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This podcast was recorded on Aboriginal land, the land of the Wurunjeri people of the Kulin Nations. We pay our respects to their elders past and present.
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Penny: [00:00:00] Hello, Christina,
Christina: [00:00:31] Hi, Penny.
Penny: [00:00:32] Welcome back to In Those Days. And just before we get started today, we've got another guest on and I found some more articles, in Trove to share with them. But before we did that, I just wanted to talk to you a little bit more about Trove.
Christina: [00:00:45] Excellent.
Penny: [00:00:46] Because Trove is the digitized newspapers. They're scanned images of the, of the papers, but you can search for words in them. And have you wondered why you can do that, Christina?
Christina: [00:00:55] I haven't been pondering it, but I will start to ponder it now.
Penny: [00:00:58] Ponder briefly. And then I'll tell you, I'll tell you. It's because of something called OCR, which is Optical Character Recognition. And so basically it's a machine reads the image and turns it into text, which then you can search. And so if it didn't have that, it would just be pictures of the newspaper in Trove and you couldn't put you couldn't type in words and find all the articles about a particular person.
And then the other feature that that means is that sometimes OCR gets it wrong and because the text is blurry or the paper's a bit faded or something, it makes mistakes. And so the thing that Trove did that was really excellent is that they said that anyone can correct that text.
Christina: [00:01:40] Oh, a bit Wikipedia.
Penny: [00:01:42] It's very Wikipedia. So it's like a, it's a community curation archive project. And so you can do it anonymously or you can sign up and you can go in and,
Christina: [00:01:52] You've signed up. Haven't you?
Penny: [00:01:55] Yeah. And you can just correct. Anything that you find that's wrong and there's actually a leaderboard for people. So it's gets a little bit competitive.
Christina: [00:02:05] Wow. How many people are actually signed up?
Penny: [00:02:07] Oh, I don't, I don't know how many people, but do, do you want to know how many lines the winner the leading person has done?
Christina: How many?
Penny: Do you want to guess, have a guess.
Christina: [00:02:18] I'm guessing if someone's doing this, they've got quite a bit of time on their hands anyway, so. Maybe 150,000.
Penny: [00:02:27] It's 6.6 million.
Christina: [00:02:30] Wow. That's like a population of a country.
Penny: [00:02:32] Lines. Yes. So War and Peace, is like 587,000 words. So that's a lot fewer lines and they've done 6.6 million.
Christina: [00:02:44] Wow. Okay. Puts things in perspective really..
Penny: [00:02:45] So there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of very dedicated people out there. But it does, it does help others. And I was asking some people about why they do it, like why they like spending time creating texts. One guy Murray was telling me that he does it partly for his family legacy so that other people will be able to find information about his family, but also just cause he thinks Trove's great and he wants to help.
Christina: [00:03:10] Good on you, Murray. That's the attitude. Yeah.
Penny: [00:03:12] Yeah, I do it when, if I find an article useful. Oh, I'll just fix it up.
Christina: [00:03:17] Yep I probably wouldn’t.
Penny: [00:03:19] Well, anyway, are you ready? Should we get our guest?
Christina: [00:03:21] I’m really ready. I'm excited.
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Penny: [00:03:33] So our guest today is Bonnie Tangey. Hello, Bonnie. And Bonnie is, well, she's my sister. It's another Tangey. And she's also a comedian and a scientist as well. And, because Bonnie's and Christina and I used to do comedy as well.
Christina: Back in the day.
Penny: Yeah. So got a little bit in common and, and I thought that what we might do today is a bit more tangential.
Christina: [00:04:01] Tangey-ential.
Bonnie: [00:04:02] Beautiful. There's the comedy coming in.
Christina: [00:04:04] There it is. Still got it.
Penny: [00:04:08] I've looked up some articles about comedy in Australia in the olden days. And particularly, I tried to find women doing comedy in the olden days in Trove and, and particularly in Sydney, which is where Bonnie, Bonnie lives. Now it was all a bit different back then. So people weren't really doing standup.
Christina: [00:04:28] More vaudeville.
Penny: [00:04:29] Well, exactly. It was all, it was vaudeville and funny plays and sketches and
Bonnie: [00:04:34] YouTube pranks. Probably a lot of
Christina: [00:04:36] a lot of Jackass.
Bonnie: [00:04:37] Yeah.
Penny: [00:04:40] Exactly. And also a lot of people visiting from overseas. So a lot of comedians coming over from London and staying for six months and doing shows and stuff. And that,
Christina: [00:04:50] that really hasn't changed, has it?
Penny: [00:04:51] yeah, it's just coming over here and talking all our laughs.
Bonnie: [00:04:55] Not this year.
Christina: [00:04:57] Stay over there.
Penny: [00:05:00] But I did, I did find one woman. Well, I think there are probably lots of Australians, but the public just didn't get the coverage. Or, you know, there was just a little bit harder to find, but there was one lady who kept coming up and her name was Letty Craydon, and she was an Australian. And there were a few interviews with her where she talked about the comedy industry. And so I thought I'd share with you one of those. This is from the Newcastle Sun, the 11th of March, 1938. And it's the headline is Australian Comedienne Looks Back. So just to start with, how do you feel Bonnie about that term comedienne? Is it necessary? Do you like it?
Bonnie: [00:05:41] To be honest, I've only ever hear it used sarcastically. But what you do hear a lot is female comedian.
Penny: [00:05:47] Cause you do need to specify. You don't want people to get a shock.
Christina: [00:05:50] That must happen too. When people introduce you as a scientist, like the female scientists, just so people are really clear.
Bonnie: [00:05:57] Well, you've already get the different lab coat. Yeah. Got to get them taken in around the waist.
Christina: [00:06:03] Tapered.
Penny: [00:06:03] So people can see your figure. It's nice. okay, so this is the article. "Things just, ain't what they used to be in the show business in the Bush, according to Letty Craydon, Australian comedienne who was prominently cast in, 'Let George Do It' now in production at Cinesound Studios."
Christina: [00:06:25] Hashtag me too.
Penny: [00:06:27] Exactly. So she was also in films and stuff as well.
"The days of the Moonlight flits over and there is no chance of becoming stranded Back o' Burke without a penny in your purse." So she's going to go on to talk about that a little bit, but basically in the olden days, you know, people used to go on these tours and it was a bit rough. Bonnie you've been on, been on some comedy tours, haven't you?
Bonnie: [00:06:50] I have, I think you're referring to one I recently went on,
Penny: [00:06:56] To Back o' Burke.
Bonnie: [00:06:58] And I, I had the best time ever, but there was a plague of mice and one morning. Yeah. And I was sharing a room with about six other people as well. Yeah. They said, do you mind sharing a room? And I said, yeah, that's fine. But I thought maybe one other person, but no, it was basically the whole town. But one morning when I woke up there was like, there was literally four mice that had been caught under my bed and in traps just in the night. And God knows how many more were there. That was, that was all the traps. So all the traps were full.
