Laura Davis
4 April 2018
Butterfly Club
comedyfestival.com.au
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| Ghost Machine |
This isn't a review, it's a directive.
If you somehow haven't seen Laura Davis perform, what do I have to do to convince you? I've done the stars, adjectives and quoteables.
She's moving to the UK in a couple of weeks, so this really might be your last chance because I think the UK is going to love her and keep her and give her so much work that the next time she's back here, it's because she's famous.
I first saw her at the Melbourne Fringe in 2013 (I think). I saw her because the venue tech thought I'd really like her work. They were right.
Since then, every new show she's done has not only seen her develop as a writer and observer of the world, but she's questioned stand-up and confronted so many of the expectations of women performing in this industry.
Ghost Machine blew me away a bit when I saw it in 2015. What must a performer be going through to decided to make themselves unseen on the stage?
I interviewed Laura for The Music earlier in the year. This quote didn't make it. We were talking about women in comedy.
"Imagine how much female comics love comedy when you're quite often turning up to a dig where it's dangerous for you to physically get to it late at night. You probably don't have many mates on the lineup because it's an all male lineup, and you know that you won't be included in the sort of social collateral that comes with it. You probably won't be given the choice spot on the lineup, you'll be paid a little bit less and then you've got a scary walk home after. You deal with all the punters who tell you that women aren't funny and that you've got great tits and you just need to shut up – and multiply that by a career, with so many women. Not that everybody has that experience every night, but it's always something that I've tried to point out to people. Imagine how much you like doing this and care about this. I'm passionate about this as an art form. But there's no way you would choose it. Spending all my early 20s in a scary bar with scary man doing weird gigs; that's a real choice but feels like it goes hand in hand with passion for the art form."
It is getting better, but we still know stories of women being treated atrociously in the industry and too many women have stories about being asked to show their tits. We're getting better, but we still have a way to go.
