jks: a comedy(?)Trades Hall 8:00 pm
Tom Ballard, “that gay on the ABC” – his words, not mine – will be very familiar to audiences at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Working his way up from sticky carpeted pubs packed with pissed punters preferring their own slurred conversations to headlining town halls with rapt audiences, he’s been doing this since he was 16, spilling the tea on emerging from the closet in rural Victoria.
Ballard’s canny gift for sassy smarts with a political bent has also shifted from stand-up to the stage, including with the play #Kwanda, inspired by the Tony Jones-fronted, now-cancelled panel show he occasionally guest-hosted.
Which brings us neatly to his latest Melbourne Fringe show, Jks: a comedy(?)
What’s the premise of Tom Ballard’s Jks: a comedy(?)
Jks: a comedy(?) ricochets like the crossfire that reignited on social media when Barry Humphries – AKA Dame Edna Everage, AKA Sir Les Patterson – died. And inflammation of an earlier stoush when his name was unceremoniously stripped from the Comedy Festival’s top prize because of transphobic comments.
The play goes head-to-head with both the snarling “woke mind virus” mob on the right and the perhaps too pious pot-shotters on the left to ask if there’s any middle ground?
Asking what defines funny and who gets to tell what joke, and if anyone with a Netflix special or stadium gigs has actually been cancelled, it walks the ever-shifting line on what’s OK to say and what consequences should follow if it’s crossed? Who’s the arbiter?
Personally, I could have absolutely done without the absolute bombardment of uncensored R-word slurs hurled about here that feels as entirely unnecessary as Quentin Tarantino’s N-words (also mentioned, but not in full).
Name-checking the likes of the disgraced Bill Cosby alongside more recent stoushes involving Dave Chapelle, Louis CK and Kevin Hart, all the show’s curliest questions crop up after news breaks that a fictional elder not-so-statesman “problematic” comedian, “dirty” Dusty Frankin, has carked it.
Which gets Ballard’s Alex, a thirty-something comedian not entirely unlike himself, gets all high and mighty up on his soapbox.
Who else is involved in Tom Ballard’s Jks: a comedy(?)?
It’s a little odd that Jks: a comedy(?) is set backstage in a grotty pub, which seems like an unlikely venue for three of the five comedians performing on the night we join them.
As Alex, Ballard, great at being cheekily bolshy, riles Kevin Hofbauer’s far more dudebro Jase. The latter revered the late comedian, his chief inspiration for doing this gig, and firmly holds the opinion that nothing is off the table. That includes Dusty’s homophobic jokes that irked Alex. As far as Jase is concerned, if you don’t like what you hear, don’t listen, because nothing a comedian does is serious anyway.
That last argument incenses Alex even more. Why are they even here if what they do doesn’t matter?
But rather than stick to a stark divide between these increasingly puff-chested men, Ballard wisely smudges that shifting line. Jase is a man of colour, complicating the battle lines between him and Alex, a queer white man.
Of course, they are both on one heavily weighted privilege end of a false dichotomy that Tiana Hogben’s goofily cute clown May, armed with a squeaky rubber chook, doesn’t subscribe to. It’s a shame that Jks: a comedy(?) doesn’t allow this non-binary comedian to speak for themselves more when the lads battle over gender lines. Hogben is a luminous performer, far too often benched here.
Jks: a comedy(?) also loses sight of Triple J host Jordan Barr’s Rhi, a relative newcomer to the comedy scene who can nevertheless haul the boys into line when they’re behaving badly. She and Hogben deserve more.
Rounding out the cast of actual comedians, Nicky Barry’s non-nonsense mamma bear Chris gets way more to do, particularly on the eye-rolling front. She’s perhaps the least confident, a slight nerviness in hitting the dramatic beats that will surely dissipate given more time on this end of the line.
Highlight of Tom Ballard’s Jks: a comedy(?)
It’s a tight ensemble, even if the focus is imbalanced, and the snappy 70-minute show, propulsively directed by fellow comedian Ben Russell, zings with their crackling camaraderie.
Hofbauer is best in show, an abundantly charismatic actor who rises above the work’s more preachy elements, holding us on side even as we rankle at Jase’s most obnoxious outbursts. It’s a fantastic performance that makes salient points while also defending some real bad shit.
Jks: a comedy(?) is at its strongest when pushing us on the back foot. Jase confronts Alex with a shocking joke from his past that wasn’t even vaguely OK back then, a hypocrisy cast in sharp relief by Jase’s background. This jaw-dropping showdown is also Ballard’s writing at its sharpest, a reminder to us all to take a beat before casting stones.
Who will like Tom Ballard’s Jks: a comedy(?)?
Anyone who wants to wrestle with the thornier corners of what’s funny on a deeper level than screaming social media generally allows.
Tom Ballard’s Jks: a comedy(?) is on at Trades Hall, Carlton, now. Book tickets here.
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