By Lisa Clark
So it’s probably time to announce that Squirrel Comedy is going into retirement. We made the decision last year and I may have been putting this off.
It all began in 2004 at Janet McLeod’s Local Laughs (Thanks Janet!), where a bunch of front row regulars got to know each other and were looking for ways to see more comedy and to promote stand up comedy as an art form that we all loved. I was pretty grumpy about the fact that I was seeing mind-blowing, and hilarious comedy at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival each year and the performers were not being given places in mainstream media to become famous, especially on TV. Some of my work colleagues thought that the Gala was the extent of the Festival.
My main thank you begins with Annette Slattery who initiated the idea of a website / zine about the Australian comedy scene, named it The Groggy Squirrel and wrangled a team of comedy lovers. The Groggy Squirrel ran from 2005 to 2009 with Annette as editor and became pretty well known and somewhat beloved.
In 2012, after a break, we refreshed and renamed as Squirrel Comedy, with me, Lisa, as Editor and Colin doing the well renowned gig guide (you have NO idea how hard it was to keep accurate, rooms come and go and it feels like some rooms/comedians just don’t want you to know they exist!) as well as reviews and all round supportive good egg.
Thank you in particular to Jayden who helped us set up the website and socials and taught us a bit about how to use WordPress. And thanks to those other Squirrels who helped with the change over and then to everyone else since, who has written and contributed over the years. All the writers who worked hard to get great interviews and fabulous reviews done in a timely manner, you often blew me away with your talent and skills. We all thank the many room runners, publicists and producers who organised tickets for us and respected us as part of the scene.
Thank you most of all to the performers who put aside precious tickets for us and hopefully weren’t too upset with our reviews. We always tried to be thoughtful and kind, but honest. I’ve only been asked to take down a review a couple of times and that’s OK, we’re not mainstream media, it’s fine. No one made any money out of Squirrel, we were there for the love of comedy, but we did not want to lie if a show had serious issues. We also had our readers’ trust in mind and did not want to let them down. Please forgive us if we couldn’t see or review your show, believe that we never stopped feeling guilty about it. There was only so much we could see.
This was always a hobby for me, with my Arts degree turning out to be pretty useless for anything else! I think my writing improved, though I was always more impressed with everyone else’s writing. Thanks to Squirrel Comedy, I’ve enjoyed laughing at an enormous amount of comedy. As well as Melbourne festivals (including MICF, Fringe and Midsumma), I’ve reviewed Comedy, interstate (at Adelaide Fringe) and overseas (New Zealand Comedy Festival, London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). I’ve also gotten the chance to meet and interview a lot of comedians I admire who have always been friendly and kind.
I’ve been reviewing comedy for twenty years and have had a fantastic time, it’s been a privilege watching all the performers grow and find their voice and their space in the biz, but it’s also been at times exhausting, organising it all, working out how MICF are going make us choose our shows this year (it seemed to become harder every year as the festival grew) and working on Squirrel Comedy through our work holidays. I became pretty ill during the last few Melbourne International Comedy Festivals and wasn’t able to complete my Squirrel commitments which was very stressful. Life has also become more complex and Colin and I decided that it was time to let it go.
We are very proud of our achievements in the past twenty years and hope we had a positive impact in the industry if only in a small way, particularly in being able to highlight the younger and independent artists.
If you’re reading this in Melbourne, I hope you appreciate how lucky we are to have the biggest and best comedy festival in the world on our doorstep, with many of the comedians performing here all year round. I’ve seen soooo much good standup here in Melbourne, before and during writing for Squirrel. And thanks to the late Dave Taranto (Molly Meldrum of Australian Comedy) for giving many of us a rounded education in comedy via The Cheese Shop comedy radio at 3PBS & 3RRR and the live show at The Prince Patrick Hotel.
Here’s a handful of the artists and their festival shows that have changed the artform and changed me, had me falling out of my seat with laughter, occasionally weeping, and raving about to anyone who’d listen.
Judith Lucy’s King of the Road,
Lano & Woodley Curtains,
Celia Pacquola’s Am I Strange?
Justin Hamilton’s Three Colours Hammo,
Tripod’s Lady Robots,
Tim Minchin’s Darkside,
Lessons With Luis’ The Kidney Kingdom
Geraldine Hickey’s Turns Out I Do Like Sun Dried Tomatoes,
Denise Scott’s Scotty & Son,
Watson’s Who’s Afraid of the Dark?
Zoe Coombs Marr’s Trigger Warning,
Hannah Gadsby’s Nannette,
Sam Campbell, Aaron Chen & Tom Walker’s Zanzoop: Feeble Minds,
Sammy J’s Hero Complex (you can see the newest version of this show at MICF 2026!)
Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall and Andy Matthews’ Teleport
and many others that will come to mind later no doubt. I will never take living in Melbourne for granted, as I’ve also often seen these shows being created in small stand up comedy rooms. Go out see comedy live, there’s nothing like it.
I’ll keep the website up and maybe social media, but I miss what it once was, when all the comedians were online bantering and joking and promoting their work.
So Long and Thanks for all the Laughs
Lisa Clark and The Squirrels
