Comedy Festival blog: Dave Thornton ponders opening night

Friday 30 March 2012, 2:19 PM
By The Team | Posted in Events and People

Me with the largest coffee I could find to get me through the month

Opening night of a live show is like opening anything else: an envelope, a new store or even an awkward jar of lube just before you’re about to [Editor's note: word censored] – you’re excited about what’s about to happen.

Last night I ‘opened’ my stand-up show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF for short, or ‘that time when people actually give a crap about comedians’, for the laymen). My 63-year-old mum decided to come up from Geelong with my brother and two of her friends. To hear her youngest son swear and talk blue on and off for an entire hour must make her proud of the tertiary education she helped pay for.

I was a little worried about the audience because earlier in the week I’d been interviewed by The Age newspaper and commented that I didn’t want people tweeting or recording my jokes from my live show because it could ruin the surprise for other people who wanted to come (NB: on the record I like Twitter and think social networks are great; just don’t ruin the surprise for other people is all I’m saying). The backlash was palpable.

I thought some tweeter might be in the show. I was worried that #thorntonshowisrubbish would start trending. It never eventuated. Maybe the haters spent their time looking up Kony on YouTube.

Like an insolent stepchild, vitriolic tweeters don’t like getting told what to do. Yet, just like Australian Idol winners, if you ignore them they’ll eventually go away.

My show this year talks about, among other things, my brother’s Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis. The cool thing was that there were a few families that came along who had a member of their family with Asperger’s. Afterwards, two different families commented on how much fun it was to laugh along with material about Asperger’s.

Sometimes comics get a bad wrap for being negative and ‘going too far’ (and don’t get me wrong, there’s still room for wailing on Kyle Sandilands); however, it’s good to know we can also be positive.

So there it was – one show down and 22 to go. Wow, at the end of this month I’ll have actually worked a full 24-hour day…stretched over an entire month.

Comedy Festival blog: Dave Thornton, an introduction

Tuesday 27 March 2012, 1:21 PM
By The Team | Posted in Events and People

Me at the cafe, blogging; using the sepia-tone effect because that's the only fancy treatment I know

I’m now an official blogger. I wonder if I have to get registered? Maybe I need to get tagged…or branded?

Sorry, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. My name is Dave Thornton. I’m a stand-up comedian and for the next month I’ll be blogging my musings, experiences and pseudo-humorous jokes about the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Now you’re thinking: ‘what makes you a qualified blogger MR Thornton?’ OK, a) No need to use capitals in an aggressive manner, person-I-made-up; and b) I’m a comedian, an attention-seeker and a person who stands on a soapbox for an hour a night, so blogging is just another way to gain the attention I so desperately seek.

Blogging license approved.

Sorry, what’s that? Yeah, I’ve got a show on at the festival, thanks for asking. It’s called ‘The Some of All the Parts’. The show revolves entirely around an experience I had last year when I had to stand in front of a class of 12-year-olds and tried to inspire them. How do you inspire 12-year-olds? What do they care about inspiration? I felt like crossing out my entire CV and replacing it with ‘Quiddich champion’.

I’ve also got a nice review quote on my poster that’s taken from The Scotsman newspaper in the UK. It reads: ‘Don’t miss this’, followed by four stars. I initially thought that read quite well. Then after printing a thousand copies I realised having that particular quote followed by four stars doesn’t so much look like a four-star review, but more like the stars are filling in for a four-letter word that you can’t print on a poster: ‘Don’t miss this (#@%’. Great start to the festival, Thorno.

So, twice a week for the next four weeks, I’ll be QWERTYing my way through the Comedy Festival. Drop by, stay a while. Let’s get our blog on.

Go green with Joost’s pop-up greenhouse

Monday 19 March 2012, 4:36 PM
By The Team | Posted in Events and Style

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is always an exciting time to try something different, a philosophy taken to heart by local designer Joost Bakker.

The Greenhouse by Joost was one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the festival and the finished project did not disappoint.

Covered in hundreds of pots of strawberry plants, the temporary plywood structure stood out as a temple to all things eco-friendly.

The cups and plates were terracotta, and the cutlery was made from plantation timber, which was composted after the meal (along with all the other organic waste).

The menu was based on seasonal and locally available food, including the herbs growing on the roof and the coffee (very important to Melburnians), which was of course organic, fair-trade and sourced from a Melbourne-based company.

Even the furniture and floor coverings were made from reclaimed material, reducing the venue’s overall carbon footprint.

Although it was only temporary, Joost may well have created a template for dining in a low-carbon world.