Sydney Comedy Articles (General)

[Munchkin]

Gotta agree with ryttu3k, that's not a picture of Wil you wanna see first thing in the morning
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...725675379.html

[ryttu3k]

Originally Posted by Beckslee

Stuff Matthew Grey ryttu3k doesn't know what's she's talking about. I wouldn't mind seeing Wil first thing in the morning.

Yeah, but you probably wouldn't mind seeing Cameron Bruce first thing in the morning either.

[Beckslee]

well that is more than true, and what's wrong with that may I ask?

[ryttu3k]

Neeeeever mind!

[veronica tghf]

Originally Posted by ryttu3k

No offence to Wil, but he's not the first thing you wanna see in the morning.

Well I listen to him first thing in the morning... and his laugh is scarier than what he looks like.

The only reason I wouldn't want to see Wil (live in the flesh) first thing in the morning is cos I tend to be tired and emotional (but not from a heavy night on drugs... just from staying up too late and waking up too early).

Seeing his photo in the paper brings joy to my day ..... awwwww

[unfrufru]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-m...359817521.html

Comedian Dave Jory's favourite gadget is his Sony MZ-810 MiniDisc recorder.

Dave Jory and his Sony MiniDisc recorder.



A lot of comedians, especially when they are starting out, like to record their gigs to listen to them later. I bought mine about three years ago.

It cost me $700. A lot of comics were using old micro-cassette recorders, so I thought a MiniDisc was cutting edge.

Unfortunately, they were like Laser Discs (remember them?). No one uses MiniDisc. Even the Amish consider MiniDisc technology "quaint".

But it cost me so much and the sound quality is great, so I'm sticking with it until it decides to stop working. Unless Antiques Roadshow offers to buy it from me first.

Is your MiniDisc like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3 - obsolete?

Arnie's problem in Terminator 3 wasn't that he was obsolete. It was that nobody wants to see a 60-year-old muscleman walking around with no clothes on.

Where does old technology go to die? There must be somewhere all those old Commodore 64s and Ataris ended up?

They might just be landfill. But it's more likely that they're somewhere plotting to destroy mankind and take over the planet. That will be the real rise of the machines.

Describe your weirdest gig.

I was hired as the comedian for this girl's 30th birthday. It was a very small party, only about 10 guests, in a little flat. I remember the TV was on in the background. There was no stage and no microphone, so I just stood next to the couch and everyone stared at me while I did my act for 20 minutes. There was a smattering of applause, the birthday girl paid me and I left.

Dave Jory plays the Sydney Comedy Store from June 22 to 24.

[unfrufru]

http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/200...l_of_hard.html

It takes guts and an element of desperation to make it in stand-up, writes Lenny Ann Low.
It's 8.21pm at the Comedy Store in Moore Park and James Lieutenant is punching himself in the stomach. Standing at the back of the semi-dark venue, the 20-year-old comedian from Canberra is trying to expel pre-show energy as the audience arrive for the weekly new comic's night.

"I'm not nervous," Lieutenant says, now punching his palms and jumping up and down on the spot. "I'm ready to go on."

Beside him, fellow new comic Ben Ellwood, 25, is barely moving at all. Stroking his chin, he scans the audience sharply as sweat beads on his forehead. Minutes pass and the room fills. Lieutenant does two covert loops through the seated audience, stretches his arms, neck and legs, walks repeatedly back and forth through the bar and finally disappears into the dressing-room.

"This isn't nerves," says Ellwood, who is described as "a comedian, hysterical hypochondriac, conspiracy theorist and human man" in his biography notes. He fidgets with his T-shirt, cheek and elbow while staring at the empty stage. He's thinking about standing on it in 30 minutes, hoping to make these punters laugh.

Life as a comedian is challenging. A few minutes behind a microphone in front of a group of strangers can shatter a comic's self-confidence or fill their soul with joy. Every live stand-up appearance is a test. But in an industry that customarily requires a 10-year apprenticeship at the mic, few gigs are as testing as the early ones.
Established comic Terri Psiakis, who has appeared on Rove Live, The Glass House, and Spicks and Specks along with hosting Triple J radio shows and presenting a show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, learnt as much at one of her earliest stand-up gigs in front of a university orientation week crowd several years ago.

"It was very, very drunken and very rough," she says. "About 10 minutes into my first ever half-hour slot someone started throwing ice from the bottom of their glass at me from the back of the room."

Faced with plugging on regardless or leaving the stage, Psiakis says she learnt a valuable lesson about the stand-up she wanted to become.
"I said to the audience, 'I'm here, I'm happy to continue but if that happens again, I'm not going to stay.' And I started speaking again and it happened again and I said, 'Thanks very much, see you later,' and walked off stage."

Another well-known comic, Corinne Grant, vividly recalls her first attempt at an open-mic night at the Esplanade Hotel in Melbourne more than 10 years ago.

"I was so petrified," she says. "I just got up on stage and sang a song I'd written called Monster Truck Driver and that was it. I may have said, 'Hi, my name's Corinne,' at the start and, 'Thank you very much,' at the end. I did that six other times before I actually did spoken stand-up on stage."

Although Grant racked up plenty of stage hours, she lost confidence and dropped live stand-up for five years.

"I didn't trust my stage persona," she says. "It was only doing radio and TV, The Glass House especially, that I realised I knew enough about comedy performance to do solo stand-up properly."

