There are easier ways to spend a Tuesday night than standing beneath a spotlight with a microphone and five minutes of material you are not entirely sure works.
Fortunately for audiences, comedians keep volunteering.
Tonight, Experimental Comedy Club returns to Lynott’s Lounge in Northbridge with another wonderfully mixed bill, led by UK comedian Dean Courtney as MC. Joining him are Saadi Challaby from Iraq, Bev Mitchell from Ireland, Xavier Susai from Singapore, Thabo Tshuma from Zimbabwe, and plenty more performers bringing new jokes, developing ideas and distinctly different perspectives to the stage.
For anyone searching for what to do in Perth tonight, Tuesday night events in Perth, live comedy in Northbridge or simply somewhere affordable to go after work, ECC has become one of the city’s most reliable answers.
Perth comedy with an international accent
One of the pleasures of Perth’s comedy scene is how many different backgrounds can collide within a single lineup. Tonight is a particularly good example.
Courtney takes responsibility for steering an evening that moves between cultures, generations and comedy styles, while Challaby, Mitchell, Susai and Tshuma bring experiences shaped across four different countries before even accounting for the rest of the bill.
That variety suits Experimental Comedy Club perfectly. ECC was never designed around ten comedians delivering ten versions of the same polished club set. The whole premise is experimentation. Working comedians arrive with ideas they want to develop. Newer performers learn what happens when something that sounded hilarious in their head finally meets 100 strangers. Touring acts can try material away from the expectations of a headline show.
Some discoveries are glorious.
Others receive a dignified burial before Wednesday morning.
Both are useful, and both can be very funny to watch.
The emotional rollercoaster is part of the ticket
A conventional comedy show generally promises the finished product. Experimental Comedy Club lets audiences see some of the machinery.
A comic might discover the missing punchline to a story halfway through telling it. Someone can take a completely unexpected detour with the crowd. A joke that has struggled for weeks can suddenly land perfectly because one word has changed.
Then somebody walks on with an idea written that afternoon and sends the room somewhere entirely different.
That is why ECC describes itself as an emotional rollercoaster. With around 10 or more performers appearing across a night, audiences are rarely watching one style of stand-up for long.
It is also what makes repeat visits worthwhile. Tuesday may remain the same. The show does not.
At the centre of Grassroots Comedy
Experimental Comedy Club also serves a larger purpose within Grassroots Comedy, the WA comedy network founded by veteran comedian Xavier Susai.
The Tuesday room was the starting point for an organisation that has since developed comedy events across Perth and regional Western Australia, creating more places for new comedians to get meaningful stage time while giving working performers opportunities to keep writing and progressing.
Experimental remains its workshop.
Instead of treating emerging performers as an entirely separate product, ECC puts different levels of experience into the same ecosystem. New comedians can watch professionals handle a room from metres away. Experienced acts are encouraged to abandon their safest material and keep creating.
For audiences, all that professional development simply manifests as a surprisingly entertaining night out.
And every so often, the performer you first encounter working through five minutes on a Tuesday turns up later on a Fringe World bill, professional showcase or much larger stage.
A Tuesday night that doesn’t require Saturday money – Cost has always been part of Experimental Comedy Club’s appeal.
Held at Johnny Fox’s Irish Pub, Lynott’s Lounge gives the night the relaxed feel of a proper pub comedy room rather than a formal theatre. Audiences can grab a drink, meet friends for dinner and take advantage of Johnny Fox’s popular Tuesday $24 chicken parmi deal before settling in for the show.
Tickets remain deliberately accessible, making ECC particularly useful for anyone searching for affordable things to do in Perth, cheap Tuesday night entertainment, Perth comedy shows or Northbridge nightlife.
It is an uncomplicated proposition: dinner, drinks, a room full of comedians and a couple of hours in which almost anything might happen.
What’s on in Perth this Tuesday?
Plenty, technically. But there is something appealing about spending the evening in a small Northbridge room listening to comedians from the UK, Iraq, Ireland, Singapore, Zimbabwe and Perth work out how to make the same audience laugh.
Tonight, Dean Courtney gets to conduct the experiment. Everyone else gets to enjoy the results.
Experimental Comedy Club
Tonight, Tuesday 22 September
7pm at Lynott’s Lounge, Johnny Fox’s, Northbridge
Tickets and show information: www.experimentalcomedy.com.au
For more information click here
