Rhubarbhas been described as a “game show where contestants tell strange stories – some true, some utter rhubarb”.
So it’s in part about being good at fibbing. Are you a good fibber?
Yes, I think I’m pretty excellent at fibbing. I probably don’t do it as much as I used to – back in the day it was my default setting. I would lie just for the sake of it. If someone asked me what I did for a living I would say, “Oh, I raise Angora goats on the south coast.” Which was totally, utterly false. I once wrote on a real estate form that I was George Michael’s in-house conga player. I mean… why not?
Why do you think audiences are so fascinated by mistruths?
Well, I think they’re probably fascinated by stories, especially good ones. And there’s a certain pleasure in trying to figure out if something is true or not. Once upon a time, politics was made interesting by this guessing game – we’d think, “Is it true? Is it a lie?” Now it’s not so much fun, because they’re lying all the time. I miss the possibility of truth.
It must be an odd experience to get up onstage and tell porkies. Was it something that immediately appealed to you?
Yeah it was. I like the fun of telling stories, and I love stories when they’re wildly improbable but they’re so good you just want them to be true. I mean, a lot of the time in this show I’ll be telling the truth. In my own life, the truth has usually been a lot stranger than anything I could’ve made up.
The show is set to include audience participation. Do you think audiences tend to be very enthusiastic about joining in with entertainment onstage?
Personally, as a punter, I hate audience participation. I’m having a night off, leave me alone – I’m just here to observe. But I’m always amazed how so many people love it. They just want to engage. So, with this show, if you want to engage, you’ll get opportunities. But if you don’t want to, that’s OK too. I’m totally uninterested in forcing people to do shit that they don’t want to do.
What do you want the audience to be thinking/feeling as they walk out of the theatre?
I just want them to be entertained. I want them to laugh, feel happy, and shake their heads in disbelief. This is not an immersive Siberian torture play: this is amusement. I’m hoping people will be surprised by some of the stories, particularly weird intimate stuff about public figures. It’s always fun to find out what disgusting things someone like Stephen Curry has done in his spare time. But mostly, I want them to leave the theatre thinking, “Goddamn I love Pinky Beecroft.”
Rhubarbwith Pinky Beecroft, Gretel Killeen, Jordan Raskopoulos, Mark Swivel and more,runs Wednesday September 28 – Saturday October 1 atGiant Dwarf,as part of Sydney Fringe Festival 2016.
