FRASER UPDATE: MICF

Dear Patreonites,

Thankyou so very much for being here with me.

The Melbourne International Comedy Festivaaal has been a busy fun bonanza of busy fun.

So far this month has been:

1) Wrestling a robot into shape and working on ETHOS. I’m performing at the Chinese Museum, in the very fittingly named Tea Room, which is just a room but I do have tea in it. 

If you have friends in Melbourne, make sure you let them know to come along, it’s been selling well, and most audiences have been lovely, though as ever in Melbourne, some audiences forget to tell you that they’re enjoying themselves until after the show, rather than telling you during it by laughing out loud.

I like to think of comedy as a conversation, where the audience can say whatever they like, but it's always hard to have a chat with someone who is just smiling at you in the dark. The lights are in your eyes, so it can very quickly go from feeling like a fun connection, fuelled by their laughter to an interrogation where you're just a dancing marmoset trying to get a reaction. 

The hardest thing in the world to do is to convey how much fun you're having in front of people who don't look like they're having fun.  

2) I opened for Jim Gaffigan, in a GIANT theatre with an echo. 

It was a lot of fun, though I was worried about keeping my material clean and relatable to his audience. 

here is me listening side stage…

3) I am re-learning and prepping three years worth of shows for The Trilogy (three shows, one after the other – the Resistance, Empire and Savage, am I completely off the planet?). I am nervous on a number of levels, including whether I will be able to carry the energy of a room for three hours (with two 15 minute breaks), whether it'll work the way I want it to, and whether anyone will come. Apparently some people do, as the show sold out, which was a terrifying relief, but then they moved me to a new room so we can fit more of you in. Tickets are here if you want to buy 

I am outrageously grateful to everyone for buying tickets, bringing friends, and making this possible.

4) I've had a lovely time hanging out with my people, and have had so much love and support, from Frontier, Mushroom and most especially my Hench, Sarah, who is relentlessly can-do when I have a stupid idea, and does basically all the logistics for everything from merch to this post. She remembers the things I forget.

Keep booking tickets, you can buy for one or all three of the shows, and remember, all Patreonites get a free plus one to any of my shows, including the trilogy why not, I have some spares now!

5) I did The Bugle live at the Town Hall with David O'Doherty and the Zaltzman (of course), which was very silly and lots of fun even though (maybe because) the powerpoint was about as disastrous as you can imagine technology being. 

6) I did a spot at The Festival Club, which looked like this:

A few more shows with MICF, (Nailed It at the Toff in Town for the Wheeler Centre, followed by ABC Up Late filming tonight, and then the rest of ETHOS, The Trilogy and then falling flat on my face for a week) before I'm off to Sydney and Perth. You can see my tour dates at alicefraser.com. As a Patreon supporter you can also get 2 for 1 tickets to any of those as long as there are tickets still available, just email me at alicerfraser@gmail.com and we’ll hook you up.

You can also listen to Tea with Alice on itunes or Player FM as ever – the latest is with Tim Batt on courage and vulnerability, shouting at street preachers, the use of the phrase ‘boys’ among young men. Blackface, golliwogs, American politics, local politics and who are the villains, really?

Also, we’re looking at creating some new merch – if you have any ideas for things you want to see in the store, let us know and we’ll try to create it. Our supplier has stopped creating the bags we use to create our ‘emotional baggage’ bags. We have about 5 left in the store, but once they’re gone, theywon’t be restocked. Snaffle them up at alicefraser.com/shop 

Again, thank you so much for supporting me – every donation, retweet, ticket sale and good word adds up to an exoskeleton of amazingness that stops this whole bandwagon falling apart.

A 

xx