The win took him to Edinburgh Fringe earlier this month to compete in the So You Think You’re Funny? competition, where household names like Sara Pascoe and Daniel Sloss got their start.
Another comedian on the rise who is taking their first show to Sydney Fringe is Meg Jager from Brisbane, who also made this year’s Raw national final.
Meg Jager made it into this year’s Raw Comedy final.Credit: Henry Sheerman
She credits the city’s famously raucous comedy scene for her fast ascent: “I think we’re refined through trials of fire because there are so many shocking gigs in RSLs and pubs. That’s why there’s such a strong scene; we’ve all already done the worst gigs ever within our first month of comedy.”
Brisbane has long been an incubator of some of Australia’s most luminous comedy talent, from last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Sam Campbell to Becky Lucas – one of Jager’s industry idols.
“I remember finding her videos and realising: ‘Oh, you can be like that and be a comedian!’ I hadn’t heard a voice like hers before,” says Jager.
Based in Ballina, Hudson got her first taste of comedy in local legend Mandy Nolan’s workshops. “One of my friends sent me a text saying, ‘You need to stop hassling us and channel this energy. You should enrol in Mandy’s course and start writing bits’ … He was right, annoyingly.”
Stand-up is a space where she feels she can be her authentic self. “I’ve never felt that in a space before,” she reflects. “I thought it would be the most terrifying thing to perform, but I’ve found it to be the opposite, which is awesome.”
Yan, meanwhile, started comedy around three years ago in New Zealand, and has attracted attention with his nerdy but confident stage persona, somewhat reminiscent of the finely tuned silliness of one of his comedy heroes, Guy Montgomery.
He is currently writing his Fringe show, Bored Game, which he expects to be heavy on improvisation and crowd work.
“I’m not sure how it’s going to go because a lot of it is very new stuff,” he says. “I don’t expect much turnout. If you come, you’re a brave soul.”
Henry Yan started comedy in New Zealand around three years ago.
Jager’s Fringe show has its roots in a nerdy teenage obsession – looking up the great speeches of history and teasing out what made them powerful.
Now Jager is a history teacher, especially interested in the 15th and 16th centuries. This fascination feeds into her work-in-progress show, which she’d eventually like to call Renaissance Woman.
“Obviously, I haven’t been beheaded or anything like that, but I’m interested in how that period mirrors my own life,” she says. “I’ve included comparisons to venereal disease, plague, fashion, monarchy – you know, all the things that happened in the Renaissance and also to me.”
Alexandra Hudson: Making Lemonade is at Factory Theatre from August 30 to September 3. Meg Jager: Rough Draft is at Factory Theatre on August 30 and September 1. Henry Yan: Bored Game is at Factory Theatre on August 30 and September 1.
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