Funny Business

Richard discovers that staging the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is no laughing matter.

THIS YEAR THE Melbourne International Comedy Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary, with 233 individual events included in its broad program. For four weeks, international and local comedy superstars will rub shoulders with unheard-of hopefuls in a range of venues across the inner city, from Footscray Community Arts Centre to Federation Square.

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 post-modern 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.”

20th Melbourne International Comedy Festival, April 12 – May 7.
Bookings through www.comedyfestival.com.au or Ticketmaster: 1300 66 00 13.
Comedy @ Trades details and ticketing: www.comedyattrades.com.au
A Porthole into the Minds of the Vanquished: The Regent Room, Melbourne Town Hall, April 13 – May 7.

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