Promoting a festival show can be tough. There’s more than 500 shows performing during this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and acts have to do whatever they can to be noticed and entice an audience. To help fill his venue, Ash Williams says he’s going to offer vodka shots to readers of Beat.
“Free vodka shots for any beat readers, that’s a promise that I can follow through on. Just yell out, if you’re a Beat reader, yell out ‘I’m a Beat reader’ and I will come over and feed you a vodka shot like a bird feeds its own,” he says.
Given Williams’ show is called “I’ve Done Some Bad Things”, it might be prudent to not invest too much stock into this promise. What Williams is definitely going to deliver on, however, is his first solo show for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Williams will be familiar to sports fans as he recently hosted the online @7tennis show as part of Channel 7’s coverage of the Australian Open. He’s also appeared on shows like Peter Helliar’s It’s A Date, ABC’s In Gordon Street Tonight with Adam Hills, The Daily Edition, The Project, Studio10 and Dirty Laundry LIVE.
Williams was working in commercial radio with Hughesy and Kate when he decided to pack up life in Melbourne and head to LA a few years ago to pursue stand up and acting. He says he had a “modicum” of success, scoring guest roles in Anger Management, The Exes, and You’re The Worst while also gigging regularly over there.
He’s come back every December and performed an hour long show, making I’ve Done Some Bad Things his fourth show, but this marks his festival debut. “Bad, as a word, is quite open to interpretation,” he says of just what exactly he’s been up to and will be talking about.
He says in LA he managed to get himself banned from Motel 6 (“it’s called that because that’s its score out of 100”), he’s been banned from Budget (“I can’t hire a car from Budget in Australia”) and he’s just spent the last four months living in a hotel (“one month turned into four”) and he’s just broken up with his girlfriend. “I’m in a custody battle over a nutri-bullet at the moment,” he says.
“I’ve got some stories and then I’ve got a song, I play a bit of piano, I bring the whole thing together like a Thermomix of goodness, but it’s in a song,” he says of the show. “And worst case scenario you might take away some life tips. I’ve got some stuff in there about how you don’t need to pay credit cards, so I’ve got a theory about credit card management. I mean, I can’t get credit cards anymore, but look, I know how to deal with them…”
By Joanne Brookfield
Venue: Grand Mercure Hotel, The Downstairs Lounge – 195 Swanston St, CBD
Dates: March 24 – April 17 (except Mondays)
Times: 9pm
Tickets: $15 – $25
