Ali McGregor’s Late-Nite Variety-Nite Night
“It’s kind of like a second home for me now,” says Ali McGregor, touching on the unique and intimate Famous Spiegeltent venue that has become synonymous with her cult comedy festival show Ali McGregor’s Late-Nite Variety-Nite Night.
The Famous Spiegeltent became a fixture outside Melbourne’s Arts Centre, but this year it’s shifted a few hundred metres up the road to Federation Square where McGregor hopes it will prove just as popular.
For the uninitiated, a spiegeltent is a large travelling tent decorated with mirrors. These gained popularity as entertainment venues in the early 20th century.
The Famous Spiegeltent, which dates back to 1920, is one of the few remaining of its kind and has played host to some of the world’s best musicians, cabaret artists, and burlesque performers.
“I just can’t wait to get back in there,” McGregor says. “There’s going to be a little bit of a hub there [Federation Square]. It’s so central. I’m really excited as it’s going to be a brand new meeting spot.”
Blessed with a booming voice, McGregor forged a career as a successful opera singer before drifting into the world of cabaret and finding its intimacy and creative freedom refreshing.
Her variety show, Ali McGregor’s Late-Nite Variety-Nite Night, debuted at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2007, the early venues including the Athenaeum Theatre and a small tent down by the Yarra before a permanent home was found in The Famous Spiegeltent.
McGregor never dreamed the show would last this long but is now determined to keep it chugging along until she chalks up ten seasons. The concept has been tweaked over the years, but the core elements remain. McGregor sings throughout the show and hosts acts from the genres of comedy, cabaret, burlesque, and circus. Each act is hand-picked and booked by the performer herself and reflects her personal tastes, with comedians she believes will suit the format.
“The show is known for spontaneous things that go on between guests,” McGregor says. “We’ve had random duets and fun things that have kind of just happened. Tim Minchin rocked up one night and then he and I started belting out jazz standards off the cuff. We had Adam Hills taking his leg off and doing a trick for Asher Treleaven. He was actually naked at the time with only a ping pong bat covering his manhood. There’s been lots of instances like that where I lose control of what’s going on and all sorts of things seem to happen in front of me. But it always makes for a very entertaining evening.”
McGregor suggests that sticking to the trusty variety ‘night’ format, particularly a rapid turnover of guests, helps the show cater to any audience.
“Variety is brilliant for the fact that if you don’t like the person who’s on stage you just have to wait 10 minutes and someone else will be out. You’re never stuck in a room with an act you don’t like for very long.”
Past guests have included Danny Bhoy, Eddie Perfect, Julia Zemiro, The Pajama Men, Tripod, and Wil Anderson. “All the old favourites will no doubt be back and we’ve got a good smattering of internationals. We do really get the best of the best,” McGregor spruiks.
“There’s a few people who absolutely kill it when they come on our show. Felicity Ward is one of them. We gave her her very first stand-up gig and now she’s doing incredibly well.”
Away from the stage, McGregor is married to comedian Adam Hills, the romance blossoming after she appeared as a guest on the original version of music trivia show
Spicks and Specks several years ago. The couple live in Yarraville with their two young daughters but spend about six months of the year in the UK while Hills films his talk show The Last Leg.
Asked about the potential drawbacks of juggling family life and the work commitments of two entertainers, McGregor says there’s never been an issue.
“We still have to put the rubbish out and do everything normal,” she says.
“It has its problems, but I don’t think it’s any more problematic than anyone else trying to deal with work and raising a family.
“In some ways it’s kind of easier. I’m not doing a nine to five. I have the bulk of the day with my girls and all it takes is a babysitter at night [for me] to perform in the evenings, so I don’t actually miss out on that much of them.”
McGregor has taken her variety-night alternative on the road and has performed several times at the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her target audience tends to be slightly older and a little bit classier than that at many other comedy shows. “I book my acts accordingly. With this show you see a little bit of just a few acts and that might lead you to want to go and see those four or five shows in the festival. It’s a gateway drug to the rest of the festival.”
» Ali McGregor is at The Famous Spiegeltent, Federation Square, from April 10-20.
