Eurydice Dixon case: saddest end for young lady of laughter

Eurydice Dixon wore a blue flower in her hair on the night she was killed on her way home from her comedy gig in Melbourne.

Young comedian Eurydice Dixon.

Eurydice Dixon wore a blue flower in her hair on the night she was killed.

They found her lying on the cold grass in a public park, so close to home you could almost see the front door of her share home.

Had anyone suggested a 22-year-old woman shouldn’t be walking alone through a Melbourne park at night, she would have given them short shrift.

Police believe she was stalked 4½km from Melbourne’s CBD, the Herald Sun reported.

She was an aspiring comedian, talented drama student and a passionate feminist who had lived most of her life on the northern edge of the city and regularly walked home from late-night gigs.

Besides, when you are at the start of a comedy career, playing for laughs but desperately little money, catching a taxi across town is a luxury.

The man charged with her murder and rape didn’t know her. Jaymes Todd is 19, autistic and has no criminal record. He sat in court yesterday, staring at the floor while legal arguments swirled around him. He was not asked to enter a plea.

Todd turned himself in to police after homicide detectives released CCTV footage of him taken in central Melbourne. His lawyer, John Riordan, told the court that Todd’s family was concerned about his safety in custody. “He can become socially regressive in stressful situations,’’ he said.

There was no application for bail.

Accused killer Jaymes Todd yesterday. Picture: Nicole Garmston

On the night Dixon, a childcare student and volunteer at a Thornbury vegan restaurant, was killed, she was doing what made her happy. Down an ever-so-­Melbourne alleyway, in the dim of the Highlander Bar, she was one of a group of emerging comedians who took turns at the mic as part of a weekly, free comedy night.

She performed a variant of the same routine she had used at the venue throughout the Melbourne International Comedy Festival earlier in the year. A tall, striking woman, she had a strong stage presence and a unique approach to comedy. Her schtick was to take a feminist or progressive political orthodoxy, turn it inside out and upside down and invite people to see the funny side of it. And funny she was. Kieran Butler was the MC that night. “She was really funny,’’ he said. “And that’s what you want to do. She was happy.’’

The last friend to see her alive was a fellow comedian, Tony Magnuson. About 10.30pm, they walked out of the club together and into the wintry night. They strolled a little of the way through the city. He decided to catch a train; she said she’d walk.

His phone lit up with her last text message about midnight: “I’m almost home safe, HBU (how about you)?”

At 2.40am, her ­lifeless body was found on a soccer pitch in Princes Park, just north of the city. Her home is in Parkville, a stone’s throw across the divided lanes and tramlines of Royal ­Parade.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival chief executive Susan Provan didn’t yet know Dixon. “She was a baby, starting-out comedian,’’ Ms Provan said. She knows all about the life though: the unpaid gigs, the late night hours, the lonely rides on public transport and walks through deserted streets. Today, she acutely feels the vulnerabilities of her industry.

“Starting out in comedy is very similar to starting out in contemporary music. Young artists do a lot of gigs for free while they are gathering stage time and experience. It does involve working in bars and clubs. It does involve being out late at night,’’ she said.

“They are usually not earning any money or very little so the lifestyle means they are often going home alone late, sometimes on public transport and sometimes walking if they don’t live far away. It is quite exposed.’’

 

Nicky Barry first met Dixon three years ago at a women’s ­comedy night at a Richmond pub. They were both starting out in a tough industry: Dixon as a teenage drama student and Barry as a 52-year-old woman who had come late to the comedy scene. They regularly performed ­together and went to one ­another’s gigs. Barry said Dixon, when away from the stage, was a quiet, introverted woman.

“A lot of people assume that everyone who does comedy is very bubbly and ‘look at me’,’’ Barry said.

“She wasn’t that person at all. She was very bright and right from the beginning, she had a refreshing approach to comedy and some interesting ideas.

“She was a politically and ­socially aware young woman. She was interested in exploring ideas around feminism and social ­justice. She had studied drama and was involved in amateur theatre so she had a really great presence on stage and a unique way of delivering.’’

Sam Hargreaves studied drama with Dixon at Deakin ­University. Last year they worked together on an end-of-year production. He remembers her as kind-hearted, good natured, talented and eccentric.

“She came out of her shell a lot more when we started working ­together,’’ Hargreaves said. “She was a passionate feminist; that came into her work a lot.’’

Dixon’s eccentricities extended to her regularly mispronounced name. She told friends her mother named her after a figure in Greek mythology: Eurydice, a daughter of Apollo. Her mother told her that, before she was conceived, she dreamt of having a daughter and naming her Eurydice. Her sister was also given a quirky name: Polly Cotton. Her mother died unexpectedly when Eurydice was in primary school.

Kieran Butler, a 20-year veteran of the comedy scene, believes that had Dixon been given the chance, she could have done great things in comedy.

“I think hers was quite ground-breaking,’’ Butler said. “It was ­incredibly courageous. She’d talk about things on stage people wouldn’t even go close to. Even at the age of 22, she could take sacred topics and turn them on their head. She was the type of comedian who I as a comic sat at the back of the room and say ‘wow, I wish I thought of that’.

“I believe she could have turned comedy on its head in 10 years’ time, if she’d chosen to do that. There was nobody like her. I think she could have been one of the greats in this country.’’

At the Highlander Bar, where Dixon performed her last gig, ­Sophie Officer was tending bar yesterday and remembering the young woman who had become a Tuesday night regular. “I wished her luck, told her to break a leg and have a great show,’’ she said. “She was really lovely and kind. She wore flowers in her hair, which I just loved.’’