Jenny Wynter discusses comedy and cabaret
The Morning Bulletin profiles the first among the Women in Voices lineup for inaugural Rockhampton event.
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With three children of her own and three of her husband’s at home too, comedian Jenny Wynter’s life is a veritable Brady Bunch episode – “without the cleaner” - and, surely, that makes for comedy gold.
“The problem is, now they’re getting older, they want me to pay them for the material,” she laughed.
“But seriously, I’m pretty cautious not to say anything on stage I wouldn’t want them to hear.”
Ms Wynter was in her early 20s in Brisbane with two small children, convinced her dreams of a life on stage were over.
“I was losing my mind,” said the author of Funny Mummy.
“Then I heard about an improv group that was looking for performers and I thought this was something that wouldn’t require time for rehearsals.
“Getting into that group reminded me about the joy of getting up on stage and entertaining people, even if it was only for a beer and a steak.”
Ms Wynter traces her comedic impulse to losing her mother at a very young age, and going to live with her grandmother.
“Anything that would make her laugh was pure gold because it helped to defuse any tensions at home,” she said.
“I was the class clown too; I think I developed a show pony persona to cope with life in general.”
Now that clowning around is paying off, as Ms Wynter has been chosen to emcee the inaugural Women in Voices show in Rockhampton.
It’s a gig she loved when she did it in Brisbane 2019 – COVID put paid to it last year – and the comedian with cheekbones to die for is excited to visit Rockhampton for the first time in about 30 years.
“I didn’t get to see your Amanda Hock in action because mine was the bit straight after hers but I could feel the love rolling in off the audience,” she said.
Hock is one half of the Lock &Hock team that brought the Red Foot Cabaret to life, and will present the first Women in Voice show outside Brisbane.
Brisbane shows have been selling out since they began at the Sitting Duck Café in 1993, courtesy of then-organiser Annie Peterson.
“Women in Voice will give its audiences a delicious smorgasbord of cabaret, pop, rock, music theatre and more,” said Ms Hock, who most recently starred in Broadway and Beyond at the Pilbeam Theatre.
“It promises a night of superb musicianship and theatricality, as singers come together as backing vocalists for each other.”
Ms Wynter said it was a “wonderful accident” she decided to take her guitar on stage at a stand up comedy gig one night, and ended up with a career in cabaret.
“If I’d known how long it would take me to make a living out of it, I don’t know if I would have had the guts to stick to it.”
“I really admire women like Amy Poehler who’s created her own comedy brand through writing and performing her own material.
“She’s a champion for women in particular and entrepreneurial artists everywhere.”
Ms Wynter said the power of comedy was entirely subjective, and it could prove powerful for both “pain relief” or for political satire.
She still tells the story of how a “quite drunk and quite elderly” woman came up to her after a gig and said, “Oh you’ve got a beautiful voice but with your pub legs, you shouldn’t wear short skirts”.
(Ms Wynter would love to hear from any Morning Bulletin readers who know what the hell “pub legs” are.)
“No one person should feel pressure to be any one thing; there’s a massive history of people using it to create social change but it’s equally valid for escapism,” she said.
“And for women, as the brilliant Mandy Nolan once reminded me, the very act of standing on stage and claiming a space is a political act.”
On Saturday, July 17, Ms Wynter will be one of five women to grace the Pilbeam Theatre stage, helping her fellow artists to shine.
Tickets are available here.
The Morning Bulletin will profile the other four Women in Voice performers in coming weeks.
Presented by Rockhampton Regional Council, Women in Voice is a Lock&Hock Production performance supported by the Queensland government through Arts Queensland.
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