked it straight in the eye’only to have it run off quickly into the distance. I’m not really alert or alarmed, I’m just amazed that our Great and Powerful Friend is so scared of a guy who seems to have less ticker than Kim Beazley (Obviously, also less tikka than Kim Beazley. The catering at Guantanamo Bay is atrocious). I think the Americans were just jealous because David Hicks has actually met Osama bin Laden and they haven’t.

The Americans have apprehended other notable terrorists in their fight against the global threat of terrorism. Four men in Virginia pleaded guilty to training for an attack on the US by participating in several afternoon sessions of paintball. Al-Qaeda is preparing the big guns for us, and the big guns contain several litres of Salmon Pink with a gloss finish. Next week, I anticipate someone will confess to planning the attacks on the World Trade Centre with model airplanes and a couple of sets of Jenga.

One of the Virginian men’s lawyers said he couldn’t deny that his client had attended the paintball, but he couldn’t say that his client was a big participant because he ‘kept falling asleep because it was boring’. So far, Coalition of the Willing: 1, Sleepy Terrorists Spattered In Paint Running Fast In The Opposite Direction: Nil.
As Lleyton Hewitt would say, come on!

We mustn’t get too cocky; we must remain vigilant against possible threats to our way of life. I hear that many of these terrorists are providing material support to a variety of comedy festival shows this year. So the War must go on. Perhaps after six years of advancements like these, we should celebrate with a name change. My vote is for ‘War On Terror Countering Unneccessary National Threats to Security’.

Courteney Hocking is performing her show Un-Australian at Trades Hall, 8.15pm Tuesday to Sundays until 29th April.

There is practically no turf the artist does not trod upon in his tongue-in-cheek delivery. Satire flows freely and the audience laps it up in loud guffaws. No one is spared: ‘museum’ bankers, mobile companies, neglectful parents, illogical traffic codes, even blokes with their ‘cash converted’ engagement rings and the ubiquitous ‘Australian’ barbecue.

However, there are a few crude spots that tend to be bawdy and some comments that border on the offensive. In this multi-hued comedy, some stabs are thought-provoking also.

The setting is drab with gloomy, black curtains as backdrop and dull lighting enhancing the effect. The artist does not lean on any props, relying solely on his comic stream to lighten the mood, and he is more than successful. The use of creative vocabulary is refreshing.

It is an interactive, intelligent, confident show that is seasoned with spicy jabs. If you like your laughs served sharp and unapologetic, this is the show for it.

The first part of my mission late on a Saturday night was to navigate into the bowels of Trades Hall and enter through the doors of The Police Box into a slightly-larger-than-a-broom-closet like room.

After an epic sci-fi type introduction, the title Wellington WHO started to make sense. Craig Wellington declared his geek past and an obsession with the BBC television series ‘Doctor Who’.

This Melbourne International Comedy Festival show is a comedy journey through Wellington’s life and his ‘Doctor Who’ nerd world. I’m not a ‘Doctor Who’ fan in the slightest, and a lot of the material went over my head.

Numerous times, I was that one person you find in every comedy audience who wasn’t laughing while everyone else was in hysterics. I just struggled a little bit because I really dislike ‘Doctor Who’.

What I did laugh at was the comedy skill with which Wellington jumped in and out of different nerd characters during his story.

This is an absolute must see for anyÔøΩÔøΩ ‘Doctor Who’ fan or sci-fi buff, and judging from everyone else’s laughs on the night, Wellington WHO was a winner.

Combining some great jokes from comedians like Duff, as well as some fun but shocking facts, it was a night of laughs. One of the great attractions of Triple Trouble was the Musical Odyssey’a musical journey of a theme chosen by the comedians and endorsed by the fans. An absolute delight.

The audience was presented with three themes for the Musical Odyssey, with the theme chosen according to how much applause was given. From pop artists taking over the world, to a boyfriend with an unfortunate fondness for his cacti collection, all the topics were great fun.

Triple Trouble is over 18’s only. If you’re in the mood for some laughs, and then some drinks, give it a go.