» Bookings: comedyfestival.com.au or 1300 660 013
Cal Wilson – It Could Have Been Me
Ever wonder what life would be like if you had ended up as someone else?
Comedian Cal Wilson found enough inspiration in the sliding doors scenario to dream up her latest show, It Could Have Been Me, for this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
“I was hanging out the washing and thinking about what I was going to write about and started thinking what I would have done if I hadn’t become a comedian and all the different people I could have ended up as if I’d made different decisions,” says Wilson.
The impromptu brainstorming session led to her creating an eclectic mix of alter egos who burst into life over an hour of stand-up comedy. There’s a feminist poet who takes herself too seriously; a macho bloke sporting a moustache; and even a surgeon. Then there’s the character Wilson believes makes the most sense.
“Probably the most plausible, I reckon, is the person who’s still entertaining at kids’ parties in their 50s dressed up as a fairy who never made it,” she laughs.
Wilson welcomed the chance to ham it up as the people she could have become but says the concept made her reflect on how lucky she feels to have made a career out of comedy. “I’m really fortunate in my job. It takes me to lots of amazing places and I meet so many interesting people. I’m really glad that as much as I think I could have made some decisions better, this is what I do.”
Wilson grew up in New Zealand and used comedy as a way of masking her insecurities. “I was a shy teenager and discovered that making people laugh was an easy way to have a conversation because I really didn’t know what to say to people.”
She took up drama in high school in the hope of becoming an actor but then turned to Theatresports, a form of improv theatre that involves opposing teams performing scenes based on audience suggestions. “I was awful at the start,” Wilson recalls. “But I got better. I got really good at it. That was the start of doing comedy on stage.”
She co-founded the Court Jesters improv group in 1990 and went on to become part of the New Zealand team that took out the World Theatresports title in Los Angeles in 1994.
“I was really lucky in Christchurch. There wasn’t any stand-up; there was only my company that was doing improv. The audience were quite patient with us and we were able to learn as we went and got better and better. But if we’d had competition maybe it would have been harder for us.”
When Wilson graduated to stand-up, she had already become familiar with the addictive feeling of scoring a laugh. “It’s really lovely. When you go to a party and you’re in the corner of a room and there’s a circle of you and you’re all telling jokes and laughing with each other. Someone says a great line and someone else says a great line and everyone’s laughing. It’s kind of that feeling, but magnified.”
Wilson took out the Best Newcomer Award at the 2001 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
She moved to Australia a decade ago and recalls being influenced by the likes of Denise Scott, Judith Lucy and Lawrence Mooney.
Wilson, who is as chirpy and exuberant off stage as she is on, soon became a popular figure on the comedy circuit in her own right. As well as stand-up, she has co-hosted several radio programs and appeared on television shows such as Good News Week, Spicks and Specks, The Wedge, and Thank God You’re Here.
This year she’s even planning to write a book, a collection of stories which she describes as an incomplete memoir “because I don’t think I deserve to do a memoir yet”.
“Somebody pointed out that it [comedy] is the same as any small business. You never know when your next job is coming. It can be quite lonely because as a stand-up you’re usually working by yourself. You go to a lot of places on your own and you’re by yourself backstage and then afterwards you’re on your own again. It can be quite solitary, but the actual job itself is so fantastic. When you’re doing it and you’re on stage with an audience and it’s going well it’s such a great feeling so it balances out.”
Wilson broke in her new show, which involved her working with a theatre director to make it bigger and bolder, at the recent Adelaide Fringe festival. Now she’s looking forward to bringing it to the hustle and bustle of Melbourne’s much-loved comedy event.
When not performing she attempts to see as many shows as possible and says taking in a mix of world-class comedians and undiscovered talent can be inspiring. “It’s the best time to start thinking about your next show. It’s such a creative environment that you get spurred on by other people. I love when you discover a comedian you’ve never heard of but they’re just brilliant.
“I love the way it [the festival] takes over the town hall, which is kind of respectable and quite sort of buttoned up. Suddenly it has coloured lights and every meeting room has been turned into somewhere where everyone is gonna laugh their arses off.”
» Cal Wilson plays at the Melbourne Town Hall’s Powder Room from March 27 until April 20
» Bookings: comedyfestival.com.au or 1300 660 013
