Karl Chandler has been a part of the Melbourne Comedy Scene for over five years and is known for his rapid-fire delivery of jokes. His latest show is called 100 Jokes per Hour. Daniel Nicholls caught up with Karl over his very first cup of milk tea.
Tell me about your new show.
Before I got into stand-up, or even before I saw any stand-up, I liked jokes. I like something short and sharp, not something that goes for ten minutes and you think to yourself: “I’m halfway through this, is this going to be any good?” I like something that goes: “Here’s this, here’s this, here’s that.” and you know it’s good right away. And if those jokes are good and you can get ten of those in a minute, I’m like: “This is awesome!” Some of those ten-minute story jokes you can get to the end of them and go: “Hmm. Yeah.” So that is the sort of show that I would go and see, and for me, I can only do what I think will be funny, so hopefully there are enough people who think like me, because I would never try and second-guess what the audience is thinking, I just do the sort of show that I like. So I called my show 100 Jokes per Hour because no-one is going to read that and ask: “What’s the show about?” You will get your money’s worth. We’ve even got a counter, so you know you’re not being ripped off. Also because I don’t want people to be sitting there counting the jokes when they should be laughing, so I do it for them.
Does the counter go up per joke, or per laugh?
Definitely per joke. Per laugh would be confusing because some jokes get a laugh or two before they’re done, then they get another laugh at the end. I’ve worked hard to make sure all the jokes get at least one laugh. I don’t count the joke if it doesn’t get a laugh. So you get 100 jokes that work- not just ninety plus ten that are alright.
Is it tough to memorize 100 jokes?
It can be confusing. They’re in a sort of A-Z order so it’s easy to run through them, but if I skip to the wrong point it can wreck the sort of Jenga-like structure I’ve got in my head. But I have a few backups in case I don’t hit 100 by the end of the show. But that’s the challenge I made for myself when I put the promise in the name of the show. They say a mother can conjure up the strength to lift up a car if her baby is under it, I put “100 jokes” on the poster and then I was like: Well, fuck. Now I better do it. I’m actually the worst in the world at that sort of stuff so if I can do it, anyone can do it.
You also run a local comedy room, Comedy @ Spleen?
Yup, me and Pete Sharkey and Steele Saunders run that on Monday nights usually, three times a week during the festival. It’s really good, always full. A lot of great acts, a real mix between open mic people doing their first gig and a lot of established acts: Fiona O’Loughlin, Jamie Kilstein, Tom Gleeson, Justin Hamilton, Josh Thomas, it’s slowly got around that it’s just a sweet, honest, nice place to go. I’ve never not been excited to go there.
How did that get started?
Well it went through a few different hands trying to get the room to work. And I always used to go and think that it was a really nice space, it just needed to be run properly. And it was just a question of identifying what was wrong and putting it right. And we put in a lot of flyering work, and on top of that it’s just about having a really good night. Word of mouth is absolutely the best way to get people in the door, and if it’s a good room, people will start to hear about it from their friends who are enjoying what we put on for them. And because it is a really nice, warm, educated room, it gives comics the space, that freedom, to try new material, which makes it a really interesting night- you always hear something new.
Karl Chandler is 100 Jokes per Hour runs until April 18 at the Portland Hotel. For full booking details go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival website
Comedy@Spleen runs on Monday’s, Wednesday and Saturday’s during the festival and on Monday’s throughout the year at the Spleen Bar