Skulleton is the debut stand-up comedy show for young Melbourne comedian Graptus Henderson. The content of show sees Henderson examining the English language, and how we use it as well as exploring his own life experience. “A lot of the jokes are pun-based or wordplays,” explains Henderson. “There are phrases in the English language that we just take for granted so during the show I try to re-examine some of them, poking fun at some of things we say and do.
“I can give you the gist of one example from the show. You know the saying ‘that just put a smile on my dial’? Well I point out the fact that whoever came up with it was incredibly lazy because obviously they had the word smile and thought ‘well I have smile and, well, you know a dial is a round shape so I guess that works’,” sets-up Henderson. “So I then say ‘well that put a smirk on my Turk’. See what I have done there? It rhymes and Turkish people have faces,” mocks Henderson.
As American elder statesman of comedy Jerry Seinfeld demonstrated so brilliantly in the ’90s, observational humour from a comedian’s own life makes for great content. In Skulleton Henderson grapples with the conflict between logic and Scientology, a conflict that has its origins in Henderson’s own working life. “One of my work mates was a Scientologist and we would get in arguments about when Scientology’s teachings defied logic. So I’ve put all these arguments together into a compact re-telling of all the weird things he ever did or said,” explains Henderson. “I never really found out that much about Scientology directly from him as he was quite cagey about it. Whenever I pushed him on a topic he would just get really vague and say ‘the universe works itself out, man’ to which I would retort ‘are you trying to say that it’s your belief that the universe just works itself out man?’” states a wistfully exacerbated Henderson.
However, one of the most hilarious tales Henderson tells throughout the interview is not from his show but, in fact, the origin of his unique first name. “Graptus is the name of a beetle and octopus, I think it’s Latin for ‘language’ but dad was really vague about it when I asked him about what it means.” Does Henderson have any siblings? And if ‘yes’ do they have similarly idiosyncratic names? “My older brother is called John, mum named him and dad name me – I think he was getting back at mum for giving my brother such a typical boys name,” replies a deadpan Henderson. His charmingly matter-of-fact delivery bodes well for the audiences of Skulleton.
On this topic of foreign words Henderson addresses the second biggest elephant in room after his own name and that is, ‘what is a Skulleton?’ “The final joke at the end of the show is where I reveal the meaning of Skulleton. I named the show Skulleton because that was the joke I was most happy with.”
BY DENVER MAXX
