For most people, the idea of being forced to perform a comedy routine to a room full of strangers is the stuff of nightmares, but for Stew Walker, the opportunity was a dream come true.
“I had a pretty interesting and unique entry to comedy,” explains Walker. “About four years ago, I was in the studio audience for Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight. I thought I was just going along to watch a show being taped, but about a month before you go on the show, you fill in an audience survey. One of the questions was ‘what’s on your bucket list?’ and I said that I wanted to perform at the Comedy Festival. I didn’t know at the time, but they’d been conspiring with my wife behind my back and they basically called my bluff on national TV and said ‘Well guess what, we’ve got a room booked for you at the Town Hall’. So I had six weeks to put together a half-hour show. It was a totally amazing, money-can’t-buy experience. I thought ‘Yeah I kind of enjoyed that, the punters enjoyed it, I’d like to do more of it’.”
Since his inaugural appearance at MICF in 2012, Walker made his return to the festival last year with A Hard Day’s Night of Beatles Parodies. This year, Walker’s taking a slightly different approach, spearheading a one-night-only musical comedy showcase – the first of its kind for MICF.
“I was thinking about what I was going to do at the Comedy Festival and I didn’t really have enough new stuff do another new show, so I thought ‘Oh, I should put a showcase show together’. Being a musical comedian, it made sense to do a show that’s just music.”
Headlining the night will be Rusty Berther, of Scared Weird Little Guys fame – making a rare festival appearance since the Scaredies’ farewell tour in 2011. Joining Berther and Walker on the bill will be Linda Beatty, a classically trained opera singer and Celtic harpist; cabaret performer Claire Healy alongside keyboardist Rohan Windle, ukulele player Melinda King, movie enthusiast and impersonator Andy Moratis and guitarist Darren Freak.
“I know that a few of the others were really excited about the idea of performing with Rusty,” notes Walker. “I remember Darren [Freak] saying that the Scared Weird Little Guys were one of the things that got him started in comedy in the first place, so that’s going to be a real buzz, seeing Rusty up close and personal doing his stuff.”
With a 90-minute run time, the show is set to feature something for all kinds of comedy fans – expect everything from songs about the periodic table of elements to Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonations and an educational number outlining some unique names for particular parts of the male and female anatomy.
“The thing that’s interesting with musical comedy is that combination of trying to get the humour going, but also working within the structure of a song,” explains Walker. “It adds, I guess, an additional constraint – but it also means that you have to be creative in how you work within that constraint.
“One of the things that I think is really good about the show is the diversity of it. It’s not just one guy after another playing guitar and singing – we’ve got a good mix of female performers and some pretty diverse acts as well.”
By Kelsey Berry
VENUE: Chapel Off Chapel – The Loft, 12 Little Chapel St, Prahran
DATE: April 2
TIME: 7pm & 9pm
TICKETS: $24 – $30
