Murdered comedian Eurydice Dixon farewelled in private funeral

THE wider world has come to frame Eurydice Dixon with comedy mic in hand, lips pursed in delivery — but her private funeral today showed there was much more to the comedian who was murdered on a Princes Park soccer pitch last week.

FROM the beginning, Eurydice Dixon was all spilling hair and toothy grins. The tragedy is we know this only from the photos on her funeral service booklet.

Here was the little girl looking up at the camera in a gaze that hints of the shyness she would later overcome on stage. And, there, hugging a boy who appears to be her younger brother John.

She was older when she was snapped, on stage, reading a book in long socks and preppy uniform, in a budding thespian’s poise.

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She was grown up when she was seated with her father Jeremy, him beaming with what could be contented pride, her throwing an ironic hand gesture for the camera.

Then she was on stage, comedy mic in hand, striking in a polka dot dress, her lips pursed in delivery, her eyes searching of thought.

A service booklet for Eurydice Dixon’s funeral. Picture: David Caird

She was raped and murdered while walking home. Picture: David Caird

That’s how the wider world has come to frame Eurydice Dixon, the aspiring comedian unfairly taken at 22 after a gig two Tuesdays ago — bold and likeable, like the Rebel Girl lyrics recited on the funeral booklet’s front cover: “That girl, she holds her head up so high, I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah, Rebel girl, rebel girl, you are the queen of my world.”

Dixon’s funeral in Brunswick today was not to be like Monday night’s vigil, which united 10,000 strangers in a cause of protest against her death.

This, instead, was to be a private celebration of her life in all its shades. There was no public outpouring for the talisman of change that Dixon has become.

Her funeral was reserved for those who loved her for who she was, not for what she now represents, which was why a well-known comedian who wanted to attend the funeral — to “show solidarity” — was politely asked not to come.

These were the people, hundreds of them, who cherished the young woman who warranted a surprise birthday party for her 21st at Station 59 in Richmond.

Who volunteered at the restaurant where she was remembered for her (good) quips and (bad) handwriting.

Eurydice Dixon’s father is comforted by a loved one behind his daughter’s hearse. Picture: David Caird

Who had planned to introduce her boyfriend to her father last weekend for the first time.

Her friends arrived in waves of black at the Victoria St funeral home, boasting splashes of colour that popped in the sunlight. A yellow hat. Green hair. A striped beanie.

Sadness oozed in their comforting hugs and tears. Yet Dixon might have liked the unexpected outbursts of laughter that followed the 70-minute service.

That tension and release all comedians obsess over, the thing that drives them to try new things out, as Dixon was wont to do.

Her father Jeremy, was comforted by wellwishers behind the hearse. He seemed solitary in the crowd, a notion reinforced by his dignified reluctance to fan public protests about his inexplicable loss.

He had confronted grief before when Dixon, aged seven, lost her mother to a heroin overdose. Yet he found a reason, for just a moment, to smile today before his 22-year-old daughter began her final journey.

The mourners had heard music from The Cure, the Saints and Johnny Cash.

Family and friends united for a private funeral service for Eurydice Dixon. Picture: AAP

And recollections from Dixon’s drama teacher, Tracy Carroll, who has described her former student as the “quintessential, passionate ‘drama kid’.”

Dixon’s sister Polly spoke, too, as did Dixon’s partner of four months, Tony Magnuson.

Her friend and comedic mentor Kieran Butler also gave a eulogy. He has six months of recorded material for a podcast titled How Not To Make A Podcast.

In these hours together, he marvelled at how Dixon compelled him to think. She was far wiser than her 22 years, he has said.

In the podcast, now online, Dixon (then 20, and challenging older comedy heads who helped her re-tool her show) was asked if she’d been the victim of online bullying:

“When I got on Facebook once and I was stalking someone and there was an old photo from our class and all the comments were talking about how grumpy I looked in the photo — ‘Look at Eurydice, she’s not smiling’. I imagine they were all going LOL, haha … I smile a lot,” she said, her trademark speech impediment adding a frisson.

Then she adopted a mock sarcastic tone: “But I told you I don’t have feelings, I’m dead inside, we’ve been over this.”

Eurydice Dixon’s death prompted vigils around Australia. Picture: David Caird

Thousands attended the Reclaim Princes Park vigil for Eurydice Dixon on Monday night. Picture: Jason Edwards

Footage of her final stage act, hours before her death in a Carlton park, showed her wearing baggy black clothes and Doc Martens.

She was mining familiar themes in describing a dystopian future of slavery.

It’s equality, she argued, but not of the kind she sought.

If there was a pointedness in this show, there was a softness, too, in her exclamatory hand gestures and tippy-toe extensions.

Hers was just as much a physical comedy, setting the crowd at ease even when goading them about a robot future that levelled the genders.

Sometimes, in her acts, she exploited her unusual name.

Her parents were “worse than Hitler” she would say, straight-faced.

Whereas her brother was called John, she had to repeat “Eurydice” again and again at introductions.

The kicker? She had a lisp. Not even she could say her name right.

“All right, that’s all I wanted to try,” she signed off for her last spot ever, with the briefest of toothy grins, her hair spilling as she left the stage.