Multiculturalism has always been one of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s strongest points and 2018 is no different. Among this year’s lineup is the hilarious G’Day Comrade!, a stand-up show featuring Russian comedians who are now based in Australia.
The bill consists of Kaychu Symon, Gleb Tugushev and Gosha Bodryi. It’s Bodryi’s first time performing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the exhilaration is building, “I’m absolutely excited” he says, “and I’m actually already having a migraine because I feel that nothing is ready. But it’s all good.”
While he’s only been performing stand-up in English for just over two years now, Bodryi has been performing in his native tongue for quite some time. “I was doing sketch comedy in back in Russia,” he says. “Then in 2011 I moved to Melbourne where I was part of a Russian comedy troupe.”
However, the shift from sketch to stand-up occurred when he moved to Queensland. Not knowing any other performers he still felt the desire to get on stage and make people laugh.
“I was very nervous when I started doing stand-up in English, but the reception was very warm actually. I feel that the English-speaking audiences are much easier to make them laugh than Russian people in Australia for some reason.”
G’day, Comrade! finds Bodryi joined on stage by fellow Russian comedians. During the show the three of them (along with a guest comedian appearing straight from Russia) will try to make sense of Australian life through the eyes of an immigrant.
“This is a show about Russians living in Australia,” explains Bodryi. “It gives people a way to look at their everyday lives from a different perspective, from the perspective of an outsider, from the perspective that happens to be Russian.”
When asked how they all came together to put the show on, Bodryi says they joined forces after running in similar circles.
“[Comedians] pretty much just mingle together and it’s pretty easy to spot a Russian name that sounds like a complicated wi-fi password,” he says.
It seems that, for Gosha and his fellow performers, the language of comedy is universal. When asked about the differences and challenges of performing in both Russian and English he explains, “It’s pretty much the same, to be honest, because people laugh at the same thing.” While there are some obvious differences, “the principles of making comedy and the principles of making people laugh at a very basic level, they’re actually all the same.” Regardless of the language, it seems that Symon, Tugushev, and Bodryi are already making waves at this year’s festival with the first show of G’day, Comrade! already being sold out.
The show promises to provide a hilariously entertaining and unique take on Australian life from a perspective that many may never have considered or heard before.
