The Comedy Store's back!
Sound the bells, Sydney: The Comedy Store has been resurrected, Andrew P Street reports
It was a sad, sad day (Monday 21 July, to be precise) when The Comedy Store, arguably the city's premier comedy venue, closed its doors. Naysayers predicted the end of Sydney comedy while others wondered whether anyone would step in to take over. The rumours were quick to circulate: the name was going to be sold; that the building was going to be gutted; that various local comics were in talks about buying the place; and an increasingly loud whisper that Century Venues, the group that runs the Cracker Comedy Festival (as well as the Metro Theatre, the Enmore Theatre and the Factory Theatre) were adding the venue to their portfolio.
Sugar Sammy re-launches The Comedy Store on Wed 5 Nov"Yes, Century Venues have taken over the Comedy Store," confirms an audibly relieved Jorge Menidis. "The Store's an iconic property, which is why we moved to pick it up and ensure that it continues to run."
Menidis was in Montreal at the Just for Laughs festival when the news of the closure hit, and he was struck by the reaction from many of the performers who'd played the Comedy Store on their Australian tours. "It's such an institution in the [international] industry," he explains, "and it's pretty important in the local industry that you have venues like the Comedy Store that are open six nights a week. You know, the sort of venues that can range in talent from international superstars to up-and-coming nobodies to get a break. So we decided to have a look at it as a venue and see if it fit into our model – and it does. We're pretty excited about it, and now the main thing is to get it up and running again."
The new-era Comedy Store will launch in November with the return of one of the hits of Cracker. "We're bringing out Sugar Sammy to start that initial season and I think you'll find that we'll have a consistent international talent coming through there. We'll also be introducing a great young underground New York comic named Jamie Kilstein soon: there's a bit of a buzz about him in festivals around the place."
Menidis is also enthusiastic that comedy seems to be on the increase locally, with the news that Parramatta's Laugh Garage are opening a club in the CBD. "The more comedy the better! It's like the old High Street model: you might have one successful restaurant on a street that attracts other restaurants, but it creates a destination for people; it doesn't mean that the first one doesn't continue to have great business. It means that comedy as a segment grows overall and we want comedy to be a choice for people, as it is overseas."
He's also confident that the new Comedy Store will avoid the pitfalls that scuttled the previous owners. "To some extent our advantages are that, as a group, Century Venues runs three other venues plus the Comedy Festival plus a whole lot of touring, so there are some economies of scale that the previous owners of the store wouldn't have had and I guess we will strategically approach our branding slightly differently to what it was in the past."
So is there an underlying motivation to make Sydney better recognised
as a comedy destiniation for Australia? After all, Melbourne's
generally regarded as being Australia's home of comedy...
"Yes,
and I'd like to challenge that a little bit. I mean, they have a great
festival and some great comedy rooms, but I don't think those rooms are
what they once were, and I don't think you'd necessarily get any less
comic fare in Sydney than you get in Melbourne. I think that to some
extent audiences just have to rediscover comedy as an entertainment
option. But at the end of the day we just hope that we can ensure that the Store's there for many, many years to come, for people to go out any night of the week all year round and get a comedy fix."
