the Class Clowns Competition for 2008 is over. BUT that's no excuse to stop joking around.
Class Clowns is here the whole year round. Explore the site to look for new ideas and opportunities, or check out our Facebook to find other school aged comedians around Australia.
Class Clowns 2009 will open for business in October 2008. Check back here regularly for updates, and pester your teacher to get on board. We mean, really pester.
See you at a gig!
In 2008, hundreds of teenage jokemeisters had Australia laughing from coast to coast. The very best of them came to Melbourne for the Grand Final on April 11, and in a close-fought contest, Aaron Nobes from Adelaide came up trumps!
Catherine Hall and The Magical Typewriter were runners up.
Congratulations to all the National Finalists:
- Lukas Blom
- The South Estonian Acting Troupe (David Bucknell, Ross McKinnon, Drew Moden)
- F.O.B. (Sarah Le, Mystery Tat)
- Frenece Banovich
- Mitch ‘n’ Max (Sarah McCreanor, Alexandra Mitchell)
- Ella Reed
- The Gleesome Threesome (Paris Burns, Cymantha Heather, Tess Stapleton-Clark)
- Toby Silcock
- Emily Beeton
In the meantime, here's what happened in 2008:
In February/March, the Festival held Class Clowns competition heats (ie. performances) in capital and regional cities all over Australia. From all of these gigs, the best acts from each state were flown to Melbourne to appear at the National Grand Final on the main stage of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Entry is open to anyone in Years 9 to 12 or between 14 and 17 years old. No need to have completed a previous workshop or been involved with Class Clowns before.
ARE YOU A COMEDIAN? IT’S A SERIOUS QUESTION!
Since beginning in 1996, Class Clowns has been the starting point for dozens of professional Australian comedians:
- Kynan Barker (1996) has been writing for Rove McManus since 1999.
- Tom Ballard (2004-06) has been doing trial midnight-to-dawn shifts on Triple J.
- Josh Thomas (2002-04) just got back from the Montreal Comedy Festival after winning the 2007 Melbourne Best Newcomer Award.
- Elbow Skin (1997) toured the Comedy Festival Roadshow in 2005.
- Danny McGinlay divides his time between a stand-up comedy career in the UK and Australia.
Are you next? Let’s find out. If you’re in Brisbane, Darwin, Perth or Adelaide, join a Class Clowns Monkey Fanclub and try out some ideas. If you’re in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania or regional Queensland, click here to register in the competition.
Class Clowns charges a nominal registration fee… and that’s it.
The Comedy Festival and your local co-presenter pays for the workshop, the heats, assists with travel costs for regional heat winners to attend their State Final, and pays for State Finalists to travel to Melbourne for the Grand Final.