May 9, 2019 Theatre
Naturally witty Australian comedian Becky Lucas is more than just a peddler of “millennial humour”.
Becky Lucas is the type of funny – casual and effortless with it – which makes you feel like you too could be a comedian. Maybe you’re two gin and tonics in after the show and you’re walking down Queen Street with a friend and start monologuing about all the totally random, nonsensical things in life which happen to you that surely everyone will find funny too. I’m not saying I did this, but I’m saying someone probably did.
I can’t stand the buzz phrases “millennial humour” or “the selfie generation”, both of which appear in Becky Lucas’ reviews often. They always seem like some sort of backhanded compliment, and are always applied to female comedians who talk about social media, which, uh, is a very big part of modern life. So those are automatically banned. Forever. Much like Becky Lucas is banned from Twitter forever. More on this later.
Lucas goes through her set, named “Um, Support Me?”, as if she’s testing out new material, looking out to us after every punchline with a pause – a heavy pause, if there’s only a smattering of noise. And if that’s the case, she does the self-deprecating thing so well, it’s not even annoying at all; rather her long-drawn “okaaaaay….”s become part of the charm.
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The show is a wavy spider web of mostly unrelated bits, some which redirect back to each other, some which don’t. She covers so many topics, it’s hard to recall one that really sticks in the mind: there were bits about hot people, celebrity hall passes, pinching, talking dogs, divorce and probably, like, depression. It ends up conversational, resembling a traditional stand-up set, and includes football field amounts of relatable content.
Audience interaction was a big thing of the night, the first time I had encountered that this festival. I’m not a fan, but I admired her commitment to it. And, honestly, what a great way to flex your wit. Bring out some of that impromptu banter to convince people how genuinely funny you really are. We already want to laugh, so you don’t even have to try that hard. In the end, you can consider me convinced, Becky Lucas.
Lucas was a writer on one of my favourite shows, Please Like Me, and it’s not surprising at all: there are those same wry, slightly risky bursts of humour; a way to imbue bizarre, sad situations with a sense of universality. She is also, as I mentioned before, banned from Twitter for all of eternity, a result of drunk-tweeting to the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, that she’ll cut his head off. “Like, I didn’t think that it was that bad… me and my friends say it to each other all the time.”
Becky Lucas is playing at The Basement Theatre from 9 May-12 May. For tickets, click here.