Starting off with a short film, McCarthy establishes his story and struggle. We meet his fellow 12 steppers and their over zealous facilitator, a man who McCarthy points out is overcoming his own addiction for facilitating groups.

McCarthy uses his caring, sharing, highly therapised tone of voice, which beautifully and quite naturally takes the piss. McCarthy also utilises the 12th step, called ’sharing your story,’ as the show’s launching pad.ÔøΩÔøΩ He delivers his tales of his foibles with a sense of self-pitying pathos that you couldn’t help but laugh with, and at, which is the whole point.

Ending with a performance from a very lusty song and dance man (I’m not sure what the connection is between a self help seminar and a spot of cabaret.), he was outrageous and the audience loved it.

If there was a down side to this show, it was the laughing hyena at the back of the room. You know the type, the one with the really loud and annoying laugh.ÔøΩÔøΩ I just hope he wasn’t one of McCarthy’s friends. If that’s the case, Trent, you don’t need him.

Clacker is not the only c-word Tammy Anderson lets loose in this howlingly funny but often cringe-worthy tour of the body’s private places and less popular functions.

Yes, there are fart jokes. And ones about childbirth, sex, anal infections and incontinence.

Just for starters.

Anderson already has a great reputation for honest and confronting writing and performance, particularly through her solo show I Don’t Wanna Play House, which examined her Tasmanian, aboriginal and sexually-abused background.

It’s grand to see her now take the stage and have fun: as loud and as lewd as she wants.

Her Dallas-like detailing of the streets where she grew up in Launceston in all its incestuous and internecine inter-tangling is worth the visit to the show alone.

As Anderson says: It’s not just material’it’s ammunition.

But this is a comically crude outing in which Anderson is tougher on herself’and on her body’s inappropriate burps, blasts, farts, leaks and malfunctions’than she is on the wider world.

There are so many tales that relate to this girl’s ‘moom’ that you almost expect it to be a co-performer but thankfully it kept silent.

The rapturous crowd went wild over Anderson’s fart impressions’based on what you had for dinner the night before.

It’s a powerhouse production from Ilbijerri under Kylie Belling’s assured direction, and Tammy Anderson is a strong, brave, deadly performer.

Jon Williams is superb as the maniacal Brigadier General Ripper who torments Group Captain Mandrake, played by Kip Williams. Think comedic versions of Kurt and Marlow stuck in a small room with a six-barrelled machine gun. The things Ripper gets up to with that gun will have you in stiches.

Oliver Wakelin plays the amorous General Turgidson, whose passion for nuclear warfare is pitted against pacifist President Muffley, played by Toby Truslove. Like Ripper and Mandrake, this pair is also stuck in a room. Instead of a machine gun to play with, they have a sexy Russian ambassador, another trigger-happy general, and the Stephen-Hawking-cross-Jim-Carey figure of Dr Strangelove.

The ticket master warns that the unpaid actors might steal patrons’ alcohol ‘ well, all I can say is there was enough vodka onstage to supply the entire audience.

Stand-up comedy acts are a dime a dozen, but a full cast of talented actors in a really affordable stage production is a rarity. Strangelove the Musical is without doubt one of the better acts at this year’s festival. And you know a comedy show’s going to be a winner when it’s been given the thumbs-up from the cast of The Chaser.

Stephen K Amos has done some brilliant work’brilliant enough that I’ve got tapes of his routines from various comedy festivals, including his set for Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Great Debate in 2005, which I also saw live. The topic was ‘Does God have a sense of humour?’

Unfortunately, this just means I have video proof that Amos’s routine this year was peppered with stale material. His latest set contains a good handful of religion-themed jokes lifted from the 2005 debate.

I know that all comedians recycle stuff’sometimes a joke is too good not to repeat’but this is two years after the fact. I expect a little more effort from an A-list comedian like Amos. He is, after all, a great talent.

Several jokes from this year’s set had me cackin’ me pants, as he wove tales of his childhood with observations about race and culture and ruminations on religion. And, like a true seasoned performer, Amos knows how to interact with an audience.

When he brought up football, a man in the audience shouted out, ‘Eagles!’

