Born 1956 – died 2004
Lynda Gibson was a courageous, outspoken, politically left, tough, talented and much-loved comedian. Gibbo, as she was affectionately known, was brought up in Kingsgrove Sydney. Her father was a builder in inner suburban Sydney and Lynda always championed the working families ‘doin’ it hard’.
” Everyone’s always talking about a fair go. What’s happened to the fair go in the country? I’ll tell you. There’s been so many cutbacks all that’s left is GO! – The ‘Fair’ bit has been privatised.”
She trained as an Actress with Sydney’s Nimrod Theatre in the late 70s and moved to Albury Wodonga to work with the Murray River Performing Group. While there she worked with The Clown Ensemble and became notorious for her stand-up work on stage in the Galah Bar at the back of the New Albury Hotel. In 1985 she moved to Melbourne to make a living as a comedian and appeared regularly at The Last Laugh and Le Joke. After playing Audrey Tawdrey in ‘Casa Del Tawdrey’ at The 1988 Melbourne Comedy Festival she teamed up with Denise Scott, Sally Upton and Lynne McGrainger, they all dressed up as men and became The Natural Normans, a sleazy lounge singing act satirising sexist attitudes. Later that year they took their act to Edinburgh for a successful run at The Fringe.
Lynda became a regular on The Big Gig in 1991 and is particularly remembered talking over the fence about current affairs with neighbour Denise Scott in between yelling at their invisible kids and the dog. Her most notorious role was as Matron Conniving- Bitch in the outrageous hospital farce’ Let the Blood Run Free’, first on stage and then on television. She was a Theatresports regular and performed in a lot of straight theatre such as Barry Dicken’s ‘Roy Boys’ (1986) at Playbox and playing Gwen in Michael Gow’s ‘Away’ (1997).
In 1995 Lynda was in the Working Dog Current Affairs satire ‘Frontline’ and went on to play the ongoing role of Trish. In 1997 she had the featured role of Evonne, a neighbour in Working Dog’s film ‘The Castle’ where she got a great laugh with the line:
“Get your hand off it Darryl”
In 1998 she did an episode of ‘Smallest Room in the House’ called “She’ll be Right”, then she got together in 1999 with two other great ladies of Melbourne comedy, Denise Scott and Judith Lucy to create ‘Comedy is Not Pretty’, which four years later mutated into “Comedy is Still Not Pretty” to great acclaim and The Age Critics Award at the 2003 Melbourne Comedy Festival.
Her 2001 Melbourne Comedy Festival show, “Its Not Nasty” chronicled her battle with ovarian cancer and gave a clear insight into what it’s like to go through chemotherapy. Like all her work it was brutally honest and chokingly funny. Her final role was (appropriately) as a Health Spa Patient in the ‘Kath & Kim’ episode “Obsession”(2003)
In October 2003, a celebrity roast was held in her honour at the packed solid Hifi Bar where she was presented with an award from the Aids Council of Victoria for her work performing at fundraisers for 10 years. She also worked hard for OvCa Australia, an ovarian cancer charity she co-founded. Sadly, the cancer took her life on January 2nd 2004. She was a great role model for young female comedians as well as a good friend and mentor. She has left a great hole in Melbourne’s comedy community.