Penny: [00:07:27] Yeah. And you had a few snuggled up in bed with you as well.
Bonnie: [00:07:30] Yeah. We had little cheeky, cuddle.
Penny: [00:07:32] So now, "Tours are quiet and well ordered affairs these days said Letty in an interview on the let George do it set, the government has seen to that. A certain sum of money has to be deposited with the authorities before a company can be taken on tour.
If the, if a show goes broke, you're assured of your fare home, at least. Moreover, as these days are usually conducted by people of standing and irreproachable character." Has that been your experience, Bonnie with tours?
Bonnie: [00:08:05] People who of standing. I mean, they, let me shoot a gun.
Christina: [00:08:10] Was that inside the venue or outside?
Bonnie: [00:08:12] No. that was in our free time. And I don't think I was meant to be doing that.
Christina: Maybe not.
Bonnie: Things have changed.
Penny: [00:08:19] So do you think, do you think in 20 years time though, you might be interviewed and you saying, well, in the olden days of the comedy tours we all had guns.
Bonnie: [00:08:28] Yeah, I think this, this is probably what will get me canceled in the end.
Penny: [00:08:33] And then Letty says, "But, but it wasn't always like that a few years ago you left your hometown, hoping, in fact, you lived in hopes, you sincerely hoped the show would click and you hoped you wouldn't be stranded, but alas your hopes weren't always realized. On two occasions, I was stranded hundreds of miles from home." Now that hasn't happened, like if they take you on tour, they're going to bring you back, aren't they?
Bonnie: [00:09:00] Well, I mean, yeah.
Penny: Yes and no.
Christina: [00:09:04] Even if they don't sell many tickets, you'll probably get home.
Bonnie: [00:09:07] You'll probably get back, yeah.
Penny: [00:09:09] And Christina, and you've been on comedy shows as well, you went on the comedy festival roadshow. A couple of times you.
Christina: [00:09:15] Yeah. Yes,
Penny: [00:09:16] They were pretty good to you. Were they?
Christina: [00:09:18] But I didn't really, realize that we were all supposed to be sharing the driving of our Tarago across the plains. So I understood we got flown somewhere, but I think I thought we were kind of chauffeured around, but it, it was pretty intense. You'd go, you'd perform. You'd get up quite early and then you had a tight schedule to get to your next far-flung location.
Penny: [00:09:40] Did they give you petrol money?
Christina: [00:09:42] Well, I don't actually know how any of that worked, but I do remember quite a crazy experience with a well-known comedian, comedienne, Cal Wilson, when she was at the wheel and we were driving along and there were all these emus running and she said, imagine if an emu ran in front of, and then didn't even finish her sentence. And an emu did run in front of the car. And it was a whole situation and there's a lot of screaming and like we hit the emu and there, and there was a whole bunch of comedians standing out on the road. Not sure if we're supposed to help the emu.
Penny: [00:10:21] You would have been the most qualified. Yeah.
Christina: [00:10:23] But I'm really scared of emus and look, it was, it seemed to be okay. It got up and kept running, but it was quite flustered.
Bonnie: [00:10:30] My mate actually got bit by name you on the tour as well. Yeah. So
Penny: [00:10:37] Didn't you guys go AWOL at the emu farm?
Bonnie: [00:10:41] Yeah, that me and Cameron Duggan was the other comic on the trip. And, we kept getting a little bit overexcited and distracted by absolutely anything. There was a, an agricultural equipment museum that sidetracked us.
Christina: [00:10:57] That'd happen to anyone.
Bonnie: [00:10:59] And an emu farm. But the issue was, we were meant to be following the other cars, but there's no reception. So once you veer off. You're lost.
Christina: You're on your own.
Bonnie: And, so yeah, we, we stopped off at the emu farm. We thought we know it's just a straight road to the next town. It's fine. They'll they'll know, we'll catch up. But, they ended up coming back to the farm, the tour leaders and just walked in, went, "where are they?"
Penny: [00:11:27] You know, this, this is really focusing and these articles do focus on the experience of the comediennes, but the comedienne wranglers are probably really having a harder time.
Bonnie: [00:11:35] Yes. Exactly. Yeah.
Penny: [00:11:39] Okay. So let's hear about when Letty got stranded. "The first time was in Cairns and the last I hope it will be the last in Tasmania. When I heard the sad news in Cairns, I sat down and cried, but I was soon cheered up by the others. Most of them had been in a similar plight before and took the blow quite philosophically. We held a meeting on the stage. It was decided to place our position before the responsible people in the town and see what could be done. In a few hours, a local magistrate clergyman, priest, policemen, hotel proprietor, and others were organizing a concert with the company as the performers". Which is kind of a little bit weird because their original problem was that they weren't selling any tickets.
Christina: [00:12:20] Now it's an enforced form of entertainment.
Penny: [00:12:22] And now it's like, we have to get rid of them. So just come. And they'd gone.
Christina: [00:12:27] Just pay your ticket price and we'll move them on.
Penny: [00:12:29] It was a big success and a repeat performance was necessary. The proceeds paid our fares to Sydney.
Bonnie: [00:12:36] Christina? No, I just looked at each other like 'What?'
Penny: [00:12:42] So like if generally you've had fairly, well, what has the reception been like on tour?
Bonnie: [00:12:49] Well, the, the first time we went to last time, they hated us. They wanted us out, which was a really good start, but they'd paid. They'd paid to come, which I didn't understand because they turned up with an attitude of hating us as soon as they walked in. All of them, they all hated us but then, then the towns afterwards they were all right.
Penny: [00:13:09] Wasn't there one town where it started raining but they just pretended it wasn't even raining?
Bonnie: [00:13:13] We were set up outside and it just started pissing rain, but everyone was too polite to acknowledge the rain
Christina: Don't mention the rain.
Bonnie: And the comic that was on stage, for some reason, she just kept going. And then the audience just sat there, laughing at the right times. And then we were like, okay, let's go inside. And everyone brought their own chairs in. It was beautiful.
Christina: [00:13:38] That's lovely.
Penny: [00:13:39] Oh, and how did you go on the Road Show Christina?
Christina: [00:13:42] Look pretty good. But I do, I remember there was one town. I can't remember where it was, they'd screwed up the advertising as to what time the show started. So I think they'd advertised that it started at six, but it actually started at eight.
Penny: [00:13:56] Oh, that's a long time.
Christina: [00:13:59] By the time we arrived, everyone was pretty intoxicated and not many people were wearing shoes. Like it was quite an intense experience. So it was a mining town of some sorts. A lot of men had been on Bundy and Coke for a very long time. And it was, there was that.
Penny: [00:14:17] they would have loved his stories about living a semi-rural life with the alpacas.
