STAND AND DELIVER

In a past incarnation he was a political journalist. Today, he's a comedian. It's not hard to guess who he likes to take the piss out of. By Catherine Caines   The most deceptive part about Wil Anderson is his hands. Elegant and dignified, their alabaster surface is more befitting a Vatican marble messiah than a 25-year-old verbal comic chainsaw. But one flash of gothic black nail polish and Anderson's "I like fucking with peoples' preconceptions" hitman persona is unleashed, firing faster than the opening beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. "The truth in comedy is, chances are 95 percent of people aren't going to like you," reveals the Melbourne-based agent provocateur. "I'm quite happy for people to hate me because it opens up the posssibility that people really strongly identify with me as well. What I'm scared of is bland middle ground, because then you're nothing to nobody." Not one to be nailed to the cross of mediocrity, Anderson's stand-up performances are a satirical sermon targeted at popular culture atheists. "The basis of all comedy is truth," he explains. "The more distractions we have the further we get away from the truth because it's hard for people to know. Today, we have so many things to believe in that we don't really believe in anything. You believe in your Sony PlayStation, or your favourite televison show, or your favourite CD single. There are a lot of distractions and people choose to accept them and get other people's versions of the truth." Anderson's heretic humour is perfectly pitched at the forefront of Australia's emerging comic breed whose alumni include John Safran and Rove McManus. Rapidly growing in demand, Anderson's career promiscuity has spread to a regular guest spot on Triple J's Breakfast Show with Adam Spencer, appearances on Good News Week and a weekly column in The Australian's Victorian edition. A born-again comedian, Anderson's earlier incarnation as a political journlist fuelled him with enough rage against the machine to take what he thought was the sanest option out via stand-up comedy. Three years on and he is still venting hid double-edged humour at the media, politics and cultural apathy. "The role of more interesting comedians is then to add something more to the principle of making people laugh," he explains. "With me, I try to talk about issues that people don't really think about so often in a comical way. Issues that people always see as serious or as boring or dry and lend a perspective to them. Introducing people to ideas that they might not deal with because they think it's too boring or doesn't apply to their lives. And a lot of that has to do with politics, the media and current affairs." Challenging an audience to look beneath the surface, Anderson represents the backyard daredevil whose thrills came from lifting up a piece of rusty metal to expose the hidden horror of funnelweb spiders. "It is harder to break taboos and harder to offend people in comedy. So that idea of being offensive or breaking down those sorts of barriers, doesn't apply so much. Comedy is actually more subtle. You have to find other barriers that need to be broken. And there are still plenty that exist; ideas about sexuality, power, the news and media. Particluarly the media. A lot of people have an interest in it because everyone consumes it, but not a lot of people have a real awareness of it."   Taken from Australian Style Magazine Issue 32 1999 pages 44-45