A FEW years back Kitty Flanagan said her comedy was based on issues she hoped people relate to, but she is not afraid to address the difficult topics.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
She brings her new show Smashing to the Central West next week with shows in Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo.
In the show she tackles love songs, sex, algorithms, chimps, clowns and psychics.
“I’m not a clever, surreal kind of comic. I just do it’s-funny-because-it’s-true stuff,” she told Fairfax Media.
“The best feedback I can get after a show is when people say to me, ‘Oh my god, it is like you were in our lounge room’.”
It is a winning approach.
Flanagan is a writer and performer and a regular performer on ABC television’s The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. Previously she appeared in her own segment on The Project every Tuesday.
She plays public relations manager Rhonda Stewart in the ABC bureaucracy comedy series Utopia and shows up regularly on the comedy news quiz program, Have You Been Paying Attention?
Flanagan has become one of Australia’s best known comedians and has performed all over the world and tours Australia relentlessly.
I just do it’s-funny-because-it’s-true stuff.
- Kitty Flanagan
She also hosted the Opening Night Comedy Allstars Supershow that launched the Melbourne International Comedy Festival back in March along with the comedy festival gala in 2010.
Flanagan has been a regular on the international comedy circuit for several years, performing in Japan, France, Germany and Holland and major festivals including Edinburgh Festival, Just For Laughs in Canada and Cat Laughs Comedy in Kilkenny.
Flanagan had several career false starts - from a rural radio news and weather reader, waitress, lasted only three weeks cleaning and packing crayfish in a Geraldton crayfish factory, physical education teacher, advertising, copywriting and working in a pub - before trying stand-up comedy.
Her first break came in 1995 when she landed a spot on TV sketch comedy show Full Frontal - the Logie Award-winning series which launched the careers for a host of stars including Eric Bana, Shaun Micallef, Julia Morris, Glenn Butcher, Kym Gyngell and John Walker.