The Battle of the Decor

A Tour Diary

My good mates Kel Balnaves, Rusty Berther & I have been occasionally touring under the moniker of DIY Comedy since late 2023. This latest iteration was part of the Shepparton Festival & produced by Riverlinks in association with the Resilience in Recovery department of the Greater Shepparton City Council. The tour was a gift to outlying communities that have been impacted by 3 major flooding events since 2022.

From our very first tour, the shows became secondary to ongoing prank wars. The first skirmishes revolved around the proliferation of motel soaps & shampoos that we’d been acquiring at each accommodation. As the tour progressed, the arsenal of the diminutive hygiene products grew. It’s hard to recall the precise moment the collection was weaponised into prank warfare, but it escalated quickly. The unsuspecting victims found them tucked into their shoes, beds, guitar cases and most successfully, into a prop hat that I was about to put on, whilst on stage.

The rencounters continued beyond the tour. I came home after a few days away to find that Rusty (also my neighbour) had made a montage of the soaps & shampoos & saved it as our TV Home screen: It remains our home screen to this day. I responded by having the montage made into a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle as his Christmas present. After a holiday the following month, we returned to find that Rusty had secreted the entire collection throughout our house. Almost 18 months later, we are still finding them in coat pickets, filing cabinets & one recently showed up in an ultra sound of my right kidney.

On the recent tour, we had the luxury of staying in the same accomodation for the entire tour and travelled out to each show. The Air B&B that was organised for us, was beyond our normal tour standards. The design brief of the interior decorator was ‘too much is never enough’ and they had nailed it. There was furniture in places you’d never reasonably expect to have furniture, and such a density of soft furnishings & bric a brac, it felt like a homewares clearance store.

The Battle of the Decor was largely fought out between myself & Kel, with Rusty remaining remarkably passive. This was largely due to Rusty having an entire level of the property to himself and he was rarely sighted. Without his creativity, our pranking mostly involved blockading each other’s bedroom doorways with increasingly impenetrable stockades, using the plethora of furniture & bric a brac at hand. Kel took it to an entirely new level by straddling my bed with one of the many superfluous couches. Touche Senor Bell-nar-vess.

Show 1 - Monday, April 7th - Toolamba Community Centre.

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• The Lions Club who provided & served the supper, had errantly advertised the night as DYI Comedy. The updated ‘Do Yourself an Injury Tour’ title stuck.

• Mike from the Lions Club augmented the comedy theme by dressing as a clown. He was later arrested for driving 23 people home in his Toyota Prius.

• I made friends with Guido & Sandra Vazzoler in 2017, when I did my Town Folk Project in nearby Murchison. I’ve subsequently done many shows at their Longleat Winery. They made the 21km trek to Toolamba with a posse of Murchison friends & fans that I’ve acquired. I couldn’t have picked a better front row for our first show.

• There was a kid in the second row wearing North Melbourne FC pyjamas. I hope they help him dream of a time when his team don’t start promisingly, only to be over overrun in the second half and lose by over 10 goals.

(The Murchison Posse)

Show 2 - Tuesday, April 8th - Bunbartha Community Centre

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Due to an infestation of white ants & exposed asbestos, the community centre is unusable & may have to be knocked down. Rather than moving the show to another hall, Riverlinks kindly erected a marquee next to the community centre for the night. It was a chilly night, but with the patio heaters & urns fired up & free pizza on offer, the crowd were warm and up for anything. The intimate atmosphere & tailored venue made this show a highlight.

• The adjacent tennis courts featured a Christmas light display. It was plugged in & functioning on the night … in April.

• The Bunbartha Pony Club organised the interval supper. I’m sure some appreciated the Forage Parfaits, but they’re an acquired taste.

• Random items of furniture & house hold items were scattered around the Recreation Reserve, including a small fridge with a No Entry sign, that was not heeded by old mate.

Show 3 - Wednesday, April 9th, Undera Hotel

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• We were greeted by a local called ‘Wormy’ brandishing a giant bottle of Galliano. In what he described menacingly as ‘a local tradition’, he kept foisting shots of Sambuca at us. He was unimpressed, when I declined in favour of doing a coherent show. This was a shock to the system after two nights of being offered scones & cups of tea. He kept offering shots to Kel throughout the night, including when he was on stage. He did a killer set, but after five Sambucas, he was *‘two turns from Numurkah’ by the time we got home.

• After Rusty’s set, Wormy, who also does the odd music gig, accused Rusty of using one his songs. The Scared Weird Little Guys’ Australian town version of ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’ was a massive hit for Rusty & appeared on an ARIA winning album. You’ve had too many Sambuca’s Wormy.

• The fairy lights & gelato trolley made the room look like a kids party, but it was anything but.

• Publicans Brett & Noel couldn’t have made us feel more welcome.

• The French backpackers understood little of the show.

*a euphemism that evolved on the tour, that can mean pretty much whatever you want to mean.

(Kel washes down his 5th Sambuca shot with a pint of Guinness at the Undera Hotel)

Show 4 - Thursday, April 10th, Kialla Central Hall

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• The ‘free to a good home table’ in the foyer, featured a box of calendars from the local Nationals Member, Sam Birrell & what was either a cucumber of zucchini. Mixing politics & vegetables, I passed the mystery grocery item around the audience & got them to vote. It was a landslide victory for ‘Cucumber’.

• Inexplicably the walls of the hall were completely free of adornment, apart from a photo of the Tai Chi Class of 2016.

• The store room featured a variation on the chair stacking specification sign. A photo showed precisely how the tables & chairs should be stacked.

• I was attacked on stage by a moth the size of a fruit bat. It proceeded to dive bomb the audience for the next minute, until someone lured it outside with the cucumber. I was told in the break by my mate John Gribben, who works for Shepparton Council, that it was an emperor gum moth (opodiphthera eucalypti). They apparently love stand up comedy, but only have an adult life span of 2 weeks, so our schedule worked in its favour.

  

  (Opodiphthera eucalypti, an emperor gum moth, pictured at an open mic comedy night at Dirty Secrets in Collingwood)

(This seemed a big ask …)

( … but the people of Kialla were up to the task)

Show 5 - Friday, April 11th - Mooroopna Mechanics Hall

(The touring party - Matt, Mitch, Rusty, Kel, Harvey & the author)

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• A barfly called ‘Skin’ wandered in from the pub next door and heckled me by calling out quite innocent ‘dad jokes’. His interjections were harmless, but were becoming more frequent, so I gently admonished him, in the manner of a patient junior primary school teacher. That was enough for ‘Skin’. He admitted defeat & returned to his bar stool next door. I brought Kel on stage soon after, who immediately revealed that he had invited 'Skin’ to the show after popping into the Royal Mail for pre-show beer.

• This show had added significance, as it was the first show in the hall since the post 2022 flood renovations were completed. Mike and his committee did a great job getting the hall ready. We also had the ‘Resilience in Recovery’ team on hand on the night providing the supper, some of who had their own homes inundated in 2022. All of this made Kel carelessly leaving the giant tap running, all the more infuriating.

• Big thanks to the tour organiser & producer Matt Schroeders & his support team of Mitch & Harvey. Between them they transformed 5 venues in 5 days.

(Apparently the giant taps were made for fire hoses, but I prefer to think they’re for equally gigantic urns)

(The crowd celebrate ‘Skin’ returning to his bar stool at the Royal Mail)