When the Melbourne International Comedy Festival removed Barry Humphries’ name from its awards, many were outraged at such a show of woke disrespect to the man who founded it and was undoubtedly Australia’s greatest comedian. Frankly, though, I suspect Humphries would be relieved, given the calibre of ‘comedy’, so called, on offer from the now sadly misnamed “comedy festival”.
Judging from the the Age’s “highlights”, it all sounds about as funny as a Methodist teetotaller hosting a reunion of the Waffen-SS.
I mean, what can you say about a “comedy” festival whose highlights include “Best Acknowledgement of Country”.
Janty Blair, who paid her respects to “elders past, present, and merging down the Princes Freeway”, going on to announce her pronouns as B&D: “Black and Deadly.”
Oh, please – my sides.
And how’s this knee-slapper for “Best joke of the festival”.
Scout Boxall’s response to gatekeeping men who demand female fans prove their expertise by sharing three key facts: “Why don’t you name three women who feel safe around you.”
Whew! Pure, unrestrained hilarity.
Not much can beat the 10-minute “Margaret Thatcher: The Musical” sequence packed with Andrew Lloyd Webber-style spectacle in Flo & Joan’s One Man Musical.
Margaret Thatcher jokes? Did they find some long-lost Ben Elton scripts from the early ’80s?
Nath Valvo, as MC at Token’s Comedy Festival Preview night, was given the task of warming up the crowd. He delivered the goods with a stream of one-liners including the relatable pearler, “No last song is better than the first Uber.”
I guess you had to be there.
Riskiest joke or performance
When Nish Kumar remarks he’s never seen a good-looking white supremacist, the crowd laughs awkwardly, unsure of where the joke is heading. Unrelenting, Kumar leans into the tension, comparing controversial comedian Jimmy Carr to a haunted Victorian marionette, eliciting raucous laughter from the crowd.
Ah, yes: because blithering about ‘white supremacists’ is just about the “riskiest” thing anyone could do at the woke Melbourne ‘comedy’ festival. I’m sure there were riskier jokes at the Moscow Trials.
As for Kumar: this is the guy who used a children’s TV show to finger wag the audience about British things that supposedly aren’t really British at all. Tea, for instance, because it originated in India, Kumar claimed. Which is not just factually incorrect – tea very famously originated in China – but begs the question: if tea isn’t British, because it originated in India, what does that say about someone named ‘Kumar’?
Now, there’s a crack no one would dare make at a ‘comedy’ festival, these days.
