Is Tragedy a Laughing Matter?

World Today
March 24, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4431133.htm

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival kicked off last night, with some traumatic childhood experiences as the subject matter.

Our reporter Rachael Brown was curious about how you could turn this into comedy. She went along to a show about the royal commission into the church to find out.

(Sounds from Cardinal Sins comedy show).

FRANK HAMPSTER: Corporal punishment, he said "you can get a tap on each hand". You could audibly hear David Ridsdale from the back of the court go, "what about six of the best?" You know?

(Audience laughs)

RACHAEL BROWN: Frank Hampster's memories from the alter are being laid bare on stage

The former altar boy had never spoken about his sexual assault by a Ballarat priest in the ‘80s, until being called before the royal commission last year.

(Sounds from Cardinal Sins comedy show).

FRANK HAMPSTER (singing): I can't recall that, that didn't happen; can you repeat the question once more?

RACHAEL BROWN: How do you find comedy in child sex abuse?

FRANK HAMPSTER: Well comedy was my only means of defence, I was six years old when I was first exposed to, by a person that was a priest in Ballarat.

And I was fishing at Lake Wendouree with my new fishing rod and this guy came up, showed me his erect penis out of his shorts and I said "gee that's nice mister but I don't think it'll fit on my fishing hook," and I've been dealing with it that way ever since.

RACHAEL BROWN: There's a lot of comedians using weighty material, yourself, Corey White, Lana Schwarcz is doing a show about breast cancer.

FRANK HAMPSTER: It's wonderful that we've been given this opportunity and like Lana and Corey, rare breed of comedian that actually says stuff, there's no dick jokes in their material.

RACHAEL BROWN: For Corey White, sharing his traumatic childhood - abuse of every variety as he was bounced through foster homes, and his subsequent depression and ice addiction - won him the festival's best newcomer award last year for his show the Cane Toad Effect.

(Sounds from Cane Toad Effect comedy show)

COREY WHITE: Mum was a heroin addict which is very sad, gets worse - never even released one great music album...

RACHAEL BROWN: His show's back this year.

COREY WHITE: I think you get the funniest stuff from people who have been to the edge, definitely.

(Sounds from Cane Toad Effect comedy show)

COREY WHITE: I decided I would kill myself and I thought I'd just drop down into that water and just have peace. And then my mobile phone started ringing.

"Would you be interested in saving some money on your mobile phone bill?" I just erupted into the biggest laugh of my life.

RACHAEL BROWN: And he says mining his trauma for comedy just makes sense to him.

COREY WHITE: I don't tend to find normal comedic topics very interesting you know like Tinder or awkward sexual experiences, I prefer to find humour in bleaker things.

And I also think that's where you get the biggest laughs from people, the things that people are most afraid of talking about are the things they're most ready to laugh about.

RACHAEL BROWN: Susan Provan has been the Comedy Festival's director for two decades and says she laughed through tears at Mr White's show.

SUSAN PROVAN: You have this struggle going on inside you where the hugeness of the story is actually devastating and makes you cry but at the same time you're laughing and you're thinking to yourself why am I laughing at this?

RACHAEL BROWN: Corey White again.

COREY WHITE: I think in some ways comedians have become public intellectuals and sort of philosophers of our time.

They're the thinkers we don't need but they're the thinkers we deserve, you know, in this truncated consciousness that we all have now with shortened attention spans and stuff, comedians are able to speak I think most directly to issues and to people.

Nobody's going to read a 10,000-word essay on the foster care system but if you can compress it and make it funny then you're more likely to break through.

ELEANOR HALL: That's comedian Corey White ending that report by Rachael Brown.