Showcase

Last week Top End Comedy put together a week long workshop as an attempt at professional development for the impressive gang of comedians we’ve assembled over the last 18 months or so. After a crazy amount of effort on the part of the formidable Amy Hetherington, we secured a government grant and flew an international comedian into Darwin to spend some time honing our crafts.

I probably spent more time on sandwich eating than on craft honing, but that’s not to say I got nothing out of the workshops. The chance to sit around with a room of comedians for three days and bounce material off each other was fantastic, and set the stage for what followed.

On Friday night we put on a showcase of local comedy talent, followed by a set from Nik Coppin, our illustrious international guest. Twelve of us got up, each delivering a five minute set that we’d spent the past three days working on. Even with a couple of inexperienced performers (and one fantastic first timer) no-one bombed; in fact we delivered a solid two hour line-up of quality presentations. And Nik obviously did a great job at the end too.

Raw Comedy is coming up in just over a month and I've registered to go again. Top End Comedy has come so far in the last twelve months that the NT heat isn’t going to know what hit it.  I can’t wait for our first Happy Yess gig this week.

Yah dumplings!

Garry with 2 Rs