In her 32 years at the helm of what is now the world’s biggest standalone comedy festival, Susan Provan has seen it all. As she steps down, she reflects on a rapidly changing industry.
Susan Provan has seen it all in her 32 years as director of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: comedians turning up to the wrong venue or literally falling off stage, cigarette smoke so voluminous that it prompted firefighters to storm the Moosehead Awards, and a group of comics – touring Australia as part of the festival’s Roadshow – getting kicked out of a motel in the tiny South Australian town of Roxby Downs.
“They were sitting in the spa after their gig and it was cold, so they tried to warm it up by boiling the kettles from their rooms and pouring the water in,” says Provan, who on Monday announced that she will step down as director in August. “But the manager thought they were trying to be rock ‘n’ roll and chucking televisions into the pool … they got run out of town, basically.”
When Provan took over in 1995, the festival featured 118 shows. This year, there were 806 shows totalling more than 4000 performances – making it the biggest festival to date. Under her tenure, it has become the largest standalone comedy festival in the world.
Last year, Provan told The Age that she couldn’t keep doing the job forever. With the festival having just celebrated its 40th anniversary, it was an opportune time to call it a day, she said on Monday.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while because I’m exhausted, and this seemed like a good one to go out on,” Provan said, speaking exclusively to this masthead. “I’m feeling relief and grief; I’m moving between the two but it’s mainly relief.”
A global search is now under way for Provan’s successor. She has a couple of candidates she hopes will apply but declines to name them.
Few would dispute that she leaves big shoes to fill.
With Provan at the helm, the festival has launched various initiatives including Class Clowns, a development program for young performers whose alumni include Joel Creasey, Rhys Nicholson, Annie Louey, Aaron Chen and William McKenna. Josh Thomas and Hannah Gadsby are among the previous winners of Raw Comedy, a contest for emerging stand-ups. Deadly Funny, which celebrates the humour of Indigenous comedians, has given a leg-up to Steph Tisdell, Kevin Kropinyeri, Andy Saunders, Janty Blair, Shiralee Hood, Dane Simpson, Elaine Crombie, Jay Wymarra, Leon Filewood and Sean Choolburra. Provan has also forged strong ties with Asian comedy communities, showcasing a burgeoning number of comics from India, Malaysia and Singapore. And more than half the performers in this year’s festival gala were women.
“Boy, is that different from when I started!” Provan said. “And [it’s still] different to line-ups anywhere else in the world.”
In 2019, the festival rebranded its top accolade – the Barry Award, named in honour of Barry Humphries – as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award, after Humphries was accused of making transphobic remarks. While some in the comedy community were rumoured to be agitating for Provan’s departure, the whispers were rubbished by a number of influential industry figures and comedians.
Speaking on condition of anonymity in 2022, one high-profile comic said Provan’s success in diversifying the festival line-up “beyond a whole bunch of white blokes named Dave” naturally attracted criticism.
“Powerful woman makes changes and some men get upset – it’s a tale as old as time,” said the performer. “The whole thing’s a beat-up; Susan is incredibly well-liked and well-respected.”
In 2018, Provan was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of her distinguished service to arts administration, festival leadership and the promotion of Australian comedy. Festival chair Bill Shannon said Provan’s “impact on the festival and the wider arts landscape cannot be overstated”.
The Age is a Festival partner.
Susan Provan on …
Raw Comedy, Class Clowns and Deadly Funny: “There’s no NIDA [National Institute of Dramatic Art] or VCA [Victorian College of the Arts] or WAAPA [Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts] for comedy. It’s a bit like commercial music, and you’ve got to work for free for years to build an audience. It’s a tough road, and I like to think that our programs, and the environment of the Comedy Festival, have helped ease that journey.”
Leading the Comedy Festival: “Comedy is extremely subjective, so you need to have a huge program to suit all tastes. And you need to be ready to wake up at 3am freaking out, because we rely heavily on box office [sales]; as anyone who works in the entertainment industry knows, it’s not like selling toilet paper. You feel like you’re jumping off a cliff every day, but that’s also one of the most exhilarating and exciting things about it.”
Attending comedy shows: “I really do try to be inconspicuous because you don’t want to be putting the performers off. I always wear comfy clothes because you’re literally running from show to show.”
The difference between good and bad comedy reviewers: “A reviewer who has seen a lot of comedy has better context; even if you disagree with them, it’s easier to cop because that’s just the subjectivity of comedy. You can tell if someone’s writing from the perspective of having watched hundreds of comedy shows versus someone who was dragged in from the gardening department and is writing their first review because whatever periodical didn’t have enough reviewers.”
Technological change: “When I started, we didn’t have email or a website and we certainly didn’t have social media. We had a massive box office with queues out the door. Now, social media and online advertising is the big thing; it’s much easier and cheaper to reach global audiences but it also means the competition has expanded enormously.”
Online viral comedians: “There are many online performers who are hilarious and fantastic, but there are also a lot of YouTubers and TikTokers who develop large audiences doing a minute [of material] on TikTok – but put them in front of a live audience and they don’t have what it takes. To become a really good live performer, you do need to work in front of audiences – and that doesn’t change.”
Comedy as an art form: “A lot of people think comedians just get up on stage and make it up on the spot. It’s taken a long time for comedy to be recognised as an art form, and that’s something I’ve worked hard on. But Australia is ahead of the curve; right now, the British comedy community is running a campaign to get comedy recognised as an art form so comedians can get some government funding.”
Her future: “I’m looking forward to having a big rest, but I’ll still be involved. It’ll take me about a year to sort out all the archives. That’s one of my private projects; there are years of programs, files, posters, press clippings, digital stuff, film, colour transparencies and bromides – remember those? There’s an absolute treasure trove of stuff we want to get sorted so we can deposit it with people who can really look after it, because it’s an important part of our state’s history.”
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