The Groggy Squirrel

This year’s Comedy Festival sees Dan Walmsley launch his own comedy show, promising a combination of laughs and variety. “The Groggy Squirrel” had a word with Dan about “Triple Trouble”

Tell me about “Triple Trouble”.

Triple Trouble is a live variety show running 3 days a week during the Comedy Festival – hence the name. There’s also three kinds of comedy on offer: stand-up, musical and improvised. The first half of the show is well-rehearsed routines by a variety of comics and musicians, interspersed with audience games and giveaways, and the second half is an improvised musical free-for-all by Australia’s best improvisors, The Crew.

Every night of Triple Trouble is different – different performers, different themes, different games. My goal is that an audience member could come back every night and never get bored or see the same thing twice. I want to usurp prime-time TV.

How is “Triple Trouble” distinguished other multiple line up shows? Why did you choose to present a show of this nature?

I’m glad you asked! A lot of other multiple-bill shows are several stand-ups performing one after the other, which is great if that’s what you’re after, but that’s not what Triple Trouble is doing. Triple Trouble is a fully-fledged variety show with music, games, a host (yours truly) and impro. It runs for 2 solid hours, plus an intermission, and there’s a bar and DJ to keep things moving too.

I didn’t actually set out to do a variety show, but it seems like everything I do these days becomes a variety show all by itself. The Pink Horse of Whimsy, a show I ran at Vibe last year, was initially just an attempt to start a regular comedy room. We quickly added live music, short films, quizzes, prizes and a news segment. We couldn’t help ourselves – if someone had a good idea, it was in.

The same thing happened this time. As soon as I got the venue (thank you Janet A. McLeod!) ideas started snowballing and before I knew it I had another variety show on my hands (Dang it!). I think it comes from the fact that there are so many talented people in Melbourne who are keen to work on new and different projects.

This is your first time presenting a full festival show yourself; however you have made appearances and contributions to other festival shows over the last few years. How do you expect this year’s experience to differ from other shows you’ve been involved with?

Well, first of all this is the first show I’ve run, so I’ve been overwhelmed by the logistics of doing a show; insurance, pricing, ticketing, venues, advertising and so on. That and the fact that I’ll be making every show as different as possible means I probably won’t have as much time for enjoying other shows (or festival club) as past years. But it’s totally worth it to know that I’ve finally created my very own festival show.

Who can we expect to see appear at “Triple Trouble”?

A perfect blend of young guns and old hands, local and international. We already have killer line-ups confirmed – Sista She, Matt Elsbury, Janelle Koenig, Duff, and heaps more. We also have a few international surprises yet to be announced. Plus The Crew, who have to be seen to be believed, are on every night. You can see up-to-date line-ups at http://danwalmsley.com/triple-trouble.

As I said before you have worked with various other shows in the past, in multiple capacities, and you were, of course, an important member of the Australian contribution to Mark Watson’s historic 36 hr gig in Edinburgh last year. How important is collaboration in this industry?

Collaboration in comedy comes about very naturally. It’s happening all the time, but the public don’t usually see it – comedians trying out new material on each other, getting feedback on their sets, or just having a beer and comiserating about jokes gone wrong. Most comedians in Melbourne are good friends so collaboration comes naturally both on-stage and off.

The thing I learned from Mark’s shows – and this was a revelation – is how much collaboration you as a performer can do with an audience. Mark’s stroke of genius was to recruit audience members into key roles in the show (this was how I originally got involved). It worked brilliantly, and fostered a wonderful sense of cameraderie, which is so important over such a long haul.

Collaboration in Triple Trouble takes a lot of different forms. We’ll have stand-ups joining improvisers, musicians joining stand-ups. At one point, we plan to have a professional dancer tap-dance a Metallica guitar solo. At another, Jiu Jitsu fighters will battle over a woman to a cabaret tune. The sky’s the limit.

In a creative town like Melbourne, a good (or very silly) idea can go a very long way. To Fitzroy, in fact. 50 Johnston St. Upstairs. To the stage. Thereupon to delight, enthral and bemuse those lucky enough to see a once-in-a-lifetime event. That’s variety!

For booking details go to Triple Trouble