Anyone who knows anything about the Australian comedy scene knows that, despite decades of kickass female comedians, it’s still a goddamn boys club.
Honestly, tune into any comedy fest late at night and you’ll be able to count the number of female/non-binary comedians on one hand. I think we’re up to about 35% for the country’s gold standard, the Melbourne Comedy Festival, to say nothing of our smaller, demonstrably blokier circuits.
Our full Gala line-up is up on our website! This happens tomorrow people! It’s going to be HUGE https://t.co/tY7nJRQ0DT #MICF pic.twitter.com/4veyHf0usm
— MelbourneComedyFest (@micomfestival) March 21, 2017
Which is why it’s such a goddamn relief to see all-women comedy groups represented at the industry level, whether they be the righteously funny Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan’s ‘Katering Show‘ getting a full-length series with the ABC or local legends Judith Lucy and Denise Scott teaming up for what sounds like this year’s festival highlight, ‘Disappointments‘.
Now, we can add another name to the list of all-female Aussie comedy groups making it big, with models-turned-Youtube-comedy-stars SketchSHE being signed to host the new global mobile talent competition Megastar.
The group, comprised of Shae-Lee Shackleford, Lana Kington and Madison Lloyd, launched over two years ago and are best known for their viral lip sync car videos, notably Bohemian Carsody and Mime Through Time.
And sure, that sounds exactly like ‘Carpool Karaoke,‘ but the actual videos are a much more surreal, colourful brand of comedy than James Corden’s fun but pretty straightforward “celebrities sing a song” thing. Plus, the costumes are much, much better.
Set to launch over the coming months, Megastar aims to bring the whole TV talent show format to mobile phones, operating through a combination of social media, gaming and live entertainment, and offers a $US1 million ($1.3 million AUD) prize.
Considering the focus on social media, signing SketchSHE seems like an no-brainer. The hosts will reportedly guide performers and fans through the app, help the audience to discover new talent, and provide weekly updates, and are naturally pretty stoked about the whole thing:
“It’s such an obvious parallel between the popular TV talent show format and the whole YouTube and socially-connected world that no one has actually done yet.“We love that Megastar bridges the gap between talent and the rest of the world as their global audience.“We were fortunate enough to experience the power of the internet first-hand, and we are excited to share the rollercoaster experience with others as they get to showcase their talents to the world.”
While we’re yet to see exactly how Megastar plays out, it at least sounds like a fun social media experiment.
Personally I just hope they find a way to include some of their problem animals from the vid below.
Finally, someone calls out dolphins as the sex creeps they so obviously are.
Source and photo: Supplied.
