No laughing matter

LOL: Last One Laughing puts 10 comedians to the test in a way that’s never been done before on Australian TV. Comedian Becky Lucas took part and tells Danielle McGrane what’s involved.

A s a comedian, Becky Lucas has one job – to make people laugh.

It’s a job she’s pretty good at, too.

It’s brought her to the stage of the Sydney Opera House, the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal and even to Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show in the US.

But for her latest gig, she was lucky if she got a smile, even though she was surrounded by fellow comedians.

“They call it the ‘comedy experiment’ and it felt very strange,” Lucas said.

That experiment is a new TV show called LOL: Last One Laughing. Lucas, alongside nine other Aussie comedians, was put in a house for six hours with one instruction – don’t laugh.

Anything goes, but if someone laughs, they’re kicked out of the house. The last one standing wins the $100,000 cash prize.

It’s pretty different to any other gig Lucas has done before.

“An audience is usually pretty willing, they want to have a good time and they want to laugh, whereas this is kind of the antithesis of what comedy’s supposed to be,” Lucas said.

“Even if it’s funny no one wants to laugh because they all want to win the cash prize. You’re not performing. You’re in a house. There’s a kitchen and a little lounge room area. And everyone’s just existing trying to be funny, and you’re trying not to laugh.”

It was particularly hard for Lucas to keep a straight face considering who she was competing against.

“As soon as the buzzer went off and we started, Joel Creasey said something to me and I nearly laughed straight away.

It’s heightened because when someone tells you you can’t do something it’s all you want to do,” she said.

Creasey wasn’t her only challenge. Some of Australia’s funniest comedians were in there challenging Lucas to crack a smile, including Anne Edmonds, Frank Woodley, Sam Simmons and Susie Youssef.

Not to mention the fact Rebel Wilson was overseeing the whole thing as the show’s host and honorary ringmaster.

“Rebel was in a control room and she would watch along with producers to see who laughed or smiled. If you smiled she would come in and issue you a yellow card. And if you did it again you’d get a red card and you’d be kicked out,” Lucas said.

The comedians themselves were also in possession of some powerful cards.

“There were points where someone could pull out a card and that meant everyone had to look at them, because often if someone was being funny you could kind of avert your eyes or do something else that would stop you from laughing,” Lucas said.

As Lucas soon found out, the rules of the show were taken very seriously.

“I went in thinking that if you were on a roll they wouldn’t be so strict because it’s good for the show, that maybe they’d

Becky Lucas: As soon as the buzzer went off and we started, Joel Creasey said something to me and I nearly laughed straight away.