Riverside Theatres launched the Big Laugh Comedy Festival in April 2001. The first festival ran over one week. Among the festival highlights were two exclusive performances of Rove Live - Live and Cream of the Irish, which chose Riverside Theatres as the location of its only Sydney season. The show featured a line up of the best new stand up comedians from Ireland including Dara O'Briain (as seen on The Panel), Brendan Dempsey (Walking Ned Devine, Father Ted) and Johnny Candon.
In its second year, the Festival ran over two weeks and featured over 30 shows throughout Riverside's various venues. By year two the Big Laugh had become a pivotal and much anticipated fixture in Australia's comedy calendar, attracting some of the country's best-known comic talents.
The 2002 Festival gave Sydney audiences the chance to laugh along with popular radio and television comedians including Wendy Harmer, Merrick & Rosso, Paul McDermott, Carl Barron, Rod Quantock, Wil Anderson, Dave Hughes and Peter Berner.
2003 saw the Festival reach a phenomenal new high with 30 events throughout Riverside’s venues and over 11,000 people attending the festival! The program featured the hilarious Jimeoin, Greg Fleet, Wil Anderson, The Umbilical Brothers and Australian sporting stalwarts Roy & HG with This Sporting Life LIVE!
The fourth annual Big Laugh Comedy Festival in 2004 saw an influx of international talent. An audience over 15,000 visited for a belly laugh. The Festival draw card came in the voice of a 10-year-old boy - but not just any 10-year-old boy. It was the yellow, four-fingered, mischievous cartoon character Bart Simpson. Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart, played two shows. The demand was so great she announced an extra show that sold out in two hours!
For the first time ever the best student revues from Sydney were featured in The 3rd Degree. The show went on to sell out at The Melbourne International Comedy Festival and generated great interest from the industry. Boothby Graffoe, a man with an elastic face, had the audience in stiches with his impersonations. Named after a small English village, Boothby is already planning a return to Sydney. Danny Bhoy, a spunky Scotsman with Indian heritage, had female audience members melting in their seats.
The Big Laugh 2005 was a ripper! It hosted what was possibly THE entertainment event of the year in Australia ... the arrival in Australia of the legendary Goodies as the headlining act for an expanded festival that took in a series of city venues, including the State Theatre, the Seymour Centre and Sydney Theatre.
The Goodies Still Alive Onstage was a coup and a world premiere. As Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie said, "We are here because we were asked." A cheeky email in early 2004 resulted in a meeting between Big Laugh Director John Pinder and The Goodies in September 2004, and a live show was born!
More than 12,000 people saw seven sold out shows during The Big Laugh in Sydney alone and even more rocked up around the country in the following few weeks for what was the surprise hit show of 2005. Rave reviews around the nation put The Big Laugh and Parramatta's Riverside Theatres on the map nationally.
But there was more much much more. The national student revue was staged for the second time with scripts for campus comics around Australia. The show was a huge success for The Big Laugh and within a few months The Ten Network had scooped up The 3rd Degree for a television series which had the unlikely title of The Ronnie Johns Half Hour. Originally commissioned for a short run the series has been extended and reviews suggested it was the most original good fun comedy on TV in 2005.
In a bold move The Big Laugh staged a burlesque comedy show featuring Christa Hughes. It played only four performances in Sydney but was bought by the prestigious Assembly Rooms for the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Eight performers and technicians packed up their feather boas, g strings and jokes and hit Edinburgh where the show played to excellent houses and four star reviews.
Big Laugh 2005 was huge! Regular internationals included Ross Noble, Bill Bailey and Arj Barker, and here was another world premiere for Sydney’s own Chaser crew with their first ever stage show Cirque Du Chaser which went on to tour extensively to packed houses.
The 2006 Big Laugh ventured outside our home base of Riverside Theatres at Parramatta, to the Seymour Centre, State Theatre, our neighbour the Laugh Garage Comedy Club and even onto a Sydney Ferries Parramatta Rivercat! More than 30 local and international comedy attractions, exhibitions and special events had audiences in fits of laughter. We were thrilled to present the long-awaited return to the stage of Australian comedy legends Grahame Bond and Rory O'Donoghue in The Aunty Jack Show... and Tell, which toured across Australia after its triumphant opening night at the Big Laugh.
August 2006 saw the of The Big Laugh's 'drive for exports' continue when The Goodies Still Rule Ok! was presented at the prestigious Assembly Rooms for the Edinburgh Festival. The show, featuring Tim and Graeme onstage and Bill beamed in via the marvels of digital technology was a great success and critically well recieved, launching a new wave of nostalgic affection for these 70's comedy legends in their own land. Media responses to the festival show, the Australian tours and a TV Special loosely based on the live show produced for Australia, led to something of a reassessment of the great contribution The Goodies made to British comedy. And in March 2007 a national tour of the UK got underway.
