For a fellow who has experienced some Australia’s more aggressive tendencies, Umit Bali is an exuberant guy who speaks at a rate of knots. He has faced down struggles with immigration, found himself beaten up by wannabe gangsters in his Western Sydney home of Blacktown, and still found ways of finding good humour in his experiences. However, this does not, he assures, make him a politically-minded comic.
“I don’t try to have anything political in there, because I don’t understand politics,” Bali explains. “I once worked in a politicians office when I was in high school for work experience, because it was the only job that was left.”
What Bali is trying to do is share the world as he sees it every day – a place largely full of hope and kindness, that will also bewilder you at every turn. Having found success with his last touring show, Flight Plan, he is now delving headlong into the Melbourne Comedy Festival with Aussie At Last!, a show that will likely welcome the Indo-Fijian-Australian to whole new audience.
“When I first started, I was doing corporate gigs in a suit, but that just wasn’t me. I never wanted to look weird up there, but I’d go on stage with my old Casio watch and dressed in my normal clothes and apparently I look weird anyway, so what do you do? But you start with these perceptions in your mind of what your persona could be, and for me, it was just getting on stage and trying to make these jokes funny, and then find a persona that fits. But by then, I didn’t need a persona. Just being me seemed to work pretty well. Well, you know – ”
Bali interrupts himself, laughing.
“I do like to exaggerate things. Or not even exaggerate, but talk really loudly to explain any situation,” he says, yelling the phrase to emphasise his point. “But they’re all true stories, pretty much. The creative part is the thought process that was going on at the time. When I talk about my mum being pregnant with my sister, my dad had told me when he was drunk driving me home from school. And that’s not a lie, he was drunk, and he was driving me home from school and told me, and I was thinking, ‘Hey, high-five’, because what else do you do in that situation, when you’re sixteen and you’re drunk dad has gotten your mum pregnant? So the story is true, but I embellish the high-five.
“I really just talk about my experiences,” he concludes. “I narrate my stories, which people can interpret however they want, but it’s really just serious, real stuff that I’m trying to make funny. That’s what I hope people take away from it.”
By Adam Norris
Venue: The Downstairs Lounge at The Grand Mercure Hotel
Dates: March 24 – April 3 (except Monday)
Time: 7.45pm
Tickets: $16 – $22
