 I am nearly done. I have one more week left of my stand-up
comedy course.
Yes, NQR is trying his hand at stand-up comedy.
I originally signed up for this particular Adult Education
Class because it’s called “Stand-Up Comedy for the Beginner and the Terrified”
because I am essentially a beginner and I am terrified.
All my life I have been terrified. Terrified of coming out
to my family. Terrified of asking a guy out on a date. Terrified of being
poofter-bashed. Terrified of being outed at church. Terrified of what to do
when I got dumped.
So many of us boys never move on from that. So many of us
live terrified lives. That fear can drive us to only ever party at gay clubs,
only ever work in a field where we can be comfortably queer or even justify
risky sexual behaviours because we think, somehow, that it’s scarier to ask a
guy to put on a condom than it is to have unprotected sex with him in the first
place.
Most of the gay men I have known, loved or screwed have been
terrified of the world around them. It’s a world that isn’t really geared for
our brand of interpretation, we reason, and that means we should fear it. Kind
of like the fear of homosexuality that we call homophobia. The fear of
something we know nothing about.
So I decided to tackle not only my fear of being out to a
room full of complete strangers, but my even greater fear of having to
entertain them enough so that they actually laugh at what I am saying.
 Perhaps this fear is what keeps the talent pool largely
empty of gay comedians. I can name The Fabulous Adam Richard (bottom), Julian Clary (top) and
Graham Norton (middle) off the top of my head, but I don’t know of many gay comedians in
Australia, let alone Tasmania. Yet if, as my textbooks are saying, comedy
really is a product of tragedy and enough time passing to be able to laugh at
it, then gay men should be the funniest people on the planet!
In two weeks time I have to stand up in front of about 200
people and make them laugh. But first I had to make my class laugh.
To put my first ever comedy performance into perspective, I
wrote the material in a one hour cram session on Tuesday afternoon at 4pm,
arrived at the class at 6pm and stood up to perform my material at 6.37pm...
immediately after the two funniest guys in my class.
And they laughed.
Their jaws dropped when I told a gag about being a gay man
who fooled a Christian radio station into think he was born again for three
years just so I could get into radio. They cracked up when I relayed the story
of my birth to the original Fortitude Valley crack-whore in 1974. The biggest
laugh was reserved for my reasoning for why being gay and being a born-again
Christian are essentially the same thing.
I took the textbook literally and hit my own personal
tragedy with a funny-bone and it actually seemed to work. At least in front of
my class. I will reserve my own judgement of my abilities until the big night <begin shameless plug> at 8pm
Tuesday May 27 at The Loft in Liverpool Street, Hobart... entry is free <end shameless plug>.
As for being a beginner, I am certainly still that. As for
being terrified? Well, I think I can downgrade that to a more moderate case of
shitting myself!
Adam Richard is beautiful on ABC TV's Spicks & Specks
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