Yawp Mag ISSUE 19 Getting Ready for the Comedy Festival | Page 12

SimoninKeck

'Let’s Write a Book!’
Following the success of his multiple awardwinning show ‘Nob Happy Sock’, Simon Keck is
about to launch into another experimental show
at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy
Festival, with a show called ‘Let’s Write a Book!’
This will see Keck reading a number of different
stories for audience members, before whittling
the most popular tales into a book that can be
purchased at the end of the season.

He’s had help this year from director and producer
Paul Horan, who has helped Keck in the role of
a scipt editor, “someone who would look at my
scripts and go, ‘why have you dedicated two
pages to this? It means nothing’”. Horan’s advice
has helped Keck to be “completely ruthless”, as
he’s “never been good at culling material”.

In fact, he’s already trialled one story which has
been submitted to ‘LateNite Films’, which is going

The director prompted Keck to ask questions
he’d never thought of asking before; “the biggest
moment for me in ‘Nob Happy Sock’ was when
when he said I wasn’t writing a comedy for
people with depression, I was writing for people
who had never experienced it before. Like that
was my audience, that’s who I needed to write
for. And so that changed everything. How do you
get the idea across when no one talks about it
and how do you explain how it feels?”

before, much less a romantic comedy “about a
guy who falls in love with a TSA agent after she
invasively searches him and he realises he’s into
BDSM and kind of likes to be dominated, but he
didn’t know that, he was just a regular, normal
guy. And then it’s his efforts to woo her. And it all
goes so badly”.

As well as a director, Keck has had the help of
a publicist this year, as he begins to treat his
career in comedy as more of a business, than
just as a hobby. He recalls a conversation with
fellow comedian Nick Cody, whose advice stuck
in his head; “he said, ‘I can’t go to an airline and
give the lady behind the desk a good review. She
accepts cash. So I need to make some coin to

Keck will be reading a large assortment of
comical tales that tend to fall under the umbrella
of “people looking for something… people
them, whatever that may