Cool Cat

The worst job Mel Buttle ever had was as a vendor at the Gabba Cricket Ground in Brisbane. She put hot chips in boxes and then put the boxes on the service counter. She only lasted four hours. “I burned my fingers, had a panic attack, and got mum to come and pick me up. I never went back.” Buttle does not shy away from sharing awkward experiences. In fact, she's comfortable with it. “I have to be,” she says, “they're the only things that ever happen to me.” And she has found the perfect outlet for sharing in her stand-up – a charming celebration of awkwardness. Many of her stories revolve around her eccentric father Barry, who always manages to embarrass her. In one bit, he encourages her to dress up as a boy in order to enter her primary school's swimming competition. “I win. The school wins overall. Yay! The real winner: gender confusion.”Buttle took to comedy at a young age, staying up late in primary school to watch the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala on television. “It was just so exciting. I'd walk around school the next day doing my best Judith Lucy impression for my friends, who at that time in my life were the library staff.” She started performing in 2004 (“just mucking around”), but only started to take it more seriously after she won the RAW Comedy Queensland state final in 2008. In 2010, she quit her full-time job to focus on comedy. (“Also,” she adds, “I hated working there.”) That same year, she was nominated for Best Newcomer at the MICF. Success has followed: she has a weekly column in Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper, a radio spot on Breakfast with Tom and Alex on triple j, and a highly successful podcast, The Minutes With Mel And Patience. Now, Buttle is bringing her new show, How Embarrassment to SCF, which she premiered in Brisbane earlier this month. With subject matter covering her time in high school, in childcare, and cats, she calls it her favourite show she has ever done. “Also, this show has jokes about bantam hens in it. None of my other shows have ever had jokes about a niche breed of chicken in them.” She also hopes her new show will demonstrate how she has developed as a comic. “I'm not actively trying to be awkward,” Buttle says, “I'm trying to be cool. I've been trying since 1988 to be cool, but apparently staging an all-cat musical of the hit TV show All Saints with the neighbourhood cats is not cool. Comedy can be therapeutic. So can talking to your therapist about what happens when cat musicals go wrong.”

WHAT: Mel Buttle: How Embarrassment
WHEN & WHERE: Friday 3 to Saturday 4 May, SCF, Enmore Theatre: Yalumba Wine Bar