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Craig Egan
 The Adelaide comedy scene as we know it today is set to celebrate its eighth birthday, and curator Craig Egan is enthusiastically set to take on the task of pushing things that few steps further.
"I got into this industry around about 1997," begins Egan, "and in those days that was at Comix Comedy Cellars and then we started doing gigs at Boltz Cafˇ," he recalls. "And that was with Justin Hamilton and Lehmo, who are now fulltime professional comics. It was those two who basically stood up and pulled a coup at the time. They stood up and said that we should be treated better and should be paid for what we're doing, and that we should be working harder and smarter and start travelling.
"Cam Knight and Mickey D was just starting out too," continues Egan, "and then there was Dave Williams and Adam Vincent, as well as Alex Collins who's passed away, and they all made up the crew back in those days," he fondly reminisces.
"I remember being dragged down here to the Rhino Room by Alex," Egan says of when he first entered the venue that has now gained recognition as being the nucleus for Adelaide original comedy. "The Rhino Room has always been run as an artist's venue, in that any money that comes through the door goes straight to them. However, the true value comes from the next generation of comedians to come out of here.
"And we get to do whatever we want and that's exactly what comedy's all about, freedom of speech and just making it funny."
They've always fought against the mentality that if it's local, and not on the television then it can't be any good.
"That's been our continuing battle for the past eight years," agrees Egan. "In that the Fringe comes around and it's this giant beast of a thing and it's so much fun and you see the best in the world, and then it's all gone and we have this downtime.
"But I've come up with a term for that; I call it the Adelaide Cringe," he laughs. "But it's that time after the Fringe where we have that first burst of cold weather and everyone runs inside, then a month after that they start getting bored and they come back out again and we have to start grabbing them all again. But comedy doesn't finish when the Fringe does, we're here 24/7 and all those acts that you saw we get down here on a regular basis and not only that, the local acts are brilliant."
Up and coming local names like Rob Hunter, Hannah Gadsby, Trav Nash, Big Al and Jason Chong, to name but just a very few, have been regular feature acts alongside many national and international comedians to appear on the Adelaide comedy scene, not just on a Wednesday and Friday night at the Rhino Room, but Tuesday nights at PJ O'Briens, and now every Wednesday at The Highway Inn, Plympton.
"It's very easy to get jaded in this industry because you get knocked down a lot," Egan says of life as a comedian. "One moment you're the king of the world and everyone loves you, and then the next everyone thinks you're full of shit. It's such a rollercoaster ride, but the point is to realise why you got into it when you first started; and that's to make people laugh and what can be better then that?
"The reason you get up for Raw Comedy is because you can make your mates laugh and then one says you should do that for a job, and you have to hold on to that because the minute you lose then it's not worth doing. It's being able to translate things to an audience who don't know your mates or any thing about you.
"The weird dichotomy of the whole thing is," he considers, "it's those awful, tragic moments of your life that people find fucking hilarious. Mickey D always says that 'all comedians are damaged goods in some way, shape or form', about they've laughed about their tragic circumstances and they've figured out how to make other people laugh too. I remember Lehmo getting up one night after being burgled and he said that the first thing that came into his head was, 'Oh my God, I've been robbed!'... with the second thing being he was going to get a good ten minutes worth of material out that. And that somehow makes the bad things ten times easier to deal with; and every night the same shit has happened to someone in the audience. "
Steve Jones
Wanna win a double pass to Raw Comedy at the Highway Inn on Wednesday nights? See the Prize Frenzy(tm)
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