“We can’t meet the demand,” enthuses Associate Director of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and producer of RAW, Gideon James. “There are so many people who want to go in it. We opened on Friday, in Melbourne, and without putting extra heats on we’re full already. So we’re going to be putting extra heats on to get as many people in as possible.”
Unlike my first sexual partner, RAW is free to enter. However, you must not have entered the competition more than three times over the years, nor have earned over $500 from performing stand-up.
“You can literally start out from having never done comedy before. A couple of years ago, the guy that won it, his first gig ever was at RAW and before you know it, he was in Edinburgh. People do just come from nowhere. Other people might have been doing the local rooms a little bit or had a go at it a couple of times.
“You can do stand-up, magic, sometimes there’s duos – the people who won last year (Lessons With Luis) were a pretend family, they were characters – you can do anything. Basically, you’ve got five minutes, so as long as you can get your props on and off in your five minutes, you can do anything that’s funny. It has to be original, obviously, and you have to have written it or created it yourself.”
In fact, its very name hints at the type of comedians the competition aims to unearth – unpolished, inexperienced yet talented funny people.
“The overall objective, I suppose, is to uncover and support new performers with potential. That potential can be short term or long term to the industry. If someone’s a little nervous and they’ve got notes on their hand, but they’ve written some really good jokes, that’ll stand them in good stead and may get them above someone who’s done a perfect delivery, remembered every word but didn’t necessarily show as much potential as the person who was nervous. Comedy is so subjective, so we usually have three judges, someone from the media, usually a comedian, and someone from the industry such as a producer or an agent or something. They all love judging, we don’t have trouble finding people to get involved in any form.”
If you’ve been to a RAW gig before, you’ll certainly have experienced the warm and receptive crowds.
“The way we do it – it’s a little bit rock’n’roll, well in a way. All the initial gigs are in pub venues, The Espy, The Corner, The Evelyn, we’ve done it at The Retreat before. They’re all familiar places, it doesn’t feel like an audition. We try to take that away. Bring your mates, have a few beers, some things works and some things don’t but it’s a very comfortable environment and that’s always reflected by how much the MCs wanna do the job. You never have this many comics going, ‘Oh when are you programming RAW? I love doing it’ because as they’ll say to me, it’s the warmest audience you’ll ever get, they want everyone to have a good time and succeed which is unlike just a normal comedy night where people have much higher expectations I suppose. People are ready to support it, and they love it.
“It’s a joy. Just seeing people get better from year to year, like you might see someone and they didn’t make it through but the next year you see them do that much better, because a lot of open mic places people don’t get paid, they’re just having a shot, that’s always really nice to know that their goal perhaps for the year is to enter RAW. There’s nothing better for an artist than a deadline to make something happen, so I think RAW is kind of like that for people – a deadline for emerging comics, really, if they want to get in, because the opportunities it can open up are huge. Once you sort of get to the higher levels, sort of burn a few coals, often you’ll see industry people checking it out, because they want to know what the younger people are talking about. Themes can emerge from the younger generation that are really interesting, even if they’re not as polished as a professional stand-up.”
When prompted on what he believes is the biggest challenge for young comedians, James’ response is instant.
“Getting stage time. Definitely. And income. They work a lot by themselves, but there is a very strong community. Once people start doing it for a while and hook in, make mates that are doing it as well, then I think that’s a good thing. That happens from RAW too. You see from year to year at the festival people being mates the next year – it’s quite a bonding experience. Kinda like a ‘Class Of’”.
While Melbourne’s initial heats are already full, the addition of extra heats is granting up-and-coming comedians one last opportunity to register, vomit before the show in the toilets like Eminem does in 8 Mile (mum’s spaghetti), then go out and destroy that motherfucker.
“Have a go, give it a shot. You might find something that you’re good at, potentially for the rest of your life, and you might make people laugh, which is a really great thing.”
BY WINNIE TARAS
