“Write A Better Joke”: A Chat With Comedian Jay Wymarra
“I get a little cranky when comedians say ‘cancel culture's gone too far, and this is why comedy's dying’. I'm like, no, you just don’t know how to write a good joke.”
Jay Wymarra noticed his knack for comedy when he was about 14.
“I suppose it started the way most of us do, where there’s that part of you that thinks a little bit differently than everyone in your classroom,” he recalls. “You say one thing, or use the right word, and it just ripples throughout the whole room, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could make a whole room of people make that noise. That’s interesting.’”
As a high school student up in North Queensland, Wymarra’s drama teacher suggested he try out for Class Clowns: a competition for teenagers run by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “This is up in the Torres Straits, mind you,” he laughs. “So, I’m sort of sitting there going, ‘I’ve got no idea what stand-up comedy is.’”
After his teacher swiftly assigned him Billy Connolly and Carl Barron sets for homework, Wymarra says that a switch flicked. “I realised you can actually be funny just by getting on stage and talking; you don’t actually have to rely on too much more than that. So all of a sudden I get thrown into the thralls of the North Queensland heats and it becomes, I guess, the beginning of an obsession.”
Skip ahead to 2022, and Wymarra is getting ready to perform at the Sydney Opera House for First Nations Funnies, a show that exclusively showcases the country’s most fiercely talented Indigenous comics.
“This show is very much the first of its kind,” Wymarra says. “In this country, the ability to put a line-up like this together is almost unheard of.”
That line-up includes Wymarra’s good friend Steph Tisdell, who he continues to heap with praise during our chat. “She’s just got this amazing, like, childlike energy; she kind of connects people with her laughter and her ridiculous sense of humour. Then there’s people like Andy Saunders, who is an observational comic with a magnificent TV presence.”
“Then of course you’ve got legends like Kevin Kropinyeri who has been in the industry for as long as I’ve been alive. And performers like Dan Simpson who are sort of like one of the newer faces in the industry that I’m very respectful of. And for some reason, they’ve cast an idiot like me,” he jokes.
Wymarra, a proud queer Torres Strait Islander, shares that he also drew comic inspiration from wandering into drag shows as a kid. “I started sneaking into pubs and clubs and actually watching some drag queens do their thing. Comedy queens especially would walk out onto stage and you know, stall by just reading the audience to filth, just to tide over the queens backstage.”
“My God, some of the filthiest things you’ve ever heard in your life. But also just like, they were shocking, but they were also highly entertaining.”
When asked about whether he thinks comedians are more restricted in the 2020s due to what’s regularly referred to as ‘cancel culture,’ Wymarra finds himself in two minds.
“I believe that comedy will always serve as a form of debate,” he says. “As a comedian, you are the person with the microphone, you’re the person with the point of view. And your job is to argue your point, or at least justify your argument and translate that into agreement in the form of laughter.”
“The name of the game is not to be funny. It’s to be convincing.”
However, he laments the fall of comics like Dave Chappelle, noting that while he once admired the once-legendary US comedian, he’s running out of excuses for his transphobia. “One thing you have to remember as a performer is that you are tried and tested – always – by the audience.”
“You still have to respect your audience. You can’t get up there and just outwardly put out hate speech. You know, you’re up there to entertain, you’re not there to vent, necessarily.”
“There’s room for other perspectives now, which is why I think comedy should be the way it is; there’s no barrier to entry. You’re allowed to get up and say whatever you want. So you as an audience member are allowed to throw stones at the comic and say, ‘Hey, you said some horrible stuff.’”
“The other thing is that if you are worried about what to say, then I’m sorry, but tough nuts, kid. Write a better joke. You know? Don’t plan for failure. Write something else.”
First Nations Funnies will take place at the Sydney Opera House on November 30 at 7:15pm. Grab your tickets here.