I spoke to Janet A McLeod and learned that she could easily win the title of busiest woman at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival. If you didn’t know that she runs The Local Laughs comedy venue all year round, you might recognise her from running the Information Booth in front of the Melbourne Town Hall each year at the Festival. This year, however she will also be running three (count them… Three!) Festival shows.
I started by asking about her newest venture The Comedy Showbag on Tuesdays til Saturdays at 10pm. “It’s what I’ve been trying to get other people to put on for years. They tell me at the information booth that they want a show with 3 or 4 comedians at about 10.00, so I thought, I’ll do it myself.” Janet will be running this show by remote as it would be difficult to get to the venue from the Information Booth in time. The technical person there will make sure it starts OK then the comedians will run it all themselves, doing a sort of tag-team hosting, introducing the following performer. Janet says, “It’s a style you find in the UK all the time but we just don’t necessarily do it here”.
Janet will be taking over the Sunday night Festival Club with long-time cohort Toby Sullivan entertaining us with the triumphant return of their popular Quiz Internationale. “[Originally] the excuse we were all there for was as a Trivia night but it kind of morphed into this weird amalgam of Trivia/standup/cabaret/multimedia/pissfart around. We will be travelling to a different country for each week’s theme. So brush up on your facts about Moscow, Tokyo and Honolulu.” Extra good news is that this will be the only night of the week that The Festival Club will be smoke-free.
Janet tells me she will also be having a hand in the final Friday night of the Festival Club, which is going to be like Superband night but without the Scardie’s Superband. A different band will be playing back up to the comedians shenanigans and much like Molly Meldrum did for Count Down, Janet will be co-ordinating the ‘talent’ for the night, she says “It’s a chance for comedians to pretend to be rock stars and feel cool for one night.”
Meanwhile Local Laughs will continue throughout the Festival on Monday nights, but the big news is that it will be at a different venue. The Local in St Kilda is being renovated so during the Festival Local Laughs will be on at The Laundry in Johnston St Fitzroy which is closer to the City of Yarra Festival venues.
On top of all of this, Janet will still be running the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Information Booth which this year will include the exciting addition of her information team called The What Squad. She explains “Their Role is to work the ticket lines and for example say things like ‘What are you seeing tonight? – well that’s actually sold out, so let’s find you something else.’ It’s like the information booth but more mobile, they may also be carrying goodies such as donuts for those punters stuck in long queues or emergency rain bonnets.”
Finally after the Festival is over Janet is planning to go into hibernation for a few months well deserved rest! By the time she emerges the Local will have been renovated in preparation for the new anti smoking regulations on July 1st. In this smoke free world Janet will go on “The largest pub crawl in history!”
For further information on the shows that Janet has a hand in, visit “Local Laughs”:http://www.myspace.com/stkildalocallaughs , “Comedy Showbag”:http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/show/364/ and “Festival Club”:http://www.comedyfestival.com.au/season/2007/specialevents/festivalclub/ .
For information on other things Janet is up to, say hi to her on myspace at “Janet”:http://www.myspace.com/clickhereforjanet .