by Catherine Blanch.
The lads of musical comedy group Tripod have been slowly working their way in to the world of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. 2012 saw them performing in the Banquet Room with Men Of Substance, and earlier this week with Perfect Tripod in the Festival Theatre with cabaret stalwart Eddie Perfect. Yon (Simon Hall) – the not tallest one of the group has also been spending time writing his own stand-up show to share with unsuspecting audiences. Previously called Mandaddy, The Clothesline are happy to be speaking with Yon about his show filled with funny songs about sex: Yon And His Prism Of Sexy Thoughts. He begins by telling us why he loves performing at the Cabaret Festival.
“You get treated really well and you don’t feel like you’re scrapping it out with hundreds of other acts at comedy festivals; it’s really lovely.”
No one thinks you’re leaving Tripod, but what was the decision to do a solo show?
“It was a combination of things,” Yon replies. “I’d been accumulating ideas over the years that perhaps weren’t appropriate to Tripod – stuff that was more about me in a deep dark kind of way. I don’t know what it is but sometime my mind goes to places that Tripod doesn’t want to! Occasionally we might to the odd ribald material, but I just felt that I kept presenting to guys to do things that they didn’t think appropriate, so I started figuring I’d do my own show.
“At the same time, I had always wondered about doing stand up. I’ve done a few here and there – some went well, most of it was sex-based,” he adds. “Then, I had a mid-life crisis-type thing; hard times with family, the inevitable thing when a man has children and the adjustments I had to make; it all fed in to thoughts of doing my own show… and it was really fun to do!”
You’ve written all of the songs yourself, so tell us about a few of them.
“There’s one song about wanting to be with a really tiny woman – really really small, so as to make me feel really powerful.”
Well, you are kind of short-statured yourself, aren’t you!
“Ah, yes!” Yon agrees. “There’s another about tiny acts of chivalry and how they can add up to getting to have sex with someone.”
Is that pity sex? Or hero sex?
“Ha! No, I think it’s more the idea of just chipping away at someone and having this weird belief deep down inside that every time you do something nice for a hot chick that it might, somewhere in the future, add up to having sex with them.”
Do you feel like you’ve watched too much porn in your life? Do you order pizza and wait for the girl to deliver your pizza… and then have sex with you?
“Ummm…” he laughs. “It’s very hard to know where porn ends and other things begin. I can’t say but I’d like to think that it’s an age-old thing that goes on in men’s minds – not that I’m speaking for any other men. All I can go by is the reaction that the song gets.
“With only 8 songs in the show, that leaves plenty of room for telling stories, so it couldn’t be any more cabaret – in its format,” Yon suggests. “Musically, however, we’ve got Nao Anzai on various keyboards and a really old drum machine, and Georgia Mooney on mandolin and piano and she also does a bit of singing. We’ve got a very special love duet that people should like.”
Have you done this show before?
“I started performing it at the end of 2011. That seems like ages ago,” he muses. “Because Tripod is my main thing, other projects happen over a really long periods, like Perfect Tripod and now this. I like it that way, though, because you get to pull your other projects out now and again and not get sick of them.”
You co-wrote this with Fiona Scott-Norman. How much of a part did she play?
“I started a whole lot of stuff that I had written (although some of the jokes may be hers), and she’s just great at making it all good, moving things around and creating structure – which is exactly what a good director/co-writer does. For some reason, in comedy, the director usually becomes the co-writer; it’s just the way it is.”
Does your brain constantly make songs – possibly smutty songs – out of innocent conversations with people?
“Yes,” Yon replies. “Sometimes it’s good, but it’s a tiring aspect of my brain that I’m listening in on conversations for potential ideas. Other times I tell myself to just be in the moment because there is that constant eye and ear looking for ideas. Honestly though, most of it s just deep dark things inside my own head, particularly some stuff in the songs that have come from things I’ve heard people say that has made me want to write about it.”
Being autobiographical, are people still going love you and think you’re a deviant?
“Some people have had trouble,” he imparts, “and they fall in to two categories: people who know me just as a person – family and friends, and then there are the Tripod fans who want to see me as the wide-eyed little fella from Tripod who kind of looks at the world with wonder.
“One friend told me it was just too depressing,” Yon says. “I think the real proper optimists have trouble with the show, but the thing that I love about the show is the blokes of the same age, with kids and who have gone through similar things come up to me and say that I have voiced so many of their feelings. I really did set out to write a show that I want to see, that would make me feel better by seeing it. Even just performing it makes me feel better because there are a whole pile of things that I’ve kept to myself all this time. It’s weird how it’s easier to say such personal things to a big audience.”
It’s not just men that question their lives after they have children and grow old.
“Absolutely!” he agrees. “There’s part of the show that probably speaks more to men but there’s one song called If My Kids Were My Girlfriend, I Would Have Broken Up With The By Now! The way that they treat me and the nature of the relationship, there is now way I would stay there with a girl. I’ve had a few mums come up to me and agree heartily with that sentiment!”
Yon has been a part of the Cabaret Festival travelling road-shows of five Festival performers, but not all of his performances got the desired reaction.
“A couple of weeks ago we played in Mt. Gambier,” he recalls. “When I looked out into the crowd it was all older people; my parents’ age. I knew instantly that I was just about to disappoint all of them. Some of them just stared straight ahead – not at me but straight ahead – and waited for it to all be over.
“I guess I like that it polarises people,” Yon adds, “because when they laugh, they really laugh. And then others just have trouble!”
What does your wife, Fiona, think if this show?
“She likes it and thinks it’s really good, but she has trouble watching it because there’s a lot of stuff about her in it; dark times that we’ve had that I talk about in the show. She’s come along three times – to be supportive – but I think she finds it a little too unpleasant. My parents haven’t seen it either; they don’t need to!”
And does she still love you after exposing her in that way?
“Yes!” Yon says, after a moment’s hesitation. “She has to! Fiona is a teacher and likes to write so I think she’s got something in the works. It’ll be her riposte.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“If people would like to get a sense of the show, they can find some of the songs online by going to Google, and type in Mandaddy and then Bandcamp, you’ll be able to play the album straight off the web.”
Yon And His Prism Of Sexy Thoughts performs at Artspace at various times from Wed Jun 11 until Fri Jun 13.
Book at BASS on 131 246 and www.bass.net.au or www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au.
