Comedy connoisseurs know that one of the jobs of the genre is to break down barriers and challenge misconceptions through laughter. Last year, the Sydney Comedy Festival’s Just A Bit… Funny show did exactly that. Put together under the banner of Riverside Theatres’ Beyond The Square program, the night highlighted what is arguably the last known taboo for comedians to mine – disability. The show returns to Sydney again this year with high-calibre guests such as Dane Hiser and Madeleine Stewart, and Beyond The Square creative director Alison Richardson promises that it’s going to be funnier than ever.
“The evening runs with a mix of stand-up comedians with and without disabilities and interspersed throughout we have video sketches,” she explains. “Those videos are captioned as well so the deaf community can still understand what’s going on.”
Making the show accessible to the hearing impaired is imperative, and a variety of measures have been taken to ensure inclusion. “This year we’re upping the ante and having the Auslan interpreters again, a deaf comedian back and another performer named Andy Dexterity, who sings a lot of modern songs and does medleys around signing. Those kinds of things will be even better this year, just to get some continuity going with having a Sydney Comedy Festival show that’s Auslan interpreted.”
In addition to providing accessibility, the presence of Auslan interpretations adds something else to the show. “It also adds an extra layer of humour,” says Richardson. “Seeing things that some of the comedians were saying that may have been a bit more lewd signed and in a visual way was quite funny. So was watching the Auslan interpreters squirm through signing it.”
Two groups from Beyond The Square will be performing comedic sketches that audience members can look forward to this year.
“We have a group called the Ruckus Ensemble, who are six performers who just happen to have Down syndrome. We’re making two videos with those guys, one being based on slapstick because they love it. The other is a silent film that has a kind of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton kind of feel to it.
“The other group we’ve got, The Real Things, is a bunch of filmmakers who have physical disabilities. They’re doing more of a non-PC sketch called ‘The Cockblocking Carer’.”
After our laughter subsides over the truly fantastic title, Richardson continues: “It’s about when they go out to nightclubs and having to go with a carer, who can then butt in when they’re trying to pick up a girl. So they’re doing three sketches based on the idea of an arrogant carer who takes advantage of them, bludges off them and gets into things for free because they have a companion card.”
What’s truly great about this kind of comedy is that it’s not the kind of material you see comedians ordinarily touch. It’s either too dark, too much of a taboo or simply not something they identify with. This subject matter is fresh and well overdue on the stage.
“It’s good because it comes from them. I don’t identify as having a disability, but because they do and it’s what they want to talk about, it gives them more licence to do that. And to have it in a public forum like the Sydney Comedy Festival, which has nothing to do with disabilities, it reaches a whole other audience. It gives them a voice to highlight some issues in a funny way.”
Just A Bit… Funny,as part of Sydney Comedy Festival 2015, is on Sunday May 3 at Factory Theatre.
