There was only standing room available in YaYa’s on a Monday night, a crowd of queer scenesters and local comedians squeezed in, pushing the temperature up to an unbearable level in the small room. The short notice gig saw Joel Creasey returning to Perth to test out some new material for his forthcoming National Tour called ‘Political Animal’.
Creasey bounded on the stage and began hitting into Julia Gillard, Tony Abbot and all things political. Some lines were hilarious, others fell flat. Creasey continued undeterred before returning to his well trodden routine of being a young gay boy with a very distinctively camp voice.
The next day Creasey was not happy with his performance, ‘I wasn’t in the right mood. I’d been in a Twitter fight all day, so I wasn’t there mentally.’
The last twelve months have been a busy time for the young entertainer, like many WA comedians before him he made the move to Melbourne, following in the footsteps of Rove MacManus, Luke and Wyatt and Jimmy James Eaton. Melbourne also allows Creasey to watch lots of musicals, a particularly gay interest he used to make lots of jokes about during his shows.
Creasey’s interest in politics in genuine too though, he recalls it was one of his favourite subjects at high school.
‘My year eleven and twelve politics teacher was the most inspiring woman I’ve ever met. She made the subject so interesting.
When I studied it at University it was so boring, so bland. Everything in politics is rock star, if you just look at it the right way.’
After touring his last show Slumber Party around the country and telling the same anecdotes night after night, the fast changing world of politics holds great appeal for the comedian.
‘The politicians in Australia are always serving up material. Even just Julia Gillard…with her going against gay marriage, saying it’s against her beliefs. I don’t know why she wants to deny her boyfriend the hairdresser the right to marry? There’s always stuff going on in Australia, particularly in state politics. The whole Troy Buswell chair sniffing thing, you can’t beat that. Politicians are almost worse than footballers.
‘Julia Gillard side stepped the whole gay marriage debate by saying it was not what she was raised on, it made me realise that we don’t really know that much about Gillard and her family, all I know is that I think she used to host The Weakest Link.’
Joel Creasey is appearing at The Wild West Comedy Festival on Friday May 27, his solo Political Animal show will visit Perth later in 2011.
Graeme Watson
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