This massive celebration of welcoming goodness is on again in 2016!
I’ll be MCing the Melbourne event and will be bursting with pride to do so, particularly in this time when it seems many Australians want to further harden their hearts and foster hatred and fear rather than love and inclusiveness.
You know – all that good hippy shit.
The walk is happening on Saturday October 22nd all around on the country. Find out where it’s happening near you.
Sydney-based Belvoir has a strong season, but this critic’s pick is Boundless Plains to Share, in which comedian Tom Ballard presents something like stand-up comedy crossed with a slide night as he desperately tries to understand, explain and activate an audience against Australia’s punitive refugee policy.
Politicised on the issue since the age of 14, Ballard’s involvement with the Welcome to Australia movement brought him into contact with refugees in and out of detention. He encountered stories he found both uplifting and heartbreaking, and these stories permeate a show that is laugh-out-loud funny and enraging at the same time.
Ballard developed Boundless Plains to Share under the guidance and direction of Scott Edgar – more commonly known as Scod from Tripod – who had been helping the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for many years. It’s a good theatrical match, avoiding both mawkishness and over-earnestness in its presentation of the kinds of stories often emotively retold by the well meaning – and sometimes compromised as a result.
Ballard’s show was made possible by a Moosehead award – it allowed him to pursue something close to his heart without anxiety about commercial returns. Belvoir’s selection of Boundless Plains to Share vindicates the professional support Ballard received to make it.
You can read the whole article here and you can book tickets to the Belvoir run here.
I’m coming back to this delightful venue for 6 shows in September and would love you to come please yes yes.
You guys my show The World Keeps Happening got nominated for the 2016 lastminute.com Edinburgh Comedy Awards. How bloody ridiculous.
It was a true honour to be up there alongside the likes of Nish Kumar, Al Porter, Kieran Hodgson, Richard Gadd, James Acaster and my fellow Australians Zoe Coombs-Marr and Randy. A huge congrats to Richard for taking out the big prize, rendering the rest of us worthless losers.
Sincerest thank yous to Assembly Festival, Token Artists, the Pinder family, my flyerers, my techs Nikolai and Jamie, my family and of course all of you out there who actually came and watched the thing. I’m a lucky laddy indeed.
You guys I am returning to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe! Hurrah! You guys!
I had a bloody blast last year and can’t wait to get back amongst the cobblestones and the drizzle.
The show will be slightly updated with all that silly Australian politics stuff and will almost definitively have some Trump gear in there. I mean, SOMEONE has to take that guy down, right?
I am excited and terrified to be returning to the Roast Battle at Montreal JFL this year. The whole brutality is going to be filmed for Comedy Central and in Round 1 I’m up against this crazy motherfucker, Earl Skakel:
Wish me luck and follow all the action on cc.com/shows/roastbattle
My show got nominated for the 2016 Helpmann Awards which is mighty nice. Congrats to the other nominees and thanks again to the good folks who came along to check it out.
Got to have a chat with the brilliant Kevin “Bob Evans” Mitchell and you can listen to it here.
Perfect.
