Weekend forecast: funny with a chance of glee

LAST month, Bendigo Comedy Festival (BCF) committee member Ash Greblo declared this year’s festival would be bigger and better than ever.

With an opening gala night on Wednesday that saw acts including Lloyd Langford, Kirsty Webeck, and Mike Godlstein make an appearance, he may well be right.

But the festival is far from over and there is still plenty left to see, such as Heath Franklin tonight, and Alex Ward and Dane Simpson tomorrow night.

Greblo will be co-hosting Big Grebby and Poppa’s Local line up show on tomorrow night with fellow local comedian Poppa, a night dedicated to promoting the local comedy scene.

“Annoyingly, it’s always upsetting is that there are people that have done comedy everywhere else and they live here and you just can’t get them do it here for whatever reason,” he said.

Casey Mills and Dane Knowles both joined the festival via a comedy open mic night hosted by Greblo.

Knowles, who is performing in the local line-up show, will also share the stage with Patti Fawcett for their Friday the 13th debut.

“The way our show works it’s 20 minutes each between me and Fawcett, so it’ll be a good mix between our old stuff and some new stuff,” Knowles said.

The comedian said it was great to be part of an event that provided opportunities for comedians to perform locally.

“There’s really good comedy in Melbourne, there’s good comedy in Australia generally, but it’s really great when you don’t have to go as far,” he said.

Closing out the festival on Sunday afternoon is an after party at the Cambrian, followed by a roast of local comedian Jim Hallawell.

The celebration will start with a live recording of podcast Dissecting a Frog hosted by festival committee member Luke Morris, and will finish with a show hosted by Greblo that is designed for all involved to have fun laughing at each other.

“It’s just saying mean stuff about all the locals that you would have seen the night before.

“No one has to do it, but if you enter you get to bag everyone else out, but you also get bagged out,” Greblo said.

Big Grebby and Poppa’s Local line up show will be on at the Engine Room on Saturday 14 October at 8.45pm.

The Roast of Jim Hallawell will kick off at the Cambrian on Sunday 15 October at 2.30pm.

Tickets for the remaining shows are still available from the Bendigo Comedy Festival Website.