Cybernetic Laughs

Brooklyn-born and raised comedian Wil Sylvince toured Australia last year opening for the Wayans brothers and has recently been smashing it as part of the Headliners bill at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. During his few weeks' sojourn in Melbourne he admits he fell in love a little with the city.

“In Melbourne they have these alleys you've just made into nice places to be,” Sylvince says with disbelief. “In New York, alleys are not like that at all. It smells like pee, there's going to be Homeless Sammy there, there's stray cats and dogs. But Melbourne's alleys are amazing.”

Sylvince is about to head out on his own to tack on a few solo shows before going back to the Big Apple. He says he's been trying out some new material in his shows Down Under. Often on stage he'll mention as a throwaway line that before he got into comedy at the age of 24 – “I was still a virgin. Not just a virgin of comedy, like a virgin virgin,” he laughs – he had a job building robots. He didn't explore it further as he didn't think there was anything funny about it, but recently, at the urgings of Damon Wayans, he's been sharing some reminiscences of his scientific life before comedy.

“I've touched on it a little bit more since I've been out in Australia and I'm finding things that are funny about it. So that's going to be my goal, taking my robotics career and writing a whole bit about it. I went to school for electromechanical engineering. I studied robotics and I got a job at this company called International Robotics. Did you see Rocky IV? Remember the scene where a robot comes out and gives Paulie a birthday cake? That's our robot, SICO.

“It was actually my boss there that introduced me to comedy – I mean, I knew about stand-up and I always wanted to be a comedian but it was one of those dreams, you know, like being at high school and dreaming of being an astronaut. But my boss gave me a Robin Harris CD and I played that CD every day for one year straight and it blew my mind. Then I started doing comedy.”

Sylvince, who grew up in a big Haitian immigrant family, says when he began stand-up, he almost exclusively played the “urban” circuit for a while, some tough gigs there forging him into a better comedian.

“It was just the all black and Hispanic shows, the ethnic comedy clubs,” he says. “They're much harder than the mainstream rooms. The audience demands more – but the pay-off is they laugh way harder than white people. To a performer doing well at those shows, you think, 'I could be king tomorrow.' But I stayed doing both circuits, because I love different energies and styles of comedy.”

WHAT: Wil Sylvince- Live!
Playing Sydney Comedy Festival 24 – 27 Apr, The Comedy Store
Playing Perth International Comedy Festival 1 – 4 May, Astor Theatre & 4 May, Mt Lawley Bowling Club