I want to lose specific weight on my body. I want to lose this little situation here.
My little muffin top, which I get from eating muffins. That’s weird isn’t it?
Did know if you eat muffins, you become muffin. That's weird.
Hi I’m Simon Mirauado and today I’m sitting with Tom Ballard, talking
about his new show, Taxis & Rainbows & Hatred.
Hello Simon. Hello three cameras.
We’re getting the full view of you here. This is the Bullet Time version of an interview.
It’s like The Matrix.
Now, the title of your show is Taxis & Rainbows & Hatred. One of those things is nice.
It’s the middle one. Can you tell me a bit about the inspiration for the show and the title?
Well, it all starts with taxis, primarily. The genesis of the show was this thing that
happened to me in Newcastle, New South Wales, where I hailed a cab late on a rainy night
and the taxi driver recognised me, and had clearly heard something about my “disgusting sexuality"
and asked me if I was gay and if I prayed with a minister. Basically implying, “If
you want to get in this cab you need to be repenting for your sins.“ It was such a
bizarre moment and got me thinking of all those moments – first of all in taxis
I take taxis a lot, I don’t own a car, the nature of being a comedian, you’re in different
cities all the time getting taxis a lot – those little moments in taxis and life generally,
those small instances of homophobia. If you’re not straight you probably run into it a lot;
if you are straight, you might not be aware that they still happen in Australia in 2015.
To me there was a lot of comedy gold there in awkwardness and it's something that kind of
made me angry, and generally if something makes you angry, it’s probably gonna make
for good comedy, because you think there’s something wrong with the world and you want
to talk about it. So it’s all based around that and being a young gay dude in 2015 and my life
and my loneliness and my love handles, and my sexual health. Oh, it’s fun for the whole family.
I can imagine it is. But you touched on awkwardness and anger, when you’re building a set or
even a bit out of personal experiences, even painful ones, do you know when you’ve wandered
into ripe territory for comedy? Is it when it’s awkward and enraging?
I think so, yeah. If it was awkward and horrible and it happened to you, generally if you
get up and you can talk about it honestly and you can come across as if you dealt with
the situation, then people are on board. I’ve seen some comedians – and I'm guilty of this
as well – jumping up, and you’re like, “Oh, you haven’t processed this yet.
This is like therapy now. This isn’t comedy anymore.” You have to live through it, look back.
I did a show about my first big break up and my heartbreak and how sad I was a few years ago
Writing that show was really cathartic but by the time it came time to me performing it, I was
like, “No no, I know this is funny, because I've moved on, and it’s just part of life
and I’ve accepted that now," and it’s funny to look back at how dramatic and how I thought
the world was going to end at this time of my life. And other people can relate to
that, and that’s kind of the sweet part of comedy - the sweet spot – where you can
talk about the worst things that happened to you, and you can laugh about them, and I get paid
for it. It’s a really good system.
It’s a good deal. Knowing that at a certain point you’re going to have that clarity,
and you know you have comedy to translate these painful experiences – even something like
battling homophobia – are you able to disassociate yourself from bad experiences? Can you go,
“You know what, this is a great story, I can use this later down the track,”
or does it still sting a bit at the time?
I mean you hope you don’t. We’re all material hungry. This is my seventh hour show,
and I’m running out of life. So yes it’s important to live your life as a normal person.
If you’re doing anything creative I think, you can’t just be this constant creative
artist. You need to live life and then sit down and have a think about it and then turn
it into something, I think. Because you don’t want to be halfway through an argument with
your partner thinking, “This could be good stuff,” because then you’re a robot
collecting material. You’re not actually in the moment. You’re not really living life.
You still have to be a human being first. But certainly, pretty soon after something bad happening
to me, I think, “Could I twist that to… yeah, I’ll have a crack and see how it goes.”
Comedy is still a really powerful tool and I think about Hannibal Buress last year calling out
Bill Cosby, and Tig Notaro, Amy Schumer, Key and Peele, they’re using comedy as a real
social and political tool, and it’s having quite an effect. What do you hope to achieve
with your comedy?
Well, I agree with you I love all those people too. First of all, I think it’s a sad thing
that it took Hannibal Buress to do a comedy routine about Bill Cosby before people started
taking the victims seriously. I think that’s a shame. But it was great that he did it still.
I think all those comics you listed are great. I am very careful sometimes to overstate the
importance or effectiveness of political comedy, because it can actually slow down action,
or people can feel like they’re doing something when maybe they’re really not. Maybe they’re
just feeling good and laughing, going, “Yeah, Tony Abbott is annoying, ooh, well, time to
go home.” You’re not actually doing something. When someone like Rod Quantock, who’s a
political comedian – he was Captain Snooze, but he’s had a huge career of amazing political
comedy – he walks the walk. He’s part of a union, he’s out there lobbying government
and doing actual active work. There’s quite a few comedians like that so I think that’s really important.
But sometimes it’s just nice to be in a room with a group of like-minded
people getting angry about these things that frustrate us. It’s also a release, comedy
like that. It’s not the be all and end all. I see a comedian and they remind me how bull____
something is, and it gets me worked up and I want to try and do something. I don’t
always do something – sometimes I just have a sandwich. But every now and again, that
constant reminder and shaking your fist at dumb people, and people in power, that’s
really important. So yeah, comedy can be one part of a bigger social movement, which is really exciting.
So for me, it’s about trying to give people a different perspective into being gay, and also asylum
seekers is an issue I’m really passionate about. I've tried to talk about that a little bit.
I'm an atheist as well and a lot of religious nonsense I like talking out about in my comedy.
Who knows how much good it does, but we'll see.
Well, you’ve taken the show around a lot of the country already, you’re now in Perth.
Where to next?
Edinburgh. Edinburgh Fringe in August. Finish up Perth shows and that’s it for Australia.
And I’m doing my first show in Edinburgh. I’ve been before to watch but I’ve never actually
done a full run. This is like Mecca. It’s 6000 shows per day, of theatre and comedy
and dance and everything... and jugglers and street artists. Ugh. If anyone’s watching this, I don’t…
It’s fine, the jugglers can take it.
So I’m really excited about doing that. I’ll be able to do this year’s show with
some old material crowbarred in there, and it'll be, “Hi Europe, this is me, this is what
I do. I’d love you to come and check it out.” I’m prepared to cry a lot and play to four
drunk Scotsmen, but that’s okay, that’s kind of part of the challenge.
Great. Well Tom, good luck with the street artists. Thank you Simon. Thank you very much.
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