Christina: [00:14:20] Well, I think I was, I think I was pedaling my teacher gear and I really don't feel it connected with that audience. So I, from memory, I cut out quite a significant chunk because I just panicked and wanting to get off stage. For my own safety.
Penny: [00:14:37] Sorry. Oh dear. "Ms. Creighton is young in years, but old in experience". She was actually about 40 when this article was published, which I'm not saying is old, but she
Bonnie: [00:14:49] It's old for a comedian.
Penny: [00:14:50] Comedienne. "She made her stage debut at the age of six months"
Bonnie: [00:14:55] That's a baby.
Penny: [00:14:56] Hmm. Yeah cause her parents she goes into more detail in the next article, but her parents were stage people. I think our grandparents were as well.
Christina: [00:15:03] Shot out of a cannon.
Penny: [00:15:05] She was.
Bonnie: [00:15:06] That's how she was born.
Penny: [00:15:09] "And has been playing parts ever since she learned to walk, she made her first appearance for Cinesound in 'Tall Timbers'. Her work in that film to earn her an important part in let George do it, which does a well-known comedian, George Wallace." Anyone here ever heard of George Wallace?
Bonnie: [00:15:26] Hang on. No.
Penny: [00:15:30] I thought we were going to get some gold.
Christina: He wasn't running your last tour.
Penny: I tried really hard to find some footage of Letty, but couldn't and like there's footage of 'Let George Do It', but it's mainly George showing off.
Christina: [00:15:44] Typical.
Penny: [00:15:45] It was a bit disappointing. I'll go on. There's also another article. So it's from the Sydney morning Herald.
Bonnie: [00:15:50] Oh, a review!
Christina: [00:15:53] I wonder if she desperately gathered people for review night. Guys, guys, I've got a reviewer coming.
Penny: [00:16:00] She should probably did. And I did, I did look for reviews of her and I tried to find things from Cairns and Tasmania of the failed tours, but I couldn't really. And I mainly found good reviews. Apparently she used to do very funny dance numbers and stuff.
Bonnie: [00:16:15] That's great.
Penny: [00:16:16] I think she was, you know, she was quite good. She was, she was working for a long time. Sydney morning Herald 21st of January, 1941. So this is three years later and it's called 'Letty Craydon's Varied Career'. "Letty made her first stage appearance age six months when she played the illegitimate child in a melodrama."
Christina: [00:16:37] Okay.
Penny: [00:16:38] And I also heard that when she was a baby, she used to play a character called the Baby Jackson. "And since then she has appeared in everything from a pantomime to drama. She is Letty Craydon the well-known Australian actress, who is at present appearing in Sydney, in the Minerva Theater in 'Reunion in Vienna'." So she's always plugging something when she's doing these interviews, which is pretty common, isn't it? So she had 'Let George Do It'. And now she's in 'Reunion in Vienna'. So she's doing a bit of PR. "Miss Craydon's parents and grandparents were on the stage. And as she explains, I grew up inhaling, grease, paint, and powder and sleeping in a wardrobe basket."
Bonnie: [00:17:15] That's something that has changed. We don't do that as much now, sleep in wardrobes. Oh, no. There is a venue actually in Sydney.
Penny: [00:17:25] I take it back.
Bonnie: [00:17:27] a=And, I won't say which one, but there is a venue where the, the guy that owns the club. He's just got a, a mattress out the back. So there's this, there's a side bit for comics. And then there's a side bit where his office is, where there's a desk and that's where we go for meetings, if there's any business to be done. And there's also a mattress there.
Penny: [00:17:50] And if he has kids, he'll just open up the cupboard and pop them in.
Bonnie: [00:17:55] Pop one in. And he might have one out there. There's a animal that roams around as well. So,
Penny: [00:18:01] So it's a full home with a pet and everything.
Christina: [00:18:05] What about that little venue that's not too far from here that we performed at? They,
Penny: [00:18:09] Oh, that's not
Christina: [00:18:10] There were people living there.
Penny: [00:18:12] That's not a theatre anymore.
Christina: [00:18:13] No, it probably shouldn't have been initially,
Penny: [00:18:17] It never should have been a theatre.
Christina: [00:18:17] But there was a room, like a bedroom where you got changed. It was very strange.
Penny: [00:18:21] Yeah, it was the guy's house. Like he was living in the upper floors. But like the bathroom was like his bathroom and he
Christina: [00:18:29] Yeah. And there was like toothbrushes in glasses and stuff.
Penny: [00:18:33] And it was so full of mold and gross, and it was just like, you're having visitors. Like people are paying
Christina: [00:18:40] No, just normal visitors, but ones who are paying,
Penny: [00:18:43] It's really
Christina: [00:18:44] I get in a panic if my parents are coming over and I make a real effort.
Penny: [00:18:48] Imagine if your parents were paying.
Christina: [00:18:49] Yeah. Imagine if they paid I'd I'd probably do even more.
Bonnie: [00:18:52] I actually think that these articles could have been written very recently.
Penny: [00:18:58] Quite contemporaneously. I mean, it's what, 80 years ago. But.
Christina: [00:19:00] Nothing's changed.
Penny: [00:19:01] "Letty's grandparents were the Braileys of Brailey's dramatic company and her father was part of the dancing team of Delore Craydon and Holland. He married the soubrette of the company, Ady Barton."
Bonnie: [00:19:18] What's a soubrette?
Penny: [00:19:19] I'm so glad to ask. And do you know, I know this. A soubrette is, well, sometimes it just gets defined as a female comedic role, but it's, it actually means maid, I think originally. And so it was like in a lot of operas, there's this character of a maid who's sort of young and perky and usually funny. So now they don't, it doesn't have to be a maid now, but it often is. Okay "At the age of 21 Letty was acting with her mother in character sketches."
Bonnie: [00:19:45] Oh, God penny. Imagine that.
Penny: [00:19:47] God. If we were 21 with our mum doing characters,
Christina: [00:19:50] Yeah. Well, you're both performing.
Penny: [00:19:52] "The fights it'd be terrible. She appeared at the end of her mother's performances and gave a miniature impression of the proceeding sketches." Now at the age of 21, this is a moment where I feel like I need to go back and check the actual because I've got the text here of the article. Do they mean the age of 21 months?
Christina: [00:20:11] Surely not.
Bonnie: [00:20:12] Yeah, that would be cute to have a little kid,
Christina: [00:20:15] But they're not even two, they're not really capable of much.
Bonnie: [00:20:19] This is Letty.
Christina: [00:20:20] Yeah. True. And she was shot out of a cannon at six months.
Penny: [00:20:25] And out of her mother's vagina even earlier onto the stage.
Christina: They sold tickets to that event.
Penny: And she flew through the air. Put her little arms out and a little tutu came up
Christina: [00:20:37] Yeah. Yeah. And she shimmied in.
