She is without doubt one of the best stand-ups this country has produced and if there’s one thing Judith Lucy particularly excels at, its taking life’s vicissitudes and finding the hilarity within that. Or in other words, taking life’s crap and turning it into seriously funny shit. In that regard, what were Lucy’s personal losses in 2014 eventually become comedy’s gain in the form of Ask No Questions of The Moth.
Last year, her Melbourne International Comedy Festival show about her “magnificently terrible” year also won the 2015 Helpmann Award for comedy, so she’s bringing it back for four shows only this festival. Is she just phoning it in this festival? “Pretty much, let’s face it. I’ve never done this before but we thought, ‘Helpmann Award? Let’s see if we can squeeze a few more dollars out of this baby’”.
The poster image for the show features Lucy in a moth costume, which she does not actually wear in the show much to what appears to be the disappointment of many as she has toured the show around the country. “I am in a nice dress and there’s some animation towards the end where I may or may not turn into a moth, but it does seem to have been a mistake that I’m not in the moth costume because people seem to really like that photo of me as a sad alcoholic moth,” she says in her widely adored self-deprecating way. “So it’s sort of a shame I’m not in the moth costume. Rod Quantock said to me, ‘Clearly you should be dressed as an insect in every show from here on in’, so lookout, next year I could be in a praying mantis costume.”
So is this her mid-life crisis show? Lucy doesn’t think so. “I think my mid-life crisis show was maybe every show. I think I just spread the crisis out over my career in comedy. 2014 wasn’t so much a crisis year as a stressful, horrible year. Obviously, I don’t just get up on stage and weep,” she says.
She was making her second TV series, Judith Lucy is All Woman for ABC, which she says was a stressful experience. “My body kind of fell apart,” she laments. “Then virtually overnight I was hit with menopause and my brother died. It was just that trifecta really.”
But it isn’t all grief and despair. “Within all of that I talk about everything from why we are eating and drinking kale to the fact you can buy peppermints for your vagina, so there is something for everyone,” she says. “I do dance with maracas, so there’s some joy in there. And when I talk about menopause, I actually read out a list of menopause symptoms while dancing to Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On, so I feel that I’ve made menopause sexy.”
There was also a positive development in her life that year. “I do also talk about the fact that one of the things that made 2014 less shit is that I met someone. I go into the fact that I’m a cougar,” she says. Fate’s wicked sense of humour has seen to it that she’s been mistaken for her boyfriend’s mother and if you want to hear her spin that into comedy gold, these shows are your last chance in Melbourne. “It has changed a bit. Obviously some dead wood has been gotten rid of and a few new stories are in there…its towards the very end of the run, only three more shows after Melbourne and then I’m putting this baby to bed”. Flock like moths to a flame while you can.
By Joanne Brookfield
Venue: The Comedy Theatre, Cnr Exhibition & Lonsdale Sts, CBD
Dates: March 26 – April 3 (Saturdays and Sundays only)
Times: 7pm (April 2 5pm, Sundays 4.30pm)
