Comedian Jon Bennett has performed at literally hundreds of venues across the globe, but nothing quite like he found in Hillsboro. Which is appropriate enough, because Hillsboro has never seen a comedian quite like Jon Bennett. Late last year, he brought his one-man show “Jon Bennett vs. Jason Donovan” to the Oregon Airsoft Arena. In this wild and unpredictable show, the veteran Australian-born comic pitted himself against the audience in a no-holds-barred game of “Straight from the Heart,” a 1989 trivia game all about Australian pop star Jason Donovan. Never heard of Jason Donovan? Don’t worry; no one else in the venue had either. It is simple in its construction but brilliant in execution, with Bennett asking the audience important questions like “What are Jason’s favorite postcards?” and “When do you think your best friend’s boyfriend will leave her?”
Now, before Bennett heads out on tour with his new one-man show, we sat down with the funnyman to talk about the differences between American and Australian comedy, building an audience, and the importance of dressing like a rabbit when you attend a Rabbit Night.
Hillsboro Herald: You’ve produced over 9 different hour-long one-man shows. How did you get into that business?
Jon Bennett: For Australians that’s our comedy culture. I started doing stand-up in South Australia when I was like 19 years old at university and my town has fringe festivals. They’re not as big here in the states. So when you’re a comedian in Australia and England, you’re always working up to doing your hour show at a festival. So I just started doing comedy in the fringe and then wrote my first hour-long show. American comics aim for their five minutes on late night and Australians and the English aim for the hour in Edinburgh or Adelaide or any of those sort of festivals.
HH: When I saw “Jon Bennett vs. Jason Donvoan,” I was surprised to learn that this show was spun-off from another one of your shows, “Fire in the Meth Lab.” How does something so weird like this come out of something so much darker?
JB: Yeah, yeah so you saw not my usual show. You saw the show that I do as a break between my sort of heavier storytelling comedy shows. But that’s kind of why I love it so much because it is just lighthearted controlled chaos, whereas my other shows are a lot more narrative based, heavier shows, darker humor. “Fire in the Meth Lab,” which I’m currently talking to a film producer about, actually is a show about my brother being an addict in the outback of Australia, and following his life and how addiction affects families.
HH: What was the inspiration to spin a show about an Australian pop star from 30 years ago into its own one person show?
JB: We play the game in “Fire in the Meth Lab” and people loved it. It was just like a little break in between the stories because my brother had this game and then every time I finish the show I quite often talk to audience members. Often they’d ask me if the game was real and I was like, yeah it’s real. The questions are real. If they buy me a couple of drinks or something, I’ll be like, do you wanna play it? We can just play it in its entirety. And then a lot of festivals have a beer garden and we sit in the beer garden and I play the game and it became kind of a thing at festivals. I just sort of developed a show around it because I thought this is really fun and we can do it anywhere.
HH: Looking at stand-up comedy kind of like generally and very broadly, it seems like crowd work is the thing a lot of comics are putting all of their stock into. I’m someone that hates crowd work–
JB: (laughs) Me too.
HH: And I want to ask you about that. Because this is a show where you’re basically doing an hour long shouting match with an audience.
JB: Sure it’s controlled and it’s a game. So it’s not just “what do you do? Where do you live?” I didn’t do any of that with the audience. I didn’t ask them any questions about themselves. It was all on them to yell stuff out and that’s the kind of stuff that I like. I mean, crowd work is a skill. I understand that it’s a thing and I get that it’s popular but it’s just not my thing that I do. Even if I’ve got nothing with the crowd, then we can just keep playing the game. It just keeps going. So, yeah, I want it to be chaos. That’s what I want to happen with this show.
HH: I was really blown away. You know, the editor says, go cover this venue and see comedy. And I’ve been watching comedy for a long time. I’ve been involved with comedy for a long time, and I’ve never seen anything like that, and I was really impressed by your ability to completely commit to the bit.
JB: Yeah, that’s the best thing I can see a comedian do is just commit to what they’re doing. It is my favorite thing in the world. I have another show that is even crazier than this one. I’ve got two controlled chaos, off-the-cuff shows that I put in with my nine others. There was one time a reviewer did a preview of the festival that I was doing and they gave me theater choice because they’ve seen my show about my dad and our relationship and my show about my brother, and they thought it was gonna be like, you know, this sort of heartfelt storytelling. And the show that I did that year was I just dressed as a rabbit and threw carrots at the audience.
HH: What?
JB: Then I cancel the show in the first 10 minutes and then we sit there for an hour and the show plays out how it plays out. It’s pretty cool. It’s called “It’s Rabbit Night” and it’s messed up.
HH: That sounds very messed up.