Penny: [00:20:39] Yeah. That's right.
Bonnie: [00:20:42] Onto the tour bus,
Christina: [00:20:45] Wipe off the placenta. Get on board.
Penny: [00:20:50] So let's just assume that she wasn't 21. She was like a toddler or something. Okay. She said "Mother used to teach me my dialogue by repeating it to me during my afternoon rests. Instead of telling me stories."
Christina: [00:21:04] Do you know that reminds me, I read a thing once about Shirley Temple. And apparently, obviously she was a genius, but it used to drive her adult co-stars crazy because she'd only be told what she had to say once. And she'd remember. And so then she'd just be leaping around all over the place, waiting for the adults to catch up.
Penny: [00:21:25] She, I love, Shirley Temple. She, as an adult was an amazing woman. I probably don't agree with a lot of her politics, but she did a lot of work for, patient rights because she had breast cancer and in the olden days what they used to do so if a woman had breast cancer, they didn't like to talk about it much and tell her what was going on, because that would be upsetting. And so they just used to say, Oh, we're just going to, you're going to have a little operation and we're just going to have a little look at your breasts and then she'd wake up and they would have chopped them off.
Christina: [00:21:54] Oh my God.
Bonnie: [00:21:55] That's not distressing.
Penny: [00:21:57] Yeah, no, not at all. It's much better than he having to listen to a doctor. You can't understand yabba, yabba science, talk at you, you don't want that. Anyway.
So she was quite like, it was very unusual to talk about having cancer and breast cancer at that time, but she like talked about it and like advocated and for women to, you know, be told and have the right to decide what treatment they wanted. It was great. And very clever and cute hair when she was younger
Christina: [00:22:26] Great hair. Just a difficult transition to being a teen actor.
Penny: [00:22:30] Oh, that was gross when she was like kissing Cary Grant and stuff.
Christina: [00:22:33] Not okay.
Penny: [00:22:35] Okay. So we're back to Letty being sort of exploited as a child. We think. "From that age, I always appeared in comedy numbers. And even when I was a child performer with Pullers." Which was the name of the company. I assume.
Penny: [00:22:52] "I never liked the other children appeared in pretty numbers.
I was always a comedian."
Bonnie: [00:22:58] Yeah. Because you can't be attractive and funny.
Christina: [00:23:01] No. mutually exclusive.
Penny: [00:23:03] "I can remember that. My constant play was, when am I going to do a number in a pretty pink dress?" Do you dress up to go on stage Bonnie? No?
Bonnie: [00:23:12] No, I actually, I worry that like, it's stupid, but I don't like to wear a dress on stage because I think that it does people respond not as well.
Christina: [00:23:24] I always think because usually you're on a stage that's elevated and I just feel people could see up your dress.
Bonnie: [00:23:29] Not always the venues I'm performing don't always have a stage, which is good.
Christina: [00:23:36] Just keeping it real.
Penny: [00:23:39] "However, despite these heart burnings, Ms. Craydon admits that her vaudeville training was invaluable. When you're on the vaudeville stage, you have only yourself on whom to depend you develop the art of being able to ad-lib and gain much confidence, she said." Do either of you ad lib when you were doing.
Bonnie: [00:24:00] No, sometimes I heavily script, a, comical deviation, and then ask the audience a question that I know they're going to answer it in a certain way. And then
Christina: [00:24:13] Yeah, I've always tightly adhere to a script,
Penny: [00:24:17] Yes, so did I when I did it.
Christina: [00:24:19] I like the idea of free forming, but it is also alarming.
Bonnie: [00:24:24] I would say better comics can do it.
Penny: [00:24:27] Yeah, but God it's painful. Jeez, it's painful when a non-better comic has a crack and it doesn't,
Bonnie: [00:24:35] Well, every now and then I'd think, I should have a go. And then I realize why I don't have it go.
Christina: [00:24:42] I remember going to a horrific, horrific or audition years and years ago in Sydney for some American comedy show, like 'The Last Comic Standing'. And you had to be tapped on the shoulder to go to the audition. So are you like, Oh, they must think I'm okay to go. And I had my, you know, tightly scripted routine and I launched into it and a guy who is there to run the auditions, like just stopped me. He's like, 'What's that?' 'That's my routine.' 'Okay, you're going to need to do something different' 'I don't have anything different'. He's like 'Look around the room, look around the room for inspiration and go.' And I had, and
Bonnie: Oh my god. What a nightmare.
Penny: [00:25:29] I would have just gone 'I feel very sick' and just ran out of the room.
Christina: [00:25:31] I tried to make some stupid comment about the carpet. And he's like 'No! No! Not like that.' Then I started to talk about because there was a bar at the back and he's just like, 'No, okay. This is not your time. Not your time.' It was the most humiliating experience. And there were all these other comics standing there.
Bonnie: [00:25:55] But that's brilliant because Americans are normally so positive and I don't trust anything they say, because they say everything's great. So God, you must've
Christina: [00:26:01] 'Not your time. Just what are you doing? What is that?'
Bonnie: [00:26:06] Not your time. But even so that's so polite. It's not like your shit. It's like not today.
Christina: [00:26:13] It was implied. I was, I had booked for another night of accommodation in Sydney and I moved my flight forward to that afternoon. Just wanted to go.
Bonnie: [00:26:22] You didn't want to go to the zoo or anything?
Christina: [00:26:24] No, I was done. No Taronga was going to fix that.
Penny: [00:26:28] Okay. Now "From vaudeville Miss Craydon went to panto mime. No it's just pantomime Penny. It's just, you know, that used to hyphenate a whole lot of stuff that now is just one word. And musical comedy and among the musical shows in which he has appeared, 'Good news', 'Archie', 'Mercenary Mary' and 'Sonny'. And I'm sure they were very good.
Christina: [00:26:49] 'Mercenary Mary's' a winner.
Penny: [00:26:50] Yeah. She sounds like a bitch.
Bonnie: [00:26:52] Doesn't sound very funny.
Penny: [00:26:55] But when you say Letty do it though.
Christina: [00:26:56] Yeah, yeah. With that vaudeville background.
Penny: [00:26:59] She doesn't like a litle dance. "She has actually written a pantomime 'Sinbad, the Sailor', which has been produced in Sydney and also an original panto, 'The Wishing Egg'.
Christina: [00:27:11] Sounds a bit based on Enid Blyton's 'The Wishing Chair'.
Penny: [00:27:14] You sit on it and.
Christina: [00:27:16] and go places.
Bonnie: [00:27:19] Was she famous?
Penny: [00:27:22] I'd say yeah, in that time she was reasonably famous. Like, well, no, not famous. I wouldn't say famous, but like, sort of well-known like, if you imagine a sort of a B grade, I don't know, would she, she wouldn't have been on 'Ahn Do's Brush with Fame'. I don't think she's that level.
