Instructive comedy

Sue Lewis admits her new routine in the latest Funny Farm queer comedy night requires little preparation.

I’m teaming up with [comic] Lynnie O, and we’ll be re-enacting certain pages of a book published in the 70s called The Joy Of Lesbian Sex, she says.

It’s a great book. It actually contains no real information. But it does have about a million drawings of vaginas and lots of drawings of women with curly hair, perms. There’s not a lot we have to do with it -“ just read it out.

Lewis says all of this in glacial deadpan -“ just as she would onstage. It’s a bit of a shock, because her stage persona is hilarious but definitely odd: a self-deprecating bespectacled lesbian with an almost morbid air.

Is this simply Sue Lewis?

I’m afraid that’s just me -“ the genuine article. It might be a little bit exaggerated in parts, but it’s basically what you would expect from a dinner party if you were sitting around chatting, she says, allowing a small laugh.

Lewis says she began stand-up in 1997 after breaking up with her girlfriend (I needed a bit of a laugh) and has since become friends with her regular cohorts, a gang that includes Shelley Silberman, Andrew Creagh and Lynnie O.

The nights offer a chance for very dyke-specific humour, something Lewis appreciates after reaching the NSW finals of the Raw Comedy competition.

Not all lesbian or gay events are as welcoming as Funny Farm, however. There’s always Fair Day, for instance.

I’m going to go in a burqa this year. I thought that would be the best way to avoid ex-girlfriends, she says.

Funny Farm is on Thursday 24 February at 8pm at the Paddington RSL, 220 Oxford Street, Paddington.