Quick as a flash, Amos said, ‘Penguins! What game are we playing?’

Now that’s skill.

I’m an Amos fan. I always have been. I think he’s a clever, snappy fellow. But he ought to avoid those live repeats.

Less shocking and humorous is how a group of middle-aged men wearing women’s clothes recreated The Sound of Music for stage. This drag show wasn’t unfunny, just more wacky funny than ha-ha funny.

I’ve seen The Sound of Music, and its awesomeness casts a shadow over my impressions of this production.

I don’t know much about drag. Before the show, I’d never seen a man mime singing, or mime gouging another man’s butt-hole.

I found the performers playing up their gender-confused appearance made the energy and momentum ‘drag’. I’m not sure if this gender bending is meant to challenge, but it bores.

When the performers forgot about the pink elephant between their legs, so did the audience, and the show became something special.

Miss Jessica James’s subtle portrayal ofÔøΩÔøΩMaria made this musical more than a freak show. She’s the only character who’s recognisably human, alienated from a crowd of deformed and menacing creatures.

At the nunnery where she starts out, MariaÔøΩÔøΩis scolded by heartless nuns who look something like the Gatekeeper from the video game Nightmare. As she tries to fit into the von Trapp family, Maria is sexually molested by the children and farted at by the Captain.

It’s a definite spectacle. I can’t say I understood it. I liked the shiny costumes and the dance routines. They were pretty.

But Sean Hughes has a very important message: don’t go drunk to a charity auction.

His main prop, seated on the chair at stage right, is sober testimony to his latest life lesson.

The London-born Irish comic has been missing from the stage for some years, gleaning laughs through TV, film and novel-writing.

So it was a decidedly well-fed Hughes who declared it was ‘great to be back in Melbourne’ and riffed on eejit things in print, relationships and himself.

The ‘adult’ Hughes, at 41, still has all the zest and cheek that won him the prestigious Perrier comedy award at 24′the youngest ever recipient’but the tone is darker and probably funnier.

‘I thought I’d be married with kids by now,’ he says. ‘Or at least be divorced with weekend access.’

Much of the material is about being older, no wiser, watching your parents shrink and dating 25-year-olds.

Being a pet-owning singleton is not all joy: ‘I got so pissed off with myself last night, I slept in the spare room.’

He paces the stage, sips from a wine glass and shuffles through his print props. It’s good to have him back and enjoying himself in a smart and amusingly rambling encounter.

Oh yeah. And there was one other message: don’t take ecstasy before a visit to the Holocaust Museum.

Sitting in a room jammed with people, where the person beside you is as a consequence now your new best friend, a lab coat clad Ben McKenzie immediately captures your attention with his surprising use of a matchstick, glass beaker, pinch of salt and an egg.

From there, he launches into a tirade about the conspiracies surrounding TV commercials for meat starring Sam Neil, debunks the forensic methods used in CSI and enlightens his audience to the science babble used in ‘Star Trek’.

Although the hard science Ben uses to set up the punchlines is both informative and intriguing, it can at times become tedious, causing the routine to fall into a lull until the next punchline kicks in.

However, Ben’s satire of science is subtle, intelligent and delightfully unpredictable; his use of PowerPoint is simple and originally funny. To top it off, he has an impeccable sense of timing, a witty self-effacing humor and a presence on stage that commands your attention.

You don’t have to be a science buff to enjoy this show but if you are, you’ll enjoy it a whole lot more, possibly to the point where you’ll cackle like a kookaburra throughout most of the show as one lady did!

The genius of this show lies in its ability to present the banal in weird terms, like a pool maintenance video that is feeling under valued, or ‘Family Feud’ and its (in)ability to function as a point of connection between a man and a woman. It is a trip inside the head of a bald guy who is looking for love in strange ways while receiving in depth psychoanalysis from his sofa. Add to this a few moments of Pavarotti-style opera, and the result is an experiment in pushing the boundaries of the absurdist tradition, with unbounded energy and confidence. Favourite moments for me were the split seconds after a weird joke when he cringed as if to say, ‘What the hell am I on about?’

It is a wild ride’ but if you are looking for something different, look no further!