Not even an invitation to the awards ceremony gave it away. “One of the directors of the festival came up to me at the bar,” he recalls. “I was already past the point of drunk where I was kind of like, ‘What?’ I didn’t really understand. It hadn’t occurred to me that maybe that’s what was going on.
“I thought, I’m not up for the Gibbo and I’m not up for Best Newcomer or anything. I thought he was just trying to fill seats. I was like, ‘No, fuck off, I’m not doing that.’ It took one of the other directors to be like, ‘No, you need to come tomorrow.’ I thought, ‘This is bullshit.’ ”
He soon learned that his show had indeed been declared one of the best shows of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. For Nicholson, it was a case of persistence paying off. “When it opened in Brisbane the month before, I did hate it in the first week. Not Brisbane, but the show. I wasn’t happy with it at all and I thought it was the worst piece of shit that I’d ever thought of. Then we did a bunch of work on it and it clicked in and I was suddenly having a lot of fun with it.”
From there, Nicholson never looked back. “I was very happy with the show, I was quite proud of it and I knew that because I performed it for almost six months straight and usually I’m angry at a show by about the third month,” he jokes.
Nicholson’s new show, I’m Fine, is slowly revealing itself. “It kind of seems to be – and this sounds so fucking douchey – about people’s expectations and obsession.
“In all my shows I seem to talk about anxiety because it’s a big part of my life but I think anxiety is all about obsession and what people expect of you,” he explains. “But there’s also a story about me blowing a guy at a public tennis court. So, you know, it’s all about the spectrum.”
Meanwhile, fans of the festival’s Lip Sync Battle may rejoice: it’s coming back, with Nicholson returning as host. “I’ve got to think about what I’m going to do. I focus on that more than I think I focus on my show the week before, because if you fuck it up, you look like an idiot.
“I can fuck up my show as many times as I want – people don’t know the next night,” he muses. “Make sure you print that, that’s the headline – ‘Rhys Nicholson can fuck up his show as many times as he likes, people will keep coming.’ ”
By Nick Mason
Venues: ACMI – Cube & Melbourne Town Hall – Supper Room
Dates: Thursday March 30 – Sunday April 23
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: $22 – $30
