Justin Hamilton is a fixture of Australian Comedy Scene. His previous shows at Melbourne Comedy Festival have included Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, The Killing Joke and Three Colours Hammo, all of which were critically lauded with sell-out sessions. Daniel Nicholls caught up with Justin ahead of his new show Idiot Man Child.
Tell me about your new show.
The origin literally came from two friends who’d made a New Year’s resolution not to hate people anymore. And I thought: “You know what? That is a really good thing to tap into.” So I gave it a shot, and it’s hard. It’s really hard! As for the show, it’s the closest I’ve come to straight stand-up since Three Colours Hammo. Well, you know, I considered Three Colours Hammo to be straight stand-up but it was more playing with the form, exploring what you can do within the confines of straight stand-up. And what happened with this show was last year I was invited to do a Storyteller’s night. They gave me the topic and ten days later I did the show, and the idea that it was completely disposable was very exciting and liberating to me, I was very ‘in the moment’, and it was so much fun. It was almost as if the idea that just doing straight stand-up as my next show was the most challenging option, for me. But it’s still one big story. If you’re not paying attention, it’s okay, you’ll still laugh, but if you are, you’ll see that it starts over here and it ends up over there and there are themes and complexities in it. And without sounding like too much of a complete cock, straight stand-up is easy.
You mean in comparison to your last few shows, which were very layered?
Yes. Although I should say: in this country stand-up doesn’t get a lot of respect. If it looks easy, people assume no work has gone into it, but if it looks hard then it’s not funny. I don’t like the idea of ‘it’s just stand-up’. Is Michael Jordan just dunking a ball? If you’re making people laugh, you’re doing it right. If no-one’s laughing, you’re not doing your job- you’re just ranting.
Are you at all worried that as your previous shows were so complex, people might come to this show expecting that level of intricacy and perhaps come away disappointed?
Well, I don’t write for the audience, I think I’d cripple myself if I did. If I was going to write for the audience I would have written Four Colours Hammo and Five Colours Hammo and so on every year. And a lot of comedians just do variations on a theme year on year and they do it very well and have great success with it. In a way I make it harder on myself by always wanting to do something different, but I need to be excited by the idea. As an example, I’ve written a Quantum Theory joke, and I love it, it’s one of my favourites. It’s not just a science joke, it’s a silver-age Flash joke. So I wrote it and I thought: “You know what? I’m leaving this joke in just for me. I don’t care if no-one else gets it, I’ll put it in there for me.” And against my expectations, that was the joke that punters talked to me about the most, they’d come up and ask me to do all the actions to it, it was very bizarre. And that showed me that the joke I thought was just for me was working for everyone, so I should stop being a bit of a snob because funny is funny. So when people ask if this show is ‘more’ than straight stand-up, why should it be more than stand-up? Stand-up’s great.
This is a rebellious show. This is old school rock n’ roll. It shits all over whimsy. I’ve been descibing it as ‘a muscular hour of ha ha’. It’s balls out. There’s no twist like in my last two shows, but there are complexities and themes if you want to pay attention, there’s even politics, but if you don’t pay attention to all of that you can just go in and laugh at the jokes.
Any other plans for the festival?
Come down to Hi-fi bar on Wednesday night, I’m the MC for The Festival Club. You get about ten to fifteen acts, it’s a lot of fun. I’m also directing three shows: Nelly Thomas, Halley Metcalfe and Tommy Dassalo. Three very different shows. All very good.
Justin Hamilton’s Idiot Man Child is playing from 25 March – 17 April at Vic’s Bar at the Victoria Hotel. For more details check out the Melbourne Comedy Festival website