In a month-long comedy festival that features 400-plus performers, to name your show The Comedy Zone seems awfully ostentatious. So who could be behind such a title, which implies that this is where the comedy truly lies? Well, The Comedy Zone was actually coordinated and produced by the folks at Melbourne International Comedy Festival HQ. Essentially, they’ve selected five emerging comics from around the country to perform back-to-back sets each night.
One of the group members is Melbourne comedian Matt Stewart, who placed first in last year’s RAW Comedy competition. Despite his previous success, Stewart hasn’t returned to MICF feeling all high and mighty.
“I’m the least experienced of the five,” he says. “Watching the other four, I’m sort of blown away by their talent. They’re all a lot younger than me as well. Ciaran [Lyons, WA] is only 18 years old and he’s been doing comedy for over three years. He told me last night he’d performed in front of 4,000 people one time. So he’s a very confident and funny.”
As well as Lyons, The Comedy Zone lineup includes Matt Ford (QLD), Jacob Lingard (QLD) and Nina Oyama (NSW). Additionally, Melbourne comedian Kate McLennan, who’s an old hand at all things MICF, directs the show. McLennan’s not there to push the comedians in a pre-conceived direction, however. Rather, she’s on board to bring out the best in each individual.
“She’s giving us enough to rope to figure it out for ourselves as well,” says Stewart, “but as much help and guidance as we need, she’s there for. We all brought our spots to the group and then did a little bit of work shopping, guided by Kate, of our ideas. It was as much as we wanted and I definitely went through a few of my ideas with her. She’s been very helpful. She’s pretty cruise-y, which works well with me because that’s the personality I have as well.”
Stewart’s RAW Comedy victory was seen as somewhat precocious, given he’d only been doing stand-up for a year at the time. Yet, while he entered the stand-up game only recently, he’s been involved in comedy-related projects for most of his adult life; most notably as a member of the sketch comedy team, Stupid Old Man.
“I met some guys, who went on to form Stupid Old Man and Stupid Old Studios, at SYN Youth Radio and Channel 31,” he says. “We were all working on the breakfast TV show there in 2009. I hadn’t done much performance stuff before. Then I got more and more into sketch – a lot of online sketch stuff. But live performance only started with the stand-up a couple of years ago.”
By now, stand-up is his chief pursuit and it’s clearly a field in which he excels. So why on earth did it take him so long? “People suggested it for a long time and I always wanted to do it, but I always told myself that there’s different kinds of funniness,” he explains. “Stand-ups have a different skill and I didn’t think I had it. But eventually I got the guts to give it a go and it went pretty well. Some of the jokes I did at RAW and my early gigs, I’d written them out five or six years earlier. It was a long slow process of building up the courage.
“I still see myself as very much a beginner,” he adds. “It’s one of those things that you keep learning as you go. I feel more confident than I was a year ago, but it’s all incremental.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
Venue: Trades Hall – Old Council Chambers, 54 Victoria St, Carlton
Dates: Currently being performed until April 19 (except Mondays)
Times: 8.15pm (Sundays 7.15pm)
Tickets: $19.50 – $24