Bonnie: [00:27:38] But maybe on 'I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here'. Yeah. Cause I'm a bit worried that she seems to be doing everything and most people that do that, do everything quite badly. Like she's a writer, she's an actor. She's doing drama, Panto comedy, dance.
Christina: [00:27:53] She'd probably do a podcast.
Penny: [00:27:54] She'd have a podcast.
Christina: [00:27:56] Yeah.
Penny: [00:27:58] I'll get okay to that. She does radio, but I mean, it is quite common. Like most people don't just perform on the stage. Do you like how many Australian comedians would there be making their income from? Well, not last year, not at the moment.
Bonnie: [00:28:09] not
Penny: [00:28:09] but even normally
Bonnie: [00:28:11] Yeah not many.
Penny: [00:28:12] Hardly anyone's making money from performing on stage. Yeah, like not, not that many people are doing radio television film, vaudeville.
Bonnie: [00:28:22] Not many people nowadays doing vaudeville.
Christina: [00:28:24] Yeah. It's really dropped off the table.
Penny: [00:28:26] I feel like people are missing a trick.
Christina: [00:28:28] Next year's comedy festival.
Bonnie: [00:28:31] Next year's vaudeville festival.
Christina: [00:28:33] The Tangey Vaudeville Show.
Penny: [00:28:35] Let's start a Vaudeville Festival.
Bonnie: [00:28:37] I don't even know what it means, but I'm in.
Christina: [00:28:39] Yeah. I don't either. I've got no visual at all, but I'm into it.
Penny: [00:28:43] I'll get Lincoln to like buy a cannon.
Bonnie: [00:28:45] Yeah.
Christina: [00:28:46] Excellent. Excellent.
Penny: [00:28:48] Okay. "Miss Craydon has written numerous sketches for our husband, Ron Shand." Ron Shand is often known as Ron "Whacko" Shand.
Penny: [00:28:59] I'm going to show you a photo of Ron and Letty together. I got one down the bottom.
Christina: [00:29:02] Classic. Whacko.
Penny: [00:29:04] And it's a bit of a, like, I'm really happy for. There they are. Like, she's a bit older
Bonnie: Oh wow.
Christina: [00:29:11] I thought she would be.
Penny: [00:29:12] Well, she's, you know, that's obviously in the later, in the later years she looks like a really nice sort of grandmotherly figure. She, she looks like she could be on a, on a biscuit packet.
Bonnie: [00:29:22] They do sound like they're on a breakfast radio though.
Penny: [00:29:26] Oh, yeah. Letty and Ron "Whacko" Shand. And Letty's just like, 'Oh, Ron! Stop it!'
Bonnie: [00:29:33] They've got matching tattoos. 6:00 AM tattoos.
Penny: [00:29:38] 'Oh Ron, you can't say that.' But I know when you hear Ron Whacko Shand you think Oh, who's this guy, but actually this guy is really nice and her first husband, there was a nasty divorce, which I wasn't actually going to read that letter, that, that article out. But, there's quite a lot of detail. And Letty and friends caught him in the act. They, they set up a bit of a sting and. Well, yeah, they, they basically followed him and he, he took a young lady from the theater home. He said he was working late.
Christina: [00:30:12] Wow.
Bonnie: [00:30:13] From the theatre too, that hurts in your place of work.
Penny: [00:30:16] He owned.
Christina: [00:30:17] Even if it is vaudeville.
Bonnie: [00:30:18] If my husband took someone to a comedy show and, Oh, that would hurt more than,
Penny: [00:30:25] And he owned, he owned a theater. And what was his name? His name was Frederick Veer Grouse. And he was carrying on with someone called Lily Smith, a girl employed at the same theater. And so he told her he was playing cards.
Bonnie: [00:30:41] They might've played cards.
Christina: [00:30:44] More like poker.
Penny: [00:30:46] And so, yeah. And in those days when someone got divorced, I had to have a reason. Well, yeah. And she had to prove that he was cheating on her. So that's
Christina: [00:30:54] So had all the witnesses.
Penny: [00:30:55] And then it all comes out in court and, And they, they get to talk about it. And then I think Letty actually attacked the woman, which I think is not right. Cause you know, she's, she's not the cheater.
Bonnie: [00:31:06] It's not her fault.
Penny: [00:31:07] Exactly.
Christina: [00:31:07] Attack the man.
Penny: [00:31:09] Young Lily
Bonnie: [00:31:10] Well maybe, maybe not don't resort to violence.
Penny: [00:31:12] At all. Yeah.
Bonnie: [00:31:14] Just tear them to shreds in court.
Penny: [00:31:17] Just tear them to shreds and court and just say, well, this is disappointing because we'd made promises and I was,
Christina: [00:31:23] I'm really disappointed
Penny: [00:31:24] Yeah, I might've made different decisions if you'd been honest and said that you were going to keep saying other people,
Christina: [00:31:30] Yeah. Yeah,
Penny: [00:31:32] But that's not how she handled it. And there was a bit of a fight and a bit of a scrap. And then I looked up Frederick Veer Grouse though. Cause he was a man working in the theater as well and I wondered, you know, did she cross paths with him again? No other articles about him.
Bonnie: [00:31:50] He said nobody!
Penny: [00:31:51] There's heaps on Letty. Nothing on him. And lots on Whacko Shand as well.
Penny: [00:31:58] So anyway, so that was a bit of a diversion.
Okay. So "Miss Craydon has written numerous sketches for our husband, Ron Shand, who was appearing in the pantomime 'Cinderella' at the Tivoli. And she wrote the extremely catching numbers sung by Yvonne Ban Vard in the review 'Let's Be In Timate'. Intimate.
Christina: [00:32:19] wow. That escalated quickly
Bonnie: [00:32:22] This is raunchy stuff.
Penny: [00:32:23] I know. "At the Minerva Theater, these included the tango slow tempo and the swing numbers, 'Fun and Games', 'Looking at your Photo' and 'You'll Find Out'. I have written literally hundreds of tunes. So she's like a, yeah, she's also like a musical comedian as well. What do we call them?
Bonnie: [00:32:45] Oh, musical comedians. Or shit.
Christina: [00:32:50] TThere's a lot of people that just think, 'Hey, I'm not really that funny, but if I add a guitar, maybe, maybe I can get this across the line.'
Bonnie: A ukulele please!
Penny: [00:32:59] And you get to repeat the same joke over and over in the chorus.
Christina: [00:33:02] Yeah. And you can keep performing that song at multiple venues and everyone thinks that's okay.
Bonnie: [00:33:07] And they will clap at the end.
Penny: [00:33:09] Yeah, they will. You're going to get a mid performance clap,
Bonnie: [00:33:12] I've got a joke like that, where it just forces them to clap, even if they don't find it funny.
