“It’s been 15 or so years,” he reflects. “I said if I made it to 20 I would do this show. I thought, ‘It should be pretty easy, reflecting on the decades’.” Jeffery says his previous comedy was political, “social satire sort of stuff” so this new show involves opening himself up to audiences in way that are new to him. Some of it’s easy, some of it’s hard. He is as laid back about performing as he is about having diabetes. “I’m fairly confident,’ he says. “I think I’ll be right.”
Where does Jeffery find the fun in having such a serious health problem? We’ve seen the warning posters on trams about the possibilities of developing blindness, spinal paralysis or gangrene if you suffer from diabetes. “It’s hard to explain but I spent a lot of years not being a textbook diabetic,” he confesses. “I wasn’t looking after myself. You come to terms with it in your own time. When you present that onstage there’s a lot of humour in that. Now I’m living a pretty boring life but certain things have happened and the stories write themselves.”
Jeffery explains that going through a ‘low’ can result in some funny behaviour – after the fact. “It’s a dangerous situation but you can do some funny things ‘cause your brain’s not functioning at a higher level. Looking back I can reflect on certain things that happened – I’m not dwelling on the negative. It’s not strictly about diabetes. Diabetes can have a snowball effect, on socialising, on dating, on friendships, on relationships. It’s not just about blood sugar levels or what I do to control my diabetes.”
What’s the biggest challenge for him in putting this new show together? He’s too ugly, he reckons. “All those good looking guys,” he muses. “They’re comfortable with their audiences ‘cause they’re easy to look at. I don’t know about making this a career.”
Seriously? He doesn’t dream of the sort of success that takes him overseas, makes himmoney, has women hurling themselves at him? “I’ve got women hurling,” he quips. “But they’re not hurling themselves at me – they’re just hurling! I’ve always had comedy in my blood,” Jeffery adds. “I’m now trying to get it into my act.” He reckons there’s no other show like his but occasionally wonders if he should be more mainstream. “But different can be good.”
What is his advice to would be stand-ups? “Be honest and be yourself. You can try and cover that up but audiences know if you’re not being authentic.” Is there anything he wouldn’t joke about? “Nothing that wasn’t funny,” he says. After a break from comedy, during which he had a proper job and was engaged and then lost it all, Jeffery reckons it’s good to be back onstage. “I messed all that stuff up…but I should be right.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
