The Brazilian comedian, set to arrive on Australian shores in November, talks long haul flights, Brazilian comedy and why he doesn't care if he sees a kangaroo.
Rafi Bastos is currently trying to wrap his head around a few things.
The first is that he has booked his first Australian tour, a place that he never quite thought he would visit. The second is the 22-hour flight he is going to have to endure in order to get here.
“I’m flying from New York to Los Angeles. Los Angeles to Sydney. Then Sydney to Perth,” the Brazilian comedian says through a smiling facepalm. “I mean, I can’t wait to be there, but man, that’s a long way.”
Rafi Bastos – Unfamiliar Territory
- Perth: Thursday, 14 November 2024 – Regal Theatre
- Melbourne: Saturday, 16 November 2024 – The Comic’s Lounge
- Brisbane: Sunday, 17 November 2024 – The Tivoli
- Brisbane: Sunday, 17 November 2024 – The Tivoli
- Auckland: Tuesday, 19 November 2024 – The Tuning Fork
- Sydney: Wednesday, 20 November 2024 – Factory Theatre
- Sydney: Thursday, 21 November 2024 – Enmore Theatre
- Tickets here
Explore Melbourne’s latest arts and stage news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
As Bastos puts it, there are likely two things that will happen on this long-haul flight. “One, I might jump out of the plane. Or two, my wife will jump out of the plane because of how much she’s going to have to hear me complaining!”
To add insult to injury, Bastos is also six foot seven, a height that causes immeasurable difficulty for him whilst sitting on a plane. Bastos has, however, come up with a few strategies to help.
“Usually, I try to get an aisle, and I put my legs in the middle of the aisle. Then when people are walking, they bump into me and trip. I almost got my foot chopped off once because of the carts.”
Dialling in from his apartment in the East Village in New York, Bastos is the personification of charm. Complete with an accent slightly like Count Dracula and the personality of your most hilarious neighbour, one instantly warms to him. It makes it very easy to see why Bastos was once described by the New York Times as being the most influential person on Twitter.
As a Brazilian comedy pioneer, Bastos has managed to achieve things in his comedy career that he could never have imagined. It wasn’t always going to turn out this way though. Growing up in Brazil, he had very few comedic references. As a result, he never really anticipated being a comedian. It was only after moving to America for a brief stint in the 90s that he discovered comedy.
“When I lived in America in 1999 playing basketball, I saw some stand-up on TV and I became obsessed with it. Later, when I started studying journalism, I would often write down my observations of the world. About the funny side of life. I later asked a group of friends in Brazil if they knew what stand-up was. They did. So, we created a comedy movement over there.”
Initially, however, the movement was met with much resistance from the Brazilian public, who did not really understand it. In speaking on this, Bastos offered, “Comedy in Brazil is more like characters and impersonators. So being onstage was confusing to a lot of people.
“It still is actually. Not the performance itself, just people being like, ‘Is that a joke or his real opinion?’ I don’t think people understood that.”
After appearing on large-scale Brazilian TV shows, even hosting a few of them, Bastos eventually decided to move to America in 2018. “I came here a few times to perform then just decided to move here.” In this move and the initial shock that it created, Bastos mined for his comedy.
“I’ve had a lot of experiences while living in this country. The first hour of my show is about me moving to another place, meeting my wife, the struggle of being an immigrant, the English language. The second hour is a lot more personal. I also try to mix a little bit of cultural differences and language with this section.”
Bastos finds that a lot of migrants attend his shows: people who can relate to his sense of alienation and confusion with their new world. Their ability to laugh at those experiences is where Bastos finds his real comedy.
“I don’t know who’s going to be there in Australia though,” he adds in that vampiric voice. “I know there’s a lot of Brazilian people in Australia. They will probably get it.”
As for Bastos’ plans when he hits Australian shores, he still doesn’t have much of a clue. Unlike the typical bucket list of seeing a kangaroo and a koala, Bastos does not describe himself as a tourist guy.
“I think I travelled the whole world without getting to know the whole world. But on this trip, my wife is there with me, so I’ll follow her schedule. She has a beach vibe, or bitch vibe. Is that how you say it in Australia?”
I guess he will soon find out.
Rafi Bastos will be performing at The Comic’s Lounge on November 16. Tickets to his show can be accessed here.
