Why Melbourne is the Stand-up Comedy Centre of Australia

Before they started digging the Metro Tunnel, there was a statue of Burke and Wills at the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets. It was right next to the Melbourne Town Hall, the centre of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and arguably the stand-up comedy centre of Australia.

Aussie Schadenfreude

Burke and Wills are famous for not only going where no European Australians had travelled before, but for seriously over-packing. Nineteen men, 23 horses and 26 camels set off from Melbourne around 4 pm on 20 August, 1860, with enough food for two years. Oh! They also brought a grand piano and a Chinese gong. Both Burke and Wills were dead less than a year later, from starvation and thirst, their piano and gong nowhere to be seen. As Mel Brooks so succinctly put it, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” In other words, it’s funny when it happens to someone else.

Most of the 700,000 plus annual visitors to Melbourne’s International Comedy Festival unconsciously pass by the Burke and Wills Statue, in its position in possibly the world’s smallest city square. And yet it is from here that an invisible aura radiates across the city, piercing passing trams, green Lime scooters, shoppers and workers – an aura that inoculates the population with an appreciation for the lighter side of life.

This is why Melbourne is the comedy centre of Australia. It’s not the fact that Barry Humphries, the Comedy Company and the D-Generation are all from Melbourne. It’s not the fact that Melbourne has more comedy rooms than Sydney. And it has nothing to do with hook-turns, public holidays for a horse race, or world’s largest stone purse. It’s because Melburnians love to laugh at tragedy, cast it in bronze, and have it crapped on by pigeons. Alternatively, we also inappropriately name our memorials, like the Harold Holt Memorial Swim Centre, in Glen Iris.

Become part of Melbourne’s comedy fabric

And so with this all in mind, we at the Hard Knock Knocks comedy school, look forward to seeing you at one of the upcoming stand-up comedy courses. Do your part, and keep Melbourne laughing at itself. Learn the skills it takes to ideate, write, polish and perform your own stand-up comedy set. And become part of a great community of comedy lovers.

But don’t worry. You don’t need a life-changing experience as a pre-requisite. Or a gong. Just an interest in learning, improving, and making others laugh.