Wise welcoming words with Mark Watson
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the MICF edition of Beat Magazine. I’ve always considered Beat to be one of the most reliable and entertaining publications covering this magnificent festival, and I’m absolutely not saying that because their reviews have tended to be more generous to me than certain other people I could name.
No, that doesn’t enter my thinking at all. Like all comedians, in fact, I am too emotionally robust and too naturally confident to look for my reviews, let alone internalise them. So my interest in Beat is purely that of an admiring outsider. What lovely, wide, attractive pages. What a concentration of festival data.
And, it has to be said again, what a festival. At no other comedy event in the world can you find such diversity of talent without being rained on 16 times a day and harangued by student troupes dressed in bloodied rags (Edinburgh) or have people say ‘hey, I loved your show’ when they haven’t seen it (Montreal).
For Melburnians it is a welcome relief from the barren annual calendar which otherwise only offers festivals for music, food, jazz, film, fashion, books, cheese (!) … Yeah, actually, you people don’t actually NEED comedians in your life. But I for one am, as ever, very excited and grateful to be here. Let’s go!
