The Woman We Love To Hear "Talking Rubbish For An Hour"

"I talk very fast and run around like a goose."

There you have it, folks, the comedy of Celia Pacquola, neatly summarised by the woman herself. Of course, if that's all there was to it, it's unlikely Pacquola would be regarded as one of Australia's best up-and-coming stand-ups, although the 'up-and-coming' label is perhaps a tad inaccurate, given that she's been at it for a decade or so, her profile steadily rising the whole time. Still, describing her style as speaking and moving quickly is just as inaccurate — you don't win rave reviews and award nominations at comedy festivals here and abroad on energy alone.

Interviewing Pacquola, however, it becomes clear early on that, well, she does talk very fast. And while it was hard to tell if the woman on the other end of the phone was running around like a goose, she did display a charming if exhausting tendency to initially leap from topic to topic, from the inconvenience of sweating ("Sometimes your body is just not on your side") to the distinctiveness of her surname ("If I do a scandal, it's going to be harder for me to get off the grid").

"People will come to my stand-up show expecting the nice girl from the ABC who talks about infrastructure, and the show is — not that."

Soon enough, though, the conversation turned to the serious business of comedy, and the fact that Pacquola has been dubbed a "heavy hitter" on the local comedy scene after a 2015 that saw her pack out venues nationwide with her solo show, Let Me Know How It All Works Out, and land the plum gig of supporting John Oliver on his Australian tour.

On top of that, last year also saw Pacquola continue to make her mark as an actor, continuing to play tangled-in-red-tape bureaucrat Nat on the ABC/Working Dog sitcom Utopia and ably showing a more dramatic side in the miniseries The Beautiful Lie.

"Something I'm finding strange is that people aren't recognising me as a stand-up," says Pacquola. "Because I've done more acting stuff in the past year. So people will come to my stand-up show expecting the nice girl from the ABC who talks about infrastructure, and the show is — not that."

Acting is "wonderful", says Pacquola. "For a change. If I was acting all the time, I would really miss the freedom to rock up whenever I wanted and say whatever I wanted to a bunch of people at a pub. But acting is so fun, and there are reasons why I enjoy it. It has structure: I have to be somewhere at a certain time of the day, and someone does my hair and tells me what to wear and when to eat. Know what I mean? I turn up and I get handed what to say. It's nice having someone else tell you what to say for a change."

"I don't know what my comedy is but I know what it's not. It's not one-liners, it's not shock comedy, it's not political."

It's not hard to discern that comedy remains Pacquola's first love, though, even if she refer to it with a laugh as "talking rubbish for an hour". "It's been ten years since my first-ever gig," she says. "Rather than feel different, I feel busier, which is amazing. It was amazing five years ago to be able to quit my waitressing job and have this as my only job. But in the last year, there was a combination of a lot of things happening at the same time, and also being in Melbourne for a longer period of time, because I'd been living in London for five years. It felt like I went from doing nothing to being super-busy. And I feel like I've been around, and that's lovely. I like that I know most of the comedy rooms in Melbourne; I like walking into a room and knowing most of the people there. In comedy, you do your time and earn your stripes. I still feel mid-level, and there are people above me and my contemporaries, but you get respect for showing up and doing it."

And there's obviously massive respect for Pacquola within the comedy scene. After all, the job of hosting the Oxfam Gala, one of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's most prestigious events, isn't handed out to any old clown, unless you regard previous hosts such as Judith Lucy, Rove McManus or Dave Hughes as old clowns. "Seeing who's hosted it in the past — it is bonkers!" says Pacquola. "Hosting the Gala is the biggest thing I could think of, and I cannot believe I'm doing it. I grew up watching it, and it's responsible for some of my earliest memories of stand-up. And the first time I did a Gala spot was the closest I came to a physical reaction to a gig — I thought I was going to faint. I had a bit of a talk to myself: 'Have a heart attack and die in three minutes, but don't do this to me now.' And it was wonderful. So I'm very honoured and very excited and I will do my best not to fuck it up."

(Here are some of Pacquola's tips for not fucking it up. "Don't be drunk. Maybe wear some clothes, Celia.")

So what does hosting an event like the Oxfam Gala, which features some of the biggest names in comedy from here and overseas, actually entail? "I imagine they want me to do what I do, which is stand-up," she says. "It's a big deal but it's also a stand-up gig, so I'm going to do my favourite jokes and provide a nice, friendly, upbeat showcase for the acts. A good host is not the star of the show, so I don't have to do much other than introduce rad, hilarious people. Then go from zero to hammered in five minutes once the show's finished."

Once the post-Gala hangover fades, Pacquola will present her own Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, titled The Looking Glass. But asking her to describe it, well...

"It's always tricky. You'd think I'd know by now what to say when people ask me that question. I don't know what my comedy is but I know what it's not. It's not one-liners, it's not shock comedy, it's not political. I guess it's high energy silliness. It's all I can do. I like the absurdity of someone like Sam Simmons. Or the political comedy of someone like Wil Anderson. I couldn't do it, even though I like it. But I'm having a great time with The Looking Glass. I do shows every second year, so it's two years worth of jokes. It's still too long...but there are just so many jokes I enjoy telling."