“Truth is stranger than fiction… because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”
So said Mark Twain in his book Following The Equator: A Journey Around The World back in 1897, probably not expecting that his quote would still be timely and pertinent some 106 years after his death. The story behind Red Flag, the latest show by Australasian comedian and actor Greta Lee Jackson, is a strange one – and indeed one that takes place (at least in part) on a journey, albeit a trip not quite as epic as Twain’s. It’s a tale of love, loss and what happens when the former comes bizarrely crashing into the latter.
“I travelled across the world to make a relationship work with someone that I didn’t know,” begins Jackson (let that sink in before you keep reading), “who turned out to be a socially awkward men’s rights activist. He more or less dumped me as soon as I got there. And, if that wasn’t enough, he recorded the audio of himself breaking up with me. I don’t know why, but I demanded a copy of the recording. Something just possessed me. He gave it to me, and at that point something clicked in the back of my head. I realised that there was something that I could use and that I could do with it – that there was a story to be told about this, and the lead-up to it happening.”
Red Flag makes its debut as a part of the Sydney Fringe Festival this month, and its writing and creation has had Jackson constantly questioning her own life decisions, in particular how they were made and where they ultimately lead her to. It’s part of the show, she’s discovered, and is ultimately a form of comedic catharsis.
“I was thinking a lot about why I can be so desperate. Why do I put myself in these situations?” she wonders out loud. “There were signs that what I was doing wasn’t going to work and that it was a bad idea – all of these red flags, if you will – and I just kept on ignoring them. I kept putting them out of my mind, all out of desperation. Even now, I honestly don’t know why I did why I did, why I wanted the recording or why the break-up was recorded. I’m hoping that, by the time I finish performing this show, I’ll be closer to figuring out the answers.”
Of course, not all of Jackson’s life as of late has been a tragedy – this is a comedy we’re dealing with, after all. In fact, aspects of Jackson’s professional career have been on the up and up – she performs as one-third of Skit Box, a sketch comedy group that scored big with their viral video Activewear in 2015 and are currently working on their debut show, Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am. Skit Box’s rise in popularity has certainly made Jackson a hot comedic commodity by association, although she will be the first to admit that this has not quite translated into her stand-up comedy performed on her own.
“At the exact same time that I was working on the show at the ABC, I was going on stage at night and doing a comedy show about true crime,” she explains. “It ended up being a total disaster – there were six people on average at the show, ten on a good night. It got all of these terrible reviews, too. I liked it, and a few die-hard crime fans liked it, but it was really badly received.”
“Comedy about true crime – whadaya reckon?” She laughs to herself at the prospect. “At the same time, during the day away from that, I was editing our pilot for iview. The whole experience made me look at the balance between the good and the bad in my life. I’m at a point where I’m able to get some things really, really right and then get other parts horrifically wrong. I think that plays a big part in the material in this show.”
After the run of Red Flag finishes up, Jackson will focus her efforts on Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am, which is currently in its final stages of editing. Having amassed thousands of views for their sketches and roped-in cameos from the likes of triple j’s Matt Okine and English pop singer Ellie Goulding, the momentum of Skit Box is certain to continue via the airing of the show, which will debut exclusively on the ABC’s online streaming service, iview.
“We’ve always just done sketches and put them up on YouTube,” says Jackson. “We got involved with the ABC’s Fresh Blood initiative – five groups were picked to do half-hour pilots, and were were one of those five, then a further two were picked for a six-episode series. We’ve made it all the way through, so what we’re doing right now is fostering our relationship with the ABC and editing the show together. The format is the same as the pilot, but we’ve got lots and lots of new stuff that we’ve written specifically for the show mixed in with some of our tried and tested stuff. It’s all very exciting, really.”
Red Flag, Greta Lee Jackson’s Sydney Fringe Comedy show, runsTuesday September 27 – Friday September 30, Factory Theatre.
