After travelling the world, Kirsty Mac has come back to her hometown of Geelong for her new show Feminazi, which she performs at GAPA as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Kirsty first left Geelong when she was 18 but has since toured around Canada and the UK – and become a fully qualified dog trainer. Feminazi is a project Kirsty has worked on and nurtured for the last several years, waiting for the moment when she was happy to share it with the world.
“It’s taken me a long time to polish my show and get it to the point where I’m ready to do the world,” Kirsty says.
With such a strongly-themed show, you’d be right in thinking it was spurred on by a particular event. After living in London, Kirsty was accustomed to being treated equally; that was until she came back home and realised how different things were in Australia.
“I came back and it hit me in the face like a brick with how we speak to women,” she says.
While she touches on some serious subjects, Kirsty is all about making it humorous and is by no means going to lecture you for an hour.
Quite the opposite actually, as Kirsty’s humour has received oodles of praise and is bound to get you laughing.
“I guess the best compliment someone can give you is when they say they wished they’d written that joke,” Kirsty says. “I get a lot of those sorts of comments because I’ve been writing the show for so long.”
And Kirsty places a great deal of emphasis on time, acknowledging that it may take a while to become a great comedian but once you get there, the hard work is over.
“It takes a long time to get all the tools but once you’ve got all the tools you can really write any joke,” Kirsty says.
Part of being a great comedian is not being worried about whether people find your jokes hilarious, and then how to overcome that if it does arise.
“People laughing isn’t my biggest concern; it’s having a really great joke that means something,” she says. “And if you can do that the funny will just come out of it. The funny is in the truth.”
Now that Kirsty has her show perfected she’s excited to bring it back to Geelong and to visit the many cafés and bars that have popped up since she’s been gone.
“There’s a really good vibe in Geelong at the moment and I think Geelong is really starting to appreciate the arts,” she says.
Though this show happens to be about feminism, Kirsty isn’t all about feminist jokes and has another tour in the works that covers a whole new topic.
“The next show is more observational and just about male and female stuff. Just kind of everyday things that we all do that are kind of different,” Kirsty says.
She’ll also be returning to the silver screen, following her debut when she was younger in a skit on Channel 31, with a secret show planned out for the near future.
Kirsty will perfom at GAPA on April 12 with tickets available at comedyfestival.com.au.
Written by Amanda Sherring