LUKE RYAN (Ed) Best Australian Comedy Writing. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Twenty-four Australian comedy writers are showcased in this collection of fiction, memoir, political satire, spoofs, tweets and listicles.
This book kicks off with editor Luke Ryan’s cleverly titled ‘Introduction’. Ryan’s mildly stated manifesto demands Australians take comedy more seriously and see comedy writing as the art form it is. The collection’s wide variety of styles and voices demonstrates the versatility of comedy: here it entertains, persuades, undermines and shocks.
Few books could offer such a cornucopia of topics: stories of amphetamine-laced moisturiser and man-eating tortoises (they might also eat women; the story doesn’t specify); spoofs on TED Talks, Batman, and a robot-butler’s FAQ; memoirs of a share-house disaster, a funeral, Bell’s palsy, road trips, and a medical emergency resulting from pony-nuzzling in the outback; and not one, but two imagined end-of-human-civilisation political addresses (civilisation will end due to either a zombie apocalypse or extreme climate events, depending which piece strikes you as more believable).
The crown jewels in the collection include excerpts from Zoë Norton Lodge’s exaggerated memoir Almost Sincerely and Patrick Lenton’s superhero extravaganza, A Man Made Entirely of Bats. Fiona Scott-Norman’s essay on her father’s love of cooking, ‘Good English Stock’, is also a standout piece. She crafts a portrait of a difficult but loving man with clever humour. In describing the culinary context her father emerged from, she writes:
Britain’s love affair with the whodunit probably springs from its surfeit of mystery meats: haggis, luncheon meat, black pudding, brawn, chitterlings, meat paste and faggots. Yes, faggots are a thing. Yes, dad loved them.
Former tour guide Robert Skinner’s advice piece on taking tourists into the outback, ‘The Art of Tour Guiding’, is also a highlight. He describes the role of guide as a mix of leader, servant, and parent, noting:
A critical job for any tour guide is to bond the group. You want them to feel as though, for the next six days, they’re all part of the same story. The best way to do this on an outback tour is to go bush camping. With the sun low and the cockatiels bursting from the trees, we’d go plunketing down some dirt track. Occasionally I’d play songs from The Lion King because, for some reason, hearing an African-themed soundtrack while bouncing through the Australian bush made people feel more at home.
A few pieces were not only funny but also deeply startling, particularly David Thorne’s memoir ‘Number Plate People’. Within the second paragraph, Thorne mentions that his trip to Tasmania took place in April 1996, and perhaps he considers that fair warning. For someone like me, who didn’t grow up in Australia, it’s easy to miss Thorne’s clues about the stranger ‘with blond wavy hair, parted in the middle’ who carries ‘a big bag’ in the Port Arthur cafeteria. The stranger fork-toasts Thorne over slices of carrot cake minutes before killing 35 people. We’re invited to laugh in shock at the incredibility of circumstance: the series of mishaps that resulted in Thorne being at Port Arthur at the exact time of the massacre and the blind luck that kept him far enough away to survive.
Taste in comedy is personal and can be divisive, so much so that Ryan ends his Introduction with the warning ‘You won’t love everything in this book. Some of it you might outright hate’ – and boy, is he right! Ha, that was just a little review humour.
Seriously though, even the few pieces I didn’t personally enjoy (there were a few) had humorous moments, a sign of each writer’s comic skill. Sami Shah’s ‘I, Pervert’, for instance, fell flat for me until his tangent on the airing of failed US television shows in Pakistan. Shah writes of his childhood:
We spent hours discussing the practical logistics of how Manimal could change into an elephant if need be; to this day, if you see any motorcyclists driving too fast in Pakistan, people refer to him as ‘Street Hawk’.
Years later, when the internet informed me that these shows were actually considered failures in America, I felt betrayed. While American children were watching better shows with better stories and better heroes, we had been tossed the damaged and expired stuff. Much of the breakdown in Pakistani and American diplomacy can be traced to this unhealed wound in our collective psyche.
Ryan’s collection supports his aim of convincing readers – and the nation – of the art of comedy writing. Best Australian Comedy Writing entertains, but more than that, it gives us insight into ourselves and the bizarre, tragic, hilarious world around us.
LUKE RYAN Best Australian Comedy Writing Affirm Press PB 264pp $29.99
Ashley Kalagian Blunt has written for Griffith Review, McSweeney’s and Right Now. She teaches writing and public speaking, performs stand-up and has written two memoirs. Visit her website and follow her on Twitter: @AKalagianBlunt.
You can buy this book from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW here or you can buy it from Booktopia here.
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