Christina: [00:33:16] Yeah. I think it's good to force people to interact and look like they're having a good time. Yeah.
Bonnie: [00:33:23] It's good for the photos as well, because they can't tell what, what
Penny: [00:33:26] Why. Yeah. Excellent.
Bonnie: [00:33:29] A peek behind the curtain there.
Penny: [00:33:31] Yeah, how to this podcast, isn't it. More of a little guide. Okay. "I have written literally hundreds of tunes said Miss Craydon. Sometimes I think of a good tune first and then write the words to accompany it. And other times I hear a phrase which I think would make a good line in a song."
Bonnie: [00:33:51] See musician shouldn't talk. Very dull.
Penny: [00:33:54] That's right. "Writing for the radio is another of Miss Craydon's accomplishments. She wrote the Darby and Joan series and produce series
Christina: [00:34:03] I feel that's really well known.
Penny: [00:34:04] "series produced by George Edwards. She has also written supplementary dialogue for the plays 'Busman's Honeymoon' in which she played in New Zealand and 'Banana Ridge', which was produced recently at the Theater Royal. 'Frank Bradley needed three more minutes in which to make a change. And I had to write sufficient dialogue for this period. I hope Ben, Travis won't mind.' She said of 'Banana Ridge'."
Bonnie: [00:34:30] I didn't understand the three minutes to make a change. Oh. To get changed. A costume change so she's written the monologue.
Penny: [00:34:36] She's written something. And I think Ben Travis must've been the original playwright of 'Banana Ridge', that well-known play. Miss Craydon has done a lot of radio work and is well-known to 'Fred and Maggie, Everybody' fans.
Bonnie: [00:34:54] Is it like Only Fans? What is it?
Penny: [00:34:56] 'Fred and Maggie, Everybody'. That must have been the show. "As for the past two years, she has played the role of Maisy in this series. And she says, radio work is really bothered difficult that Miss Craydon, you have to rely solely on your voice for your effects.
Bonnie: [00:35:15] (Braying sound.) and we should know it took a good hour to set up these microphones. I mean, we didn't do it. No.
Penny: [00:35:20] No.
Christina: [00:35:20] A lot of the physical comedy I've been doing throughout the podcast has been solely missed by listening.
Penny: [00:35:26] People don't know this, but I've done a lot of dancing today.
Christina: [00:35:30] Yeah. You really have.
Penny: [00:35:31] And if I read this article more carefully beforehand, I wouldn't have bothered.
Christina: [00:35:34] I wasn't sure why we had to spend three hours in hair and makeup before the podcast, but.
Penny: [00:35:40] We'll take a photo afterward.
Christina: [00:35:40] Yeah. Great.
Penny: [00:35:43] "On the stage if you sound slightly Irish, and look and look tremendously so"
Bonnie: [00:35:54] One eighth Irish.
Penny: [00:35:55] "Sound slightly Irish and look tremendously so". So how are you looking tremendously Irish? Red hair.
Bonnie: [00:36:01] I think hair gel.
Christina: [00:36:04] Green eyes.
Penny: [00:36:05] Couple of shamrocks
Christina: [00:36:06] You're dancing an Irish dance slamming down Guinness.
Bonnie: [00:36:11] Maybe on a pony.
Penny: [00:36:14] So, "and you look tremendously so, you get away with an Irish characterization." Or, a racist stereotype.
Christina: Either or.
Bonnie: [00:36:24] Yeah, but that's the whole thing if you are Irish, you're allowed to say it. So I think that's what she's getting at it.
Christina: [00:36:32] In a subtle roundabout way.
Penny: [00:36:33] think she's saying, you know, you can play any character. And then she goes on the radio you have to sound exactly like an Irish woman.
Christina: [00:36:43] She's clever.
Bonnie: [00:36:44] Yeah. You can't get the accent a bit wrong.
Penny: [00:36:47] And you can't just wear a hat
Christina: [00:36:49] Yeah.
Penny: [00:36:50] And go
Bonnie: [00:36:50] Yeah. Or as I've done before with the character just had a t-shirt that says 'I am an alien'. It really, really cuts down on the character work.
Christina: [00:37:00] You don't even have to do as much prep.
Penny: [00:37:01] Yeah. And that's the beauty of the stage you wouldn't get away with that I'm in radio. "Film work also has its disadvantages said Miss Craydon, who has acted in six Cinesound productions and in 'Seven Little Australians'." She wasn't one of the little Australians. So she was a bit older I think.
Christina: [00:37:18] It was
Bonnie: [00:37:18] She could, she could play one of the Irish.
Christina: [00:37:20] Yeah.
Penny: [00:37:22] This is more of a tip for you all "Frequently the scenes are not shot in rotation, and it is hard to remember what your reaction should be to the person with whom you were acting. You find yourself asking. Did I hate him in the last scene or were we getting along famously? For this reason I find that film acting becomes a bit mechanical.
You were told by the director to express loathing and discontent. So you promptly exude these doubtful qualities. In a stage play as the story unfolds so you unfold with it.
Christina: [00:37:55] That's a powerful metaphor.
Bonnie: [00:37:57] So I can't act, so I can't relate.
Penny: [00:37:58] Oh, but you went to acting school,
Bonnie: [00:38:01] did. And I should sue them.
Penny: [00:38:06] But have you found your acting, does that help you in your current work, your acting experience?
Bonnie: [00:38:11] keep getting auditions for things. I keep getting turned away.
Penny: [00:38:16] Oh, but you got that, that ad. What was it for?
Bonnie: [00:38:20] For My Car Tyre and Auto. I got, I got that because the director thought I was funny, not because I could act.
Penny: [00:38:27] What about that one where you were so funny falling off the exercise bike?
Bonnie: [00:38:31] Well, they always say that they want comedians, but they actually want someone who can act.
Penny: [00:38:38] It's confusing for everyone, isn't it? But jeez they enjoyed it though.
Bonnie: [00:38:42] Oh, they
Penny: [00:38:43] Bonnie had an audition and she was on an exercise bike. And what
Bonnie: [00:38:46] Oh, it wasn't even a real bike. It was just on a chair.
Penny: [00:38:48] Oh my God. I've always imagined that you
Bonnie: [00:38:51] That was the brilliance of it. And then the man did laugh a lot. And now in hindsight, I think too much. Like, I don't think that he was
Christina: [00:38:59] He felt sorry for you.
Bonnie: [00:38:59] It wasn't like, she's brilliant. It's like, I can't believe this is happening.
Christina: [00:39:03] Yeah. Can someone remove her?
Penny: [00:39:06] What he was supposed to be doing?
Bonnie: [00:39:11] I told you can't impro. I didn't just go in there. No, I was told to,
Penny: [00:39:15] tT pretend,
Bonnie: [00:39:16] Yeah, I can't remember. It was for, a low carb beer, I think. Oh, I think it was, so it was one of those stupid, I didn't like the concept of it. It's like you won't have to exercise as much. Yeah. So it was probably good I didn't get that one. But Letty's, right.
