Fiona O'Loughlin Articles/Reviews

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The mother of invention
April 9, 2006

Ten years after an uncertain start in stand-up, Alice Springs comedian Fiona O'Loughlin is emerging as a sell-out sensation. She spoke with Penelope Debelle.

At the tail end of a 24-night Adelaide Fringe season, with competition from Jimeoin at the nearby Spiegeltent, the queue for Fiona O'Loughlin flowed down the stairs of the cinema in which she performed and along the street. Five years ago, she won the best newcomer's Barry Award at the 2001 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. After years of rave reviews, she is finally poised on the cusp between Fringe cultism and a career in the mainstream.

This enormously likeable mother of five from Alice Springs, who drinks and chain-smokes through an interview, has already done two Edinburghs - admittedly an open festival like the Adelaide Fringe so anyone can enter - and a showcase in Los Angeles and Montreal, both by invitation. At Edinburgh, your venue is a key to your status and O'Loughlin was chuffed.

"It was the assembly hall, which is the equivalent of the town hall in Melbourne," she says. "So people kind of think whatever is on there must have earned their stripes."

She has a complicit cackle of a laugh which is part of her charm. Her patter is inclusive and comes out of her life: all of it, including the hilarious black foster baby joke, really happened. There are only one or two recognisable gags and they jar in the context of O'Loughlin's comedy persona: a friend around the dinner table who tells very funny stories. She has accumulated five hours of stand-up, she boasts, a true professional.

It was not always so. From her teen years she secretly wanted a career in acting, auditioning, she says, for parts she had no business trying for. But in the context of her guilt-ridden Catholic upbringing, wanting to act was a bit like saying you thought you were pretty. Marriage and babies intervened but after three children in Alice Springs, she starting compering community events and in doing so, began to develop material.

When the Northern Territory arts minister invited her to apply for a grant to look at stand-up, she modestly asked for $600 and caught a McCaffertys bus to Melbourne, leaving behind her babies and a bewildered if supportive husband.

"I was just bitten by the first bit of stand-up I saw," she said. Encouraged by fellow performers she tried out on open mike night at the Star and Garter. It wasn't a runaway hit but it got some laughs. "I was bitten from there, after that it was just a long, long, long road."


Three years later and after making some terrible choices - she admits without flinching to having "died" on the Midday Show - she threw it in, returning demoralised to Alice Springs where she had two more babies.

But the bug never left. In 2000 she watched some comedy acts on TV, cried for a day, then booked a one-woman show in a 500-seat room in Alice Springs in 12 weeks' time. It was Fiona and Her Sister and Some Guy, which she took to the Adelaide Fringe. It was then that she finally threw her hat in the ring as a comedy artist. That was six years ago. "This is the first season it's been a sellout," says O'Loughlin, who is in her early 40s. "Just before my face falls off."

Her life is still with her husband, a dental technician and restaurateur who is mercifully not the butt of her jokes, and her children, aged from eight to 22. Her forays away from home have always had to pay off and it made her grow quickly. "It is a bit much," she says. "I mean your kids are going to grow up and hate you and I've handed it to them on a platter."

She suffers badly from nerves before every show but the minute it's over, she wants more. Now audiences do too. "Two years ago I used to look at those big line- ups, I'd look at Danny Bhoy's and it would go down the street and around the corner," she says. "It's been a bit of a dream come true that that's happened to me this year."

Her shows are location specific and her Adelaide season contained knowing geographical and social references. She will adapt this for Melbourne and puts material in or out depending where she is.

In Montreal, she focused less on her children and more on herself but her schtick will always be family, particularly large Catholic ones with anorexic and alcoholic siblings and a terrifying mother called Deidre, her real name. Her eldest son has just forbidden her to use his name but the rest of the family tolerates it. "It's just more flowers I have to buy," she says.

Fiona O'Loughlin performs at Duckboard House, April 13-May 7. Tickets from $21.

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http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au...001182,00.html

Laughing all the way

14may06



FIONA O'Loughlin is in Gladstone. Yes, she's sure. She just looked out the window to check.

It's 3pm and she's just woken up. But the comedian has good reason to feel a little disoriented.

The month-long extravaganza that is the Melbourne Comedy Festival has just wrapped up and now she's joining the hardcore set to take the show on the road.

How many comedians can you fit in a Tarago? Five.

Joining O'Loughlin on the Queensland leg of the tour are the UK's Mark Watson, Canadian Glenn Wool (although his last stop is Townsville) and Aussies Sam Simmons and Mickey D.

O'Loughlin is a Roadshow pro. The mum-of-five from Alice Springs has been on the road four times since she was announced Best Newcomer at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2001.

To keep from boredom (though how could a van full of comedians be boring?), it's a Roadshow tradition to play "What Would You Rather?"

An example: "What would you rather, grate one of your ears off with a vegetable peeler, or clip off your inside ankle with an axe?" O'Loughlin says, fading into laughter.

O'Loughlin began her career as an MC in Alice, until someone informed her that what she was doing was actually stand-up. Now she's touring the world and has a potential sitcom awaiting approval.

As a mother of kids aged 8 to 19, O'Loughlin knows the importance of a sense of humour. Her kids often feature in her shows, although she's talking about them less often.

"The older ones are sort of, 'Thanks, that's enough now, you don't have to talk about me any more'. I've been asked – or told – not to use their names."

On a recent episode of the ABC's music quiz show Spicks and Specks, O'Loughlin found herself fortunate enough to sit next to singer Toby Allen from Human Nature. She offered him "first option" on either of her teenaged daughters.

"One of them saw it and one didn't," O'Loughlin says. "I kept that one pretty quiet."

For UK-born Mark Watson the Roadshow is a chance to see bits of Australia he might not have seen.

"There's a place called Ipswich," he says. "I've been to the British version of Ipswich and I didn't have a great time there.

"It's amazing. Amazing in terms of I'm literally amazed that I'm going there. Most British people at some point in their lives spend a fortune travelling around Australia and now I'm doing it without having to pay."

Since arriving in Melbourne a few weeks ago, the 26-year-old has been to football games and taken his new wife to the set of Neighbours for her birthday.

Watson and his bride Emily got hitched in February, so the visit has been like a second honeymoon.

"I think the rest of life could be a disappointment."

If Emily wants to get an understanding of what her future might be like, all she has to do is watch her new husband's stand-up show, 50 Years Before Death.

After looking up his life expectancy on the internet, Watson realised he had about 50 years left on the planet. He goes through this in humorous detail in his act.

"I don't actually talk about her that much. I like to think she could see the show and not be upset."

Emily has been to a couple of shows, but Mark says he doesn't like knowing she's in the audience.

"I get quite embarrassed thinking about the fact that she's there. It's like if you've got a reviewer or someone important seeing the show. I see her as the ultimate reviewer."

The talented young lad, who performed as part of the famous Footlights comedy troupe at Cambridge, has also written two novels.

His first, called Bullet Points, is a psychiatrist's memoir, and he is currently completing his second, about professional look-alikes.

"That's why I love stand-up," Watson says. "If I was just a writer I think I'd go mental waiting for things to happen. There is something about instant gratification. It's a good job for attention seekers." The Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow appears at Townsville tonight; Boonah May 18; Cairns May 19-21; Mount Isa May 25; Ipswich May 23 and Brisbane May 26-27.