Riverina Comedy Club finds Wagga's funny bone

While most have to be metaphorically pushed into performing comedy on stage, Dane Simpson said he was literally shoved into the limelight. 

From the first moment he made an audience laugh, Mr Simpson sought to bring laughter to his home town, fostering local talent and inviting popular comedy icons to headline at the growing Riverina Comedy Club’s monthly shows. 

“I think (Wagga residents) are shifting perspectives,” Mr Simpson said. “People are enjoying all different types of humour now.”

It comes ahead of Randy Feltface’s – from Sammy J and Randy – special guest performance at Que Bar on Friday, December 1. It follows the pair’s knock-out show last year. 

Mr Simpson said it was unusual acts like the purple felt puppet’s that helped scratch the city’s funny bones. 

But Mr Simpson says some audience members only come to hear the local Wagga talent. 

“We’ve gone from me – just one person – to a little over a dozen comedians, who are stamping their own stamp,” he said. “That’s incredible.”

The Wagga DJ and stand-up comedian has driven Riverina residents past “the stock standard sort of comedy”, and exposed them to the fresh, down to earth, relatable, gritty Aussie humour of rural areas. 

“There’s so much out there,” Mr Simpson said. “There’s such a range.”

He said rising numbers of local acts showed the “level of comedy we’ve got in Wagga and that everybody has in them”.

“All we do is polish that,” he said. “It’s a love job.”

Wagga residents interested in joining the rib-cracking team, inducing raucous laughter across Wagga, are invited to join an Australia-wide stand-up comedy school class next week. 

The Chris Franklin lead Hard Knock Knocks course will be run from December 3 to 7, at Que Bar from 6.30pm to 9.30pm.

“It’s super cool to have Chris Franklin coming to Wagga to teach comedians of the future and to continue our comics’ growth,” Mr Simpson said. “Places are still available on the course.”