It's difficult.
Penny: [00:39:33] Okay. "She was playing the role of the dame in 'Sinbad the Sailor'. 'Usually pantomime Dames are played by men, but I was the exception. I had to turn myself into a sort of boy clown and didn't enjoy the experience very much. My favorite roles are widely contrasted. They are Edith in 'The Women' and Topsy in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'." Oh, this is nice. "Miss Craydon's hobbies are knitting and animals. At the moment. She has three dogs and a gray Persian cat named Silver."
Christina: [00:40:01] And they all wear jumpers knitted by Letty.
Penny: [00:40:06] Oh lovely. "Her past pets have included sundry dogs, birds in a pig called Little Audrey."
Christina: [00:40:12] Oh no, I can relate.
Penny: [00:40:14] Christina owns a pig.
Christina: [00:40:15] And a cat called Audrey. So.
Penny: [00:40:19] Is this a bit spooky?
Christina: I am Letty.
Penny: Okay. "Audrey appeared with me in a pantomime some years ago. And when the show was finished, I said to the producer, what is to become Audrey. I expect she'll go to," I'm doing a voice now." I expect she will go to the nearest butcher, he replied. This was too much for me so I claimed
Christina: [00:40:44] I like Letty
Penny: [00:40:45] Yeah, no, this is exactly
Christina: [00:40:46] This is actually me. Yeah. This is me. I'm told a sob story and I'm on board.
Penny: [00:40:52] "This was too much for me so I claimed Audrey on the spot and she lived with me for many months until she turned into a horse. And created havoc in the place with her sturdy borrowings and fence breakings." I think she means that she just got bigger. As far as I'm aware
Christina: [00:41:09] She didn't transition into a horse
Penny: [00:41:11] it's not the case that in the olden days, pigs used to turn into horses.
Christina: [00:41:15] No, I don't think so.
Penny: [00:41:16] "Now she is married and living in the country trying to forget the glamor of the footlights."
Christina: [00:41:21] Oh, I thought you meant the pig was
Penny: [00:41:23] No, no, I think, no, I think that's
Bonnie: [00:41:25] pig went to the butcher.
Christina: [00:41:26] Oh, okay.
Penny: [00:41:27] Well, no, she's married and living in the country.
Bonnie: [00:41:29] The pig?
Christina: Audrey?
Penny: Yeah.
Bonnie: I think it was probably an arranged marriage, which is questionable.
Christina: [00:41:36] To a real boar.
Bonnie: [00:41:37] Yeah. Good one!
Penny: [00:41:40] "Among Miss Craydon's most interesting experiences has been acting in tent shows and country tours of Australia and in a tiny hall at the Frans Josef Glacier in New Zealand.
Bonnie: Oh we've been there, Pen.
Christina: [00:41:53] Oh, I've been there too. We were there same.
Penny: [00:41:57] We were in New Zealand at the same time, the South Island, we meet up in Queenstown.
Christina: [00:42:01] Bonnie remembers it fondly.
Bonnie: [00:42:05] To be fair, we were at a lot of breweries.
Penny: [00:42:07] And you were 14. I was terrified on that glacier.
Christina: [00:42:13] I don't remember my emotions..
Bonnie: [00:42:14] And you didn't even have a gig
Penny: [00:42:16] Exactly exactly.
Christina: [00:42:19] Is that the one that you hike on? I got really into that.
Penny: [00:42:21] Oh, I mean, it was great, but I was really scared of falling and slipping to my death.
Christina: [00:42:25] I felt really, really brave in New Zealand. Like I didn't do bungee jumping, but I felt you did and I've seen the footage cause you groped the guy and then you fall off.
Bonnie: [00:42:36] You literally groped the crutch of the instructor.
Christina: [00:42:39] And then you're so mortified you committed to the bungee.
Penny: [00:42:42] No, I had no idea I was doing that.
Christina: [00:42:44] I don't believe, I just can't believe you did it.
Penny: [00:42:47] I can't believe I did it either. Like it was, it was like that moment. Like, you really don't know whether he actually going jump.
Bonnie: [00:42:51] Yeah. Cause she doesn't like touching people.
Christina: [00:42:53] I would know because I would not have jumped.
Bonnie: [00:42:56] I didn't do it.
Christina: [00:42:57] I would have had to shuffle back.
Penny: [00:42:58] He just, he didn't push me
Christina: He did emotionally though.
Penny: I saw him push someone else, but he didn't push me, but he, they just stand really close to you. And it's just this sort of impetus that, you know
Christina: [00:43:13] Imagine having that job. I'd be petrified, just standing there, pushing people. What if you get taken down with them?
Penny: [00:43:19] Oh, he's wearing a bungee.
Christina: [00:43:21] But
Penny: [00:43:22] even so like,
Christina: [00:43:23] You wouldn't want to surprise bungee.
Penny: [00:43:24] What would I do on the way down if I'm groping about the top.
Bonnie: [00:43:29] But also so annoying, you're waiting for people and it's nearly lunchtime.
Penny: [00:43:33] yeah, God and I
Christina: [00:43:35] And once you've done something a few times. It's not scary. Just get on with it.
Bonnie: It's not that hard.
Christina: It's like the top, you know, diving tower or something.
Penny: [00:43:44] I mean, it is absolutely terrifying, but the moment when the cord works and you're like, it's just the best feeling because you're like, Oh, I'm not going to die.
Bonnie: [00:43:55] You are going to prison though, because of your inappropriate touching.
Penny: [00:43:58] That's right. I didn't know. Yeah. And I swore a lot.
Christina: [00:44:03] Yeah, you did. I've seen the video. It's great.
Penny: [00:44:06] There were like families nearby.
Christina: [00:44:08] Well, that's a risk they take.
Penny: [00:44:10] Okay. "'Tent shows are really remarkable,' she said. 'They take place in country towns at show time. And sometimes there are five or six different tent shows in one small town each show.'"
Christina: [00:44:20] Sounds like the start at the fringe festival.
Penny: [00:44:24] "Each show has its own amplifying system and band and the noise is terrific." Remember in the olden days, terrific meant big not good. "'The tents, which are oblong in shape are equipped with a proper stage wings and dressing rooms and the aisles are covered with carpet', she said."
Bonnie: [00:44:45] Sounds really good.
Christina: [00:44:46] Yeah, I think that's what Comedy Festival needs to go back to. Everyone gets their own tent and erects at wherever they feel like.
Penny: [00:44:54] So much cheaper. And you know what, for disabled access.
Christina: [00:44:57] Just open the flap.
Penny: [00:44:59] Exactly. It's going to be so much better than putting it in some, you know old bar up three flights of stairs.
Christina: I think we're onto something.