JB: Yeah, and I think the show that you came to as well was better because they were like a much more sort of normalish audience. Do you know what I mean? So it seems crazier because the audience just thought they were coming for a stand-up show. They didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know anything about me, really and so I kinda like that. Any show where people go home being like, what the fuck did we see? That’s my favorite kind of show.
HH: What does something like that look like?
JB: I only do “It’s Rabbit Time” when people have seen my other stuff so then they think it’s gonna be a storytelling thing. People hate it! They hate it. But all the performers, all the other performers really love that this thing exists, you know? I’m dressed as a rabbit, I ran out of the stage. The way the show is listed is ‘IT’S RABBIT NIGHT IT’S RABBIT NIGHT IT’S RABBIT NIGHT [free carrots].’ I’II run out with techno music playing and rabbit footage playing on the screen behind me. I throw carrots at the audience yelling, “It’s Rabbit Night! The best night of your lives!” I have a DJ, he’s dressed as a rabbit as well. And then I do that for like five minutes too long! And I get the house lights turned up and say, “Why is no one else dressed as a rabbit, do you not know what a Rabbit Night is?” And the audience does not. So I run through the rules, “everyone needs to be dressed as a rabbit for Rabbit Night to happen and, unfortunately, unless nyou’ve got rabbit costumes, we can’t do it. Sorry, show’s over.” I collect back all the carrots and say they’re expensive and you don’t eat them and then we just sit there and the footage continues to play with what Rabbit Night was going to be. That’s how that works. And then another artist can come in and interrupt the night with a night they think it is, but it’s not. We’ve had people come out dressed as nuns and a person yelling, It’s habit night! It’s habit night!
HH: Oh wow.
JB: Yeah, and they can do whatever they want. They don’t have to let me know. There’s been lots of those. It’s brilliant. It’s really fun, but the audience is very confused.
HH: Speaking of other comics, I will tell you as I was sitting there waiting for your show to start. I saw your poster for “Jon Bennett versus Jason Donovan.” I was texting some comedy friends asking if they’ve heard of either of these comedians.
JB: People think Jason Donovan is gonna be in it, where in reality he’s quite a successful popstar.
HH: Is he aware that you do this show?
JB: My producers have written to him, we’ve tweeted to him, we’ve written all the questions to him over the years, and he just never responds. But there is this Facebook group made years ago. It was when I did it in a festival where you do like a run, you do like 20 shows or something, and I get other performers to come in and do Jason Donovan related material and he has asked to join that performer group on Facebook in many different iterations of Jason Donovan, which is quite funny. I don’t think it’s him but it’s always like “Jason Donovan Official” wants to join the Jason Donovan Board Game Performers group or something like that. It was pretty funny. And I rejected him.
HH: So looking now a bit towards the future, what are you working on right now?
JB: At the moment I’m about to go on tour back to Australia. And I’m doing my newest show which is called “American’t,” which is a show I’ve toured all of last year, which is a show about moving to America and why I would choose to do that in the current climate that we’re in, and just how that all eventuated, so that’s what I’ve got coming up for the next few months. I’m doing Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne there. Then I come back and then a bit in Canada, then Florida. I just tour around doing different shows. I’m planning a new show about animals.
HH: You moved to Portland three years ago, what was it like ingratiating yourself into an established comedy scene?
JB: It is a bit weird because my style is very different. It’s interesting to see the difference in the culture. The comedy scene here is really friendly and lovely and have embraced me. But even the local comedians, you can see them go, oh this is a bit weird. You can tell they’re already making generalizations about Australian comedy based on me. A few of the shows I’ve done in Portland, I say just put me on and I’ll just do an hour and a half. I’ve done “Jason Donovan” as the headliner of the local shows here and that sort of thing but I don’t think I’ll be seen at Helium anytime soon. Audiences here are so used to the sort of ‘set up and punchline’ style of stuff here and anything that sort of goes against is a bit shocking for them. I did Hood River last weekend. We did two shows in Hood River on a Friday and Saturday night. They sold out. I’ve done Bingen, I’ve done the Dalles.
HH: How did audiences there react to your shows?
JB: I think they really like it. I’ve done a bunch now over the past three years and I’m starting to grow a bit of a following. I’m a bit of an acquired taste of sorts, but people like something different, you know? So I’ve already built up a little bit of an audience in all of those places. I’ve sold out every show in Bingen, Washington, which is in their theater there which is an old cinema. Comedy is a lot about just growing an audience that likes you. I’ve got a big following in Canada and in Florida of all places. Yeah, people like to discover you, respond quite well to that.
Thanks to Charley and Jon Bennett for the great in-depth interview for the Herald. More to follow, and if you have a Cultural Event or Organization and want us to cover you, contact us, and we will do the rest and have Charley reach out! https://hillsboroherald.com/contact-us/
