Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2009 - The experience

Hello ScoFans!


As some of you may have noticed by the fact I have been catching up and commenting on on all the bloggy action I missed while I was away, I am now back. And I am happy to be back. I'm not just saying that, I mean that.. really. Because I haven't been here. I've been somewhere else. I don't know, maybe you've been somewhere else too.. so maybe you know what I mean.


Okay, I stole most of that from Dylan Moran's intro. We saw him on the Saturday night. And don't worry, I'm not going to do a "recite every joke I heard while I was there" thing, because that would be boring. No, I'll just tell you about my experience today and next time a brief summary of each of the shows.


This was I believe the fifth year running I've gone to the comedy festival, which I think makes me a vetran of sorts. By now I'm fairly familiar with how the whole scene operates.

But this post is just about this years experience.


My friend got here on Friday at about lunch time and we mooched about for a few hours before heading down to the city. Both being from the country, we didn't really know our way around the city, and it's a good thing we arrived with a bit of time up our sleeve.


We parked at the Crown Casino and headed off on foot to the first show (Jeff Green). We reached a certain point, he said the Town Hall was one way and I said it was another. Eventually, I wore him down and he agreed to follow me. I was wrong. But I did find the location of where our second show was, so we knew which way to go after the first show finished. At least that time wandering aimlessly wasn't completely wasted.


When we did find the first show, we were still early so we were sitting in the theatre waiting for the show to begin. I forget how we got to talking about the seat in front of me bursting into flames and me being trapped, but somehow we did get to that topic. Our conversation went a little bit like this (picking it up from half way through the conversation).


Me: I don't think a seat would just randomly catch on fire for no reason anyway. Surely it would need a flame or a spark or some electrical equipment nearby for that to happen, and there's none of that anywhere near the seat.
Him: I don't know. I think it's still possible for a seat to catch on fire for no reason.
Me: Well even if it was, I think there's a .00001% chance that there will be a fire in the theatre tonight, and of that .00001%, a .000000001% chance that fire will occur on the seat in front of me.
Him: Yeah you're probably right.
Me: What did I just go to then? One in a trillion? One in ten trillion?
Him: What did you say again? 4 zeroes and then 8 zeroes?
Me: I think it was about that yeah.
Him: I think it's more then ten trillion then. I don't know, you're the accountant you work it out.
Me: It's my day off. I don't do numbers on public holidays.
Him: It doesn't matter now anyway. The people next to you have moved away, so you can exit that way if the seat catches on fire.
Me: Of course they've moved away. They heard you say I'm an accountant and thought "Oh crap we better move or this guy is going to start talking to us about salary sacrificing and retirement savings accounts"
Him: Yeah, now that you mention it I might move away as well. I don't want some boring person ruining my night either.

Those are the sorts of random topics we discussed. Who needs comedians when you make your own fun?

Anyway, one thing we forgot is that we don't exit through the door we entered, because the audience for the next show is gathering there. Instead we are dragged through the bowels of the building so that our navigation systems are completely turned around, and then turfed out onto the street, not sure which way to begin towards the place we had earlier found and asking that all too familiar question... "Where the fuck are we?"

We didn't have so much trouble finding the next show though.. because we were able to locate the McDonalds we ate at after going to this theatre last year and work our way back from there (when all else fails, find a McDonalds)

The second show (Adam Hills) was fantastic. At the start he pulled four Perth boys up onto the stage and made them into a boy band, by giving them boy band poses and things to do. Then he was talking to a girl up in the second tier who was also from Perth and he was like "Where can we find some young, single Perth boys? I know! And they have a spare seat next to them! Do you want to come down here?" and she's like "Nah, I'm good".. poor fellas.

He also performed his rocked up version of "Advance Australia Fair" which I have already posted once before, way back here.

Saturday night was proof that even a vetran like myself can make a mistake. My vetran instincts did tell me to be careful, the first time I was able to correct the situation but the second time it was too late.

Firstly, we drove towards Crown again to ditch the car, but I was worried because my beloved Bombers were playing the top of the ladder undefeated Carlton just down the road from Crown, with the game starting about half an hour before our show. (For the record, I was going to play another one of our games but was worried I would be accused of rigging the thing by putting it all on Essendon to knock off an undefeated team.. and they did.)

Anyway, traffic around Crown was disasterous. It took us about 20 minutes to navigate our way up the tiny little street before the car park, and then when we turned the corner the queue for the car park was incredibly long. I was able to turn the car around and high tail it out of there and find a park closer to the Arts Centre.

Then we walked into the wrong building and were told how to get to the right hall, so we started following some young couple who were also going to see Dylan. When we saw them turn around looking bewildered, we realised we had backed the wrong pony and perhaps they weren't going to get us to where we needed to go.. so we started following some people who did know where to go and told the couple to come with us but the guy was like "Yeah whatever" and walked off in the other direction. He was so sure he knew where he was going.

The second time we went wrong hit me as I sat down in this lovely venue and it's comfortable seats. Normally comedy fesitval shows go for about an hour each, so you can book a few on one night as long as you leave an hour and a half or so in between them. But normally the seats aren't so comfortable. And Dylan Moran's tickets were almost twice as expensive as anybody elses.

I thought to myself.. "I bet this is going to go for two hours, leaving the tickets we have to see Otis Crenshaw at 9:45 to be pretty useless"

And I was right, but being the eternal optimist I didn't see it as a case of missing out on a show. I saw it as a case of scoring an extra hour of Dylan Moran, who is the one I was really looking forward to seeing this year anyway.

Well my pets, I think I have rambled on quite long enough for today, so I shan't keep you here any longer. Next time, as I said earlier, I have a few specific things from each of the shows I would like to share with you.