Laughs Now In Session

Comedy Court is probably funnier than real court. It is also probably funnier than the fact one of its resident comedians, Michael Connell, does the odd stand-up spot at the Dan O'Connell Pub in Carlton. Connell. O'Connell. Funny, no? Anyway, Comedy Court, purported to be the funnest fun craze out of the States since the slinky (Philadelphia, c1945), is a comedy spot starting up in the CBD where a bunch of semi-pro stand-ups perform gags and their audience judge – via electronic judge-pads!

Over a beer at his (almost) eponymously-named pub, Connell suggests that Comedy Court, created by American ex-pat Donte D1, is an exciting new platform for comedians to spurt their stuff. “It's been running in Sydney at the casino for five years now. Donte goes up there, has up-and-comers – they're looking for rising stars – and they do their best five minutes. It's quite fun, but the kicker is he's actually got an actual electronic button pressing thing. It's full on!

“It's a very American show-biz sort of deal. It's my chance to live out my dream of being on Deaf Comedy Jam,” he laughs.

Melbourne is yet to live up to its potential as a comedy city, Connell says. “People don't realise that comedy is year-'round. We have about eight rooms and 300-odd comedians, so they're all fighting over them. See, it's huge during the Comedy Festival, then the festival ends and they look around and go, 'errrgh, what's happening?'”

As we dodge the cues of kids playing pool, Connell continues. He explains the lengths he's gone to to make his own comedy happen. “I MCed the dog-jumping show at the local agricultural centre once, out at Healesville. They said, 'Okay, we have these dogs. They're going to jump over bales of hay'. They have 20 dogs. They each jump over a bale and then they keep loading up the hay until it eliminates all the dogs.

“I thought it would be a laugh, but these dog jumpers, they took it so seriously… They said, 'While the judges tally it up, just run out some comedy'. So I was like, 'What's the deal with dogs?' and 'Border collies be like this', and, ahhh… Yeah.”

And then there's always the genuinely hostile crowd. “I once won the comedy competition for Australia's funniest university comedian. Because of that, Victoria Uni said, 'Come and MC the band competition'. I'm like, 'yeah, that'll be fun'. What they didn't tell me was that every band in that band comp was, like, heavy-metal, hardcore, screamo. They don't do humour. Especially not my kind of humour. They'd be doing windmill screamo arms and I would come out and be like, 'What's the deal with exfoliant? How cute are puppies?' People threw bottles.”

In the face of an already loaded Melbourne cultural calendar, Connell suggests comedians go down a similar road to Donte D1 with Comedy Court, and get proactive. “You need to be out there and making your own gigs. You could go, 'Hey, you're having a dog jumping trial, and I'm trying to start up this comedy thing…' Look for other ways, and other opportunities.

“We're fighting against TV, radio, the internet, but I think people are starting to realise that you can't have as fun an experience as coming and sitting in a room with a comedian when he's doing his magic.”