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After tickling Melbourne's funny bone this autumn, a bunch of Australia's wittiest comedians will hit the road for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow. Entertaining crowds in towns such as Warrnambool, Hamilton, Ballarat, Bendigo, Ararat, Horsham, Wodonga and Wagga Wagga, we got the lowdown from one of the cohort, funnyman David Quirk.
How did you manage to score a gig on the Roadshow?
For right or wrong I've actually been a so-called fixture on the MICF Roadshow in some way or other since around 2018, if you can believe it? I guess they like me, so from there it might add up why I'm on it once more. That, and I must be funny.
What can audiences expect this year?
They can expect some new solid gold material (if you've seen me before and even if you haven't) performed by a tallish man for 20-odd minutes, and also one of the greatest nights of their lives.
Where do you get the inspiration for new material?
Lately it's come from being in a strange place with stand-up comedy and turning my hand to painting houses for cold hard wet cash. It's here I've found hilarity in bleak reality.
This story is from the new autumn edition of ACM's Eat Play Stay magazine. Click here to read the entire magazine online.
What do you love about performing at regional centres?
Lots of things, but mainly the skateparks and/or rivers to swim in, or maybe a bit of ocean, if your regional town swings that way. I'm from a country town in north east Victoria and I love it. I live right in the city of Melbourne these days and it's great and all, but the country is special.
Will you take a skateboard and check out the local skate parks while you're on the road?
Yes - that said, me saying one of the things about regional centres is the skateparks doesn't mean that I am a skateboarder, but it should. I'd be even weirder than I am if I just liked skateparks and didn't use them.
You grew up in Bright - does anything make you look back on those years and laugh?
Lot's of things made me laugh back then and lots of things escape my brain now, and it's probably more odd than funny, but it's true that I was sober from my birth (in Bright) up to and on my 21st birthday. That's not nothing.
What was your favourite joke as a kid?
Probably this annoying and brilliant thing my dad did to my sister and I. Before we'd go to bed he'd take the time to put various items in our beds, under the fitted sheet, about where your feet would be. It could be anything, a toy, a remote control, a bottle of sunscreen, for example. As long as it wasn't big enough to be noticed under the rumpled doona. It being hard was important, obviously.
We'd finally go to bed, in winter, when all you want to do is snuggle up and sleep it all off, when inexplicably, there was something hard, difficult and out of place at your feet. The genius was that it was always under the fitted sheet. So you'd try and kick it out or something, but you couldn't, so you'd have to get up and turn the light on and manually remove it while both silently cursing and deeply respecting your own father.
- The Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow will hit The Cube in Wodonga on May 17. Visit thecubewodonga.com.au for more details.