Cath
Styles
No one told Cath Styles to produce. It was, like
many creative pursuits, an act of necessity. YAWP
magazine sat down with Styles to discuss the
fundamentals of producing comedy, something
she is well seasoned in. Styles is the creator of
two hallmark Melbourne International Comedy
Festival shows, “Girls Night” and “Darkness and
Light”. She is also a well loved colleague of the
Melbourne comedy alumni and has made her
name as a passionate and commited producer/
comedian.
One of her deepest loves is storytelling. Not only
does Styles have a desire to develop the storytelling scene, a scene which up until now has developed marked traction over the past years in bars
around Melbourne, but she wishes to build upon
it and take it to the same level of prestige that
stand-up gets.
“The best thing, when I started to do Darkness
and light was hearing from people who would ask
me, ‘Well…how is that going to work?’ But audiences are big enough and grown up enough that
they can cope with stories that are darker than
usual”.
Darkness and Light takes the format of stand-up
comedy and pushes it to the edges. Over the past
few years at the Melbourne International Comedy
Festival, there has been a growing demand from
comedy going audiences to see their favourite comedians in authentic, human situations. Darkness
and Light provides such a space. With Storytelling
on the rise, we will not see the end of such shows
any time soon. Cathy Culliver and John Bennett
headed up “Sinful Stories”, a storytelling evening
based on the seven deadly sins. They also run
the “Cock & Bull” storytelling evening which attracts a stable of comics to tell stories that, although they don’t have to be funny, they must be
true accounts.
“The Comedy Confessional” and “Best Comics,
Worst Gigs” are other shows during the festival
which ask comedians to bear all. As it turns out,
audiences love this emerging format. Darkness
and light is no exception. Originally a show with
both a dark and a light element to them, audiences seem to relish the blacker stories.
“The best thing about it is hearing comics come
up to me and say, ‘I wish I thought of this idea for
a show’. So coming from a place of people saying, ‘Well, I don’t think this format is really going to
want to see’ to what it is today, is pretty great”.
Of “Darkness and Light”, Styles mentions her audience, “and the great thing is about the show is
that you’ve already got a receptive audience. No
one is going to heckle you in that show…ever!
Even when some comedians take it as a license
to tell stories which are a little bit…off; because
they wouldn’t dare do it in another room. There is
the odd person who thinks that that is what storytelling is. And it can be! But it depends how you
do it”.