Tonight's show at the Comedy Store is not the first for Ellwood and Lieutenant but it's not far off. Both began their stand-up careers just over a year ago at Raw Comedy, the stand-up competition presented by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for new talent.
"Strictly speaking, my first real gig was the night before Raw," Ellwood says. "That literally fell flat. It was like the dancing Homer episode in The Simpsons where you could hear everyone in the crowd just go, 'Oh my God, this guy sucks.' At two minutes in, I put the microphone back in the stand, went, 'I can't do this anymore,' and ran off the stage."

Ellwood eventually became a NSW finalist for Raw Comedy but it took him six months to get over his debut.

"It was just the most painful experience," he says. "If I'd had half a dozen like that I never would have done it again.

"I don't know how people who get up and die every night can do it."

Lieutenant says his first attempt at stand-up was "similarly horrible", although not as bad as a recent gig in Canberra.

"There was this old dude in the front who wouldn't stop [heckling me]," he says. "I couldn't do anything. Basically the first thing I said, he said something and it went on from there.

"I lost it on stage and called him a few things I probably shouldn't call somebody of that age. Then his friend wanted to fight me and stuff. A totally s--- gig."

Unfortunately, neither can pinpoint one gig they would call their best. Rather, it has been moments during shows when comic and crowd have clicked.

"At that point it doesn't even become effort," Ellwood says. "You transcend yourself, floating across the room.

"It's the most out of body I've ever been without drugs."

Before Ellwood and Lieutenant take the stage tonight, Julia Wilson, an Australian comic with three years stand-up experience, delivers a set. Once described by a reviewer as "the scariest woman in stand-up", Wilson wallops the crowd with routines about life as a bouncer, deaf people's laughter and the pluses of "being an aggressive, Australian slut".

Later, Wilson reckons she has rarely feared a gig or been flustered by hecklers. "Being a bouncer has really helped," she says. "It's enabled me to go, 'Sit down, shut up and if you don't like it I'll bite ya.' I've never been heckled by anyone I couldn't handle."

Things don't go as smoothly for Ellwood. His routine, an angry and poetical dissection of women's make-up, aggressive quit-smoking advertisements and the masturbation habits of a middle-aged man in the third row, is going well until he loses confidence.

"You guys aren't getting this at all are you," he says, pulling at his face.

Minutes later, Lieutenant is on stage delivering an idiosyncratic routine featuring well-crafted gags, heavy stamping and long periods of deliberate silence. "My name is James," he says in a deadpan voice. "It's an Irish name. Over there it's pronounced Susan."

The audience, charmed, unnerved and only briefly inspired to heckle him, applauds warmly at the end. Afterwards, neither Ellwood or Lieutenant are happy. They stand in the foyer, smoking and raking over their performances with tenacious angst.

"I didn't have any flow," Ellwood says, worrying about his T-shirt again.

"Yeah, the heckler got in the way of my flow," Lieutenant says. "I wasn't nervous. But it just could've been a whole lot better than that."

WHERE TO CATCH STAND-UP GIGS
The Comedy Store, Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park, www.comedystore.com.au. Sydney's principal comedy venue offers international and home-grown comics six nights a week.

Laugh Garage, corner Church and Phillip streets, Parramatta, www.thelaughgarage.com. The roomy Garage is a permanent home for home-grown and international comics along with regular comedy workshops for beginners.


Fringe Bar, Unicorn Hotel, 106 Oxford Street, Paddington, www.thefringe.com.au. Australian comics rule on Monday nights among chandeliers, velvet curtains and swanky furniture.

Enmore Theatre, 130 Enmore Road, Newtown, www.enmoretheatre.com.au. International and home-grown comics appear regularly at this venue which has a capacity of more than 2000. The annual Cracker Comedy Festival in March and April is based there.

Blacktown RSL, Second Avenue, Blacktown, www.blacktownrsl.com.au. Regular Wednesday stand-up nights featuring Australian comics.
The Big Laugh Festival, www.biglaughcomedyfestival.com.au. Annual festival in March and April based at Riverside Theatres, Seymour Centre, State Theatre and the Laugh Garage.

JAMES LIEUTENANT, 20
Based Canberra

First gig Raw Comedy 2005.

Day job Worker with young disabled people.

Current gigs New comic nights at Sydney Comedy store every six weeks.

Starting as a comic "As a kid I always watched The Young Ones, Blackadder and then it was Billy Connolly. When I was 15, I discovered a comic called Bill Hicks and I decided I had to get up and do this. I've always had the feeling of wanting to make people laugh but that was the clear precise moment I thought, 'This is something I just can't ignore anymore.' "


BEN ELLWOOD, 25 (pictured above)

Based Sydney

First gig Support act at Comedy Store the night before first Raw Comedy heat in 2005.
Day job Writer for children's entertainment.

Current gigs At Comedy Store in Sydney and April's 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Starting as a comic "I did about 10 years in retail and got to the stage where I said, 'If I don't get out of this I'll kill myself.' At that point it was, 'I don't have any real skill other than being able to talk. I don't want work, I don't want a boss and I don't want to get up in the morning.' "

JULIA WILSON, 31

Based Travels all year between England, Scotland, Canada, South Africa and Australia.

First gig Raw Comedy 2002.
Day job Full-time comedian.

Upcoming gigs During January: Oatley Hotel, Manly Boatshed, Fringe Bar.

Starting as a comic "I knew that nine to five wasn't for me. Neither was shiftwork as a bouncer for the rest of my life. I've driven garbage trucks, delivered pizzas, looked after kids. I'd go from one job to another trying to find this nice little life equilibrium. Then Raw Comedy came along and from my first gig I fell in love with the adrenaline."
photo: Comedian Julia Wilson