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June 07, 2006
Melbourne Comedy Festival 2006
Well diary, a lot happened in Melbourne, too much to recount. But I shall try to remember some of the important things. Oh yes –
The First Night
The first night of my show was interesting. I think there was something like 230 shows in the festival, so of course I was worried no one was going to come to mine. I’d invited the only person I knew in Melbourne who wasn’t a comic, so Luke was coming, and he said he might even bring a friend! Yay. I think it ended up being about 14 audience altogether. The lights in my face were WAY too bright and these 14 people were spread out thinly about an 85 seater - so for a lot of the show I had NO IDEA if I was actually looking at someone as I bantered away, or winking knowingly at nothing. When laughs did occur they were soft and fleeting, untraceable ripples in the dark.
The show was full of new material, a lot of which had been tested only once, and I left the stage worried that my show Sucked It Bigtime. Luke wanted to go for a beer afterward, and I went, but my mind wasn’t on anything but the show. I was no kind of company, and in the end I excused myself with the simple truth that I wanted to be alone and think. I promised I’d call him to catch up properly, once I’d settled, which I never did, and never settled either, and felt guilty about it later.
I wound up eventually at the Hi Fi, which is the late night venue once shows are over. When I left it again, the streets were full. I’d forgotten it was Good Friday the next day, and the crowds had come out to piss it up. Now it was late, the crowds were going home, and there was not a taxi to be had.
Optimistically I begun to walk. I was staying in South Yarra, which wasn’t that far from town. I figured if I followed the Yarra River southwards, I would eventually come to South Yarra. Then the rain began to fall. Without cover I walked, not knowing how far it was, nor sure I would recognise it, nor even really sure I was heading south. Even Squeakfeather’s sense of direction was completely shot out in the downpour. Every now and then a main road would beckon in the distance and I would divert and stand bedraggled, trying to catch cabs. I couldn’t work out the system of their lights, what meant full and what meant empty, so I tried them all. None stopped. I wasted a lot of time doing this, here and there, before inevitably returning to walking.
After something like two hours a cab finally stopped.
‘Where to?’
‘South Yarra.’
He frowned, thinking about it. I think I may have whimpered.
I got in and he took me there. I was like ‘thank FUCK I didn’t have to walk it all!’ Up and down hills we went, round bends ... I was so thankful that when we arrived, I gave him a big tip with a ‘keep the change and thank you so much for stopping’. He got a funny look in his eyes then, which I thought must have been surprise at receiving any tip at all from such a seedy misery blizzard of a customer. It was only when I got into my apartment, and looked on a map out of curiosity as to where I’d gotten myself, that I discovered I’d been probably five minutes walk from home. The route we’d driven was bullshit. And that look in his eyes – something else entirely.
And so, so ... I went to bed feeling defeated.
But the good news is, I woke up SAMMY FANTASTIC!
‘SCREW YOU MELBOURNE! YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME DOWN SO EASILY! I AM SAMMY FANTASTIC, AND I’M HERE ALL MONTH!
The Merry Adventures of Sammy Fantastic in Melbourne Town
Every morning in Melbourne Town, Sammy Fantastic woke up and made himself a herbal remedy to try and remove his blazing hangover. He would once again admonish himself for being such a foolish fellow, but in a friendly affectionate way - truth be told he found himself a fun car to drive around! He would then go out to the Town Hall and give people on the street fliers to his show. They would say things like ‘Oh, this is you is it? Well go on then, say something funny!’ Depending on his mood Sammy would say a joke, or be terribly charming. Other times, when the stress was getting to him, he would scowl, or stare at them blankly, stare stare stare until they slunk away, holding his fliers up as if to placate him.
Sometimes the rains would come, but Sammy had learned from the past, so he always had his umbrella with him (except once).
People came and saw Sammy’s show, which Sammy had changed after not being happy with the opening night. Now the show was good, for Sammy had put in a lot of his trusted old jokes which he knew worked, something he’d sworn to himself he would not do. But Sammy remembered that it’s okay to break promises to yourself, because what are YOU gonna do about it anyway?
Sammy toiled to bring in audiences, and though some nights 30 came, and some nights 15, and some nights 8 (and twice no one), it was rewarding work and Sammy was having a grand time. HOWEVER
There was one very EVIL reviewer (Caroline Buckle), who one day crawled out from her bubbling slime pit at the peak of Mount Despair, and slid to her computer on a trail of her own self loathing tears (her computer is downhill), to bash out a document of malicious bile designed to bring the cheerful reign of Sammy Fantastic to an end. Thankfully she was vanquished easily by using a mirror to show her her own reflection.
Ah, enough of that bullshit. I can’t keep it up. ‘Sammy this’ and ‘Sammy that’.
There’s more of course, but there always is. In the end it was time well spent. Thankfully so, as time wasn’t the only thing spent on the whole damn fiasco.
Oh, and Squeakfeather had a good time too. He chewed holes into a whole bunch of clothes on Chapel St, and they went for double the price.
Posted by Sam Bowring at June 7, 2006 03:30 AM