Bringing The Kids Back To The Theatre

"The weed's pretty good in Queensland, so that's always a highlight," shares Alex Williamson on the topic of national tours. "That's always a highlight. Don't know about this time of year specifically, but usually it's the case."

Williamson will have plenty of opportunities to test the Sunshine State's end of year crop against the nation's best on the 16-date run of his latest show, Make The World A Banter Place. "Nah, it's gonna be good. I like hitting the, as well as the capitals, the regionals too. There's always some 'characters', if you will, that show their faces out there in North Queensland and Bendigo and god knows wherever I go." It doesn't hurt that, at least from the stage, it seems like the country crowd get a little more in the spirit. "I reckon they just go," says Williamson. "More of them go harder. Whereas in the capitals it's just sort of a select bunch that have really gone overboard. It's almost like they're so drunk that they don't really know what they're laughing at but they're laughing hysterically. So they're good audiences.

"I just get my dick out and they're like, 'This is great. This is champagne comedy.'"

Though not by any means his first go round the block, it is a bit of a change of scenery for Williamson who's just recently returned from his fifth run at Edinburgh Fringe. "It was a bit of a spinout being over in Edinburgh for that whole month. Ya know, it's a pretty different sort of place, all the architecture's different and they talk funny. Not that I don't talk funny, but ah, they talk funnier. That's a big call, but - it's true."

If you've been paying attention to his Instagram you'll know Williamson's already listed (or filmed) a few pros and cons from his time in the Scottish capital; Con: glory holes that bite your dick off. Pro: lively soccer commentary. Con: psychotic Hibs supporters with gappy teeth. Pro: cheap rack. Have we missed anything? "Other than the cheap rack?" laughs Williamson. "There's not too many highlights, definitely the highlight by a long shot. But the history, the history. The history of the cocaine; where did it come from? Why is it so cheap?"

Williamson's been called a lot of things over the years; crass, the future of comedy, puerile, razor-sharp. He's been dubbed disgracefully offensive both as a compliment and as a scathing indictment. The point is his four-letter brand of humour can be divisive, and while most people who buy a ticket are pretty aware of his schtick these days, mistakes still happen.

"One time there was some 90-year-olds that came to my show," says Williamson, "'cause out the front of the Bendigo Theatre there was a poster for John Williamson the next weekend after Alex Williamson, like the old country music poet. And so they'd driven three hours thinking they were coming to see John Williamson on the guitar doing his little ditties like, 'true blue Austrail-ya', and instead it was just me going, 'fuckin', how 'bout this cunt this that and the other.' And ah, they walked out real early. They said to the people on the way out, 'Well, the only word we could understand was fuck.' 

"And then they said, 'Well at least he's bringing kids to the theatre.' So that was a nice little touch. I thought, 'You know what? Fuck, it's true.'"