On Saturday afternoon, 10 Indigenous Australians from Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland took to the stage at the Melbourne Town Hall for the fourth annual Deadly Funny comedy competition.
Denise McGuinness from Victoria was crowned champion taking home $2000 cash and the Deadly trophy, making her our 2010 Deadly Funny champion.
Denise works at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service based in Fitzroy and hails from a long line of “funny fellas”. It was due to her kids’ encouragement that she decided to pick up a microphone. Within weeks Denise and her youngest daughter Dawn were enrolled in the Deadly Funny workshops taking tips from comic Judith Lucy who coached her to overcome her stage fright. Second place went to Sam Conway from Queensland, whilst Sean Dow from Western Australia came third.
The Melbourne Comedy Festival is deadly serious about developing the art of comedy across all the country. Since late January, the Festival sent out some of our most hilarious professional comedians to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) communities to hold workshops and community showcase gigs with emerging Indigenous performers. The best of the best were chosen to play off at the Grand Final.
The competition is a unique opportunity for ATSI peoples to come together, celebrate their own distinctive humour and at the same time get an exclusive joke doctoring from some of Australia’s funniest comedy experts.
To be part of Deadly Funny in future, stay tuned to
www.deadlyfunny.com.au