Ballarat Fall - May 27, 2007
Well folks, here it is. The moment I fell off the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre in Ballarat. It’s an audio file, to the best of my knowledge no one filmed the incident, which is perhaps no bad thing. What you are listening to here is the very beginning of the show. The opening sequence requires me to be silhouetted from the back and dry ice pumped around my feet (those of you who have seen the show will know why). When the bagpipes finish, the stage lights come up, and I usually walk forward to reveal a rather amusing gag (wink, wink). On this occasion, three things went wrong. Firstly, whoever was in charge of the dry ice machine got a little trigger happy. Secondly, the stage lights that shone directly into my face were bright enough to light a football stadium. And thirdly, and crucially, the only part of the theatre in complete darkness was a 12 foot orchestra pit drop at the front of the stage…which I didn’t know was there! As I now mention in my show, the whole set up couldn’t have been any more dangerous if it had been designed by Al Qaeda and built by the first 2 little pigs.
Enjoy this, but not too much...
Tragedy and Comedy - May 22, 2007
Hello,
I've just realised that my last blog was from Adelaide, so it's high time I wrote a new one. I've just got back from a week in New Zealand, and I'm now back in Melbourne for the final leg of the regional tour of Australia. Tonight I'm in Frankston, which I am told is a large suburb of Melbourne full of bogans? I'm not sure what that is? Maybe an abbreviation for tobogganists? Or just a friendly term for the locals? I'll soon find out, I guess...
I finished up at the Melbourne Comedy Festival 2 weeks ago. Thank you to everyone that came to the show. It wasn't the easiest room to play, but when I got used to it, I really enjoyed the shows. It was good to spend some time with some of my comedian friends after spending so many months on the road on my own. I was back out on the road the week before last doing some shows on the Gold Coast. In one of the freakiest moments of my life, I met childhood legends, The Krankies, who came to my show in Surfer's Paradise. Unfortunately, the little boy wasn't there, just his dad and, I presume, his mum, given the striking resemblance (actually, wait a minute....)
Lismore was also a fun gig, given how many people appeared to be stoned off their tits. I joked that it was nice to see a few people in from famed ‘alternative’ town Nimbin, but as it happens that wasn’t as ridiculous as it seemed. It was a longer night than either of us had planned. Maryborough was also an interesting experience. If I had to make a list of things you don’t want to be told 2 minutes before you walk on stage, high up on the list would probably be “hey mate, did you hear about the attempted murder in town today?” And that was the venue manager! As it happens, a local shopkeeper had been stabbed by a crazed man in the town that very morning. It was a very tense opening to the show. Do you mention it? Do you not mention it? Do you run on dressed as a mentalist wielding a knife, then pull off the mask and say “just kidding. Tough crowd?” Always a difficult one to judge. On a far larger scale, I once did a gig the night of September 11th and faced a similar conundrum. Was no one going to mention it was the 5th anniversary of this tragedy?
The day of a major tragedy always spells a tough night for a comedian. I remember doing a gig the night Princess Diana died, the atmosphere was very subdued, my quiet beginning followed by “hey, who died?” was in retrospect unwise. The MC was close to tears as he announced the gig was to go ahead, and I didn’t blame him, when I saw who else was on the bill. What better tribute to Princess Diana, than the 3rd act of the evening, who stapled cards to his forehead (ironically, one of which was the Queen of Hearts). There are 2 ways of looking at it, either such tragedies prompt the need for mournful and contemplative respect, or such tragedies call for a guy to walk on stage in his underpants and staple things to his face. (Sorry, did I forget to mention, he was just wearing underpants). It’s simply down to how you look at these things, I suppose.
Anyway, staying on the subject of stage deaths, you may know from a previous blog, that I literally nearly died at a gig in Ballarat at the beginning of this tour. Well, now that I can finally see the funny side, I have decided to post the soundtrack of the infamous fall on this website for your amusement. Check back in the next few days, and you should be able to click on a link, or whatever it is you have to do, and hear one of the most physically painful moments in my life. For those of you who get off on this sort of thing, shame on you.