Penny: Well, they'll be listening. It's funny cause they won't.
Bonnie: [00:45:15] Cause no one will.
Penny: [00:45:18] It's an oral history project, everybody.
Christina: [00:45:21] Your mum will read the transcript and so will mine.
Penny: [00:45:24] "At the Franz Joseph Glacier where Ms. Craydon and her husband", that's Ron Whacko Shand were traveling with their Gloom Chasers company." I don't know why they chose that name.
Bonnie: [00:45:37] Chasing away the glooms with the laughs..
Penny: [00:45:39] Oh, right.
Christina: [00:45:40] I thought that was hunting down the gloom.
Bonnie: [00:45:42] Oh, well, I didn't know it wasn't there.
Penny: [00:45:44] "They were asked to give a special performance in the local hall when they got there they discovered to their horror that the hall possessed no stage and the members of the company had to set to and build one as best they could." Now you were saying before though, Bon, that these days, you don't bother. If there's no stage there's no stage.
Bonnie: [00:46:03] Well, I can't make a stage. I might watch someone else pop something together.
Penny: [00:46:09] You'd be like, 'Does anyone want coffee?'
Bonnie: [00:46:13] Often we don't have a stage. Yeah that's a thing. Is that a new thing?
Penny: [00:46:19] Wow. Yeah well in these days days, if you didn't have a stage, you were quelle horror.
Bonnie: [00:46:23] No, no, no. I honestly think the standards have dropped. I rarely have carpet.
Christina: Very rarely. Just a space.
Penny: [00:46:28] So the improvements are that you're very rarely left in Cairns by yourself with no money and no way of getting home, but there's no carpet and there's
Bonnie: [00:46:41] But actually, if I was doing gigs in Cairns often I'd be responsible for my own travel. So yep, I'd say I could get stuck in Cairns.
Penny: [00:46:49] These are the golden days of showbiz. "'I can't hear Franz Josef, the Emperor of Austria, being mentioned in 'Reunion in Vienna' without remembering that occasion,' said Miss Craydon."
Bonnie: And that's just daily!
Penny: But what a pro she is, because at the end of the interview, she has brought it back to the show that she's plugging. And it's very tangential, but she's done it. She's like, and remember, I'm appearing in 'Reunion in Vienna'.
Bonnie: [00:47:16] I can't do that. Even when I do have something to plug and I'm like, and I've I've, if I've had a brilliant gig, the crowd loves me. They want more, I'll still walk off and not tell them that I've got a show coming up.
Christina: [00:47:28] No, they can Google you.
Penny: [00:47:29] Actually, do you want to plug your show coming up now, Bon?
Christina: [00:47:31] Come on.
Bonnie: [00:47:32] Mum and Dad already know. Your mum doesn't know Christina.
Christina: [00:47:37] My parents would love to support you.
Bonnie: What's your mum's name?
Christina: Alison
Bonnie: [00:47:40] Hi, Alison. I don't know where you live, but I've got a show in Sydney in the Sydney Comedy Festival coming up.
Christina: They could get flights.
Bonnie: I, to be fair, I don't think it's worth a flight, but if you're already in Sydney.
Penny: [00:47:53] Yeah. If you were going,
Bonnie: [00:47:54] Pop by at the Enmore Theater.
Penny: [00:47:56] going to the zoo Taronga Zoo is there as well. And what dates?
Bonnie: [00:48:00] Oh, 23rd to the 25th of April.
Christina: [00:48:03] Small window.
Bonnie: [00:48:04] Yeah. That's what we do in Sydney. They, they, they only do a
Penny: [00:48:07] It's not like in Melbourne where it's like three and a half weeks of suffering.
Bonnie: [00:48:10] Yeah, no, it's nothing like that.
Christina: [00:48:12] Getting every virus under the sun in that three and a half week period.
Penny: [00:48:16] Oh my God. And I can remember a couple of occasions. There was a comedian who I really liked and I found him very funny, but he did a show that was just a bit too weird, I think. And it was on at the same time as my show so I never got to see it, but he was not getting an audience, but he just had to keep going and I would see him every night out the front flyering, just getting gloomier and gloomier.
Bonnie: [00:48:38] How many people would go?
Penny: [00:48:40] You know, like four. If he had 10, that was great.
Christina: [00:48:44] Well, I remember doing one, one of my shows one time at the Town Hall and it was just mortifying. I had an audience one night of four and two of them didn't speak English. So they were backpackers and they sat right at the front with their feet up on the stage. And I was so drunk. They couldn't even,
Bonnie: [00:49:05] And you still did the show?
Christina: [00:49:06] And it was really, really hard.
Penny: [00:49:10] Yeah, because there's that whole kind of like culture that if there's more audience members and performers and you have to do it and
Christina: [00:49:18] I really wanted to bail on that.
Penny: [00:49:21] Yeah. It's sort of dumb. Like you
Bonnie: [00:49:22] I think it's, I often now won't I will, if it's socially acceptable to back out, I will. If there's less than 10 people, I don't want to do it. Cause I don't think the audience wants to sit there. They're only sitting there because to be polite.
Christina: [00:49:37] Well, and then be obliged to laugh.
Bonnie: [00:49:39] It's awkward for everyone. No one wants that. Nah.
Penny: [00:49:42] Yeah. And so you just like check if anyone wants a game of Uno, or something and if not, just go home. Okay. So this is the end of the article and it just ends by saying "So long Letty." And, that's it.
Christina: [00:49:52] I really expected more from the end.
Penny: [00:49:54] Yeah. Well, it was fine. It's got a lot of detail about Letty's life in there.
Bonnie: [00:49:58] Oh, was that a eulogy?
Penny: [00:50:00] No, she, this is 1941.
Bonnie: Well is she dead? I'm confused.
Christina: She's dead now.
Penny: She was there was an interview that she was giving, talking about her life, but really plugging, whatever it was in Vienna.
Christina: [00:50:11] It would be weird if she plugged a show in her eulogy,
Penny: [00:50:15] That'll probably be the only time you do it, Bon.
Bonnie: [00:50:17] All right.
Penny: [00:50:20] Here's a note from Bonnie
Bonnie: [00:50:20] If I die, pop a video on of my Raw set.
Penny: [00:50:27] And you might be wondering, Letty died in 1966. So she was only in her sixties. So that, yeah, that was Letty. And so thanks Bonnie very much for coming in and telling us about your comedy experiences and really how well things have changed and quite frankly, they've got worse in the industry.
Christina: [00:50:45] Yeah. Let's go back to everyone having their own tents.
Bonnie: [00:50:48] Yeah. Thank you. I've really enjoyed it. I'm learning about Letty.
Penny: [00:50:52] Thanks, Christina.
Christina: [00:50:52] Thanks
Penny: [00:50:53] Let's go home when I say home. I mean, lunch.
(piano music)