Janet McLeod - The Connector From Down Under

Right out of the gate, Janet McLeod wants to be helpful. 

From the moment our con­ver­sa­tion began, she men­tioned the web­site ​“Time and Date Con­vert­er” to keep track of dif­fer­ent time zones, some­thing she’s found invalu­able as the host of online shows book­ing comics from around the world. McLeod’s genet­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion to be help­ful is exact­ly how we con­nect­ed orig­i­nal­ly. I was part of an inter­na­tion­al Face­book group meant to con­nect comics from around the world look­ing for online shows, and McLeod was an eager helper to me book sev­er­al amaz­ing Aus­tralian comics like Ryan Cof­fey, Dane Simp­son, and Rusty Berther (look them up, they are amazing).

The oth­er rea­son that McLeod and I con­nect­ed is her atten­tion to detail. As she rat­tled off the names of some of the inter­na­tion­al comics she’s booked on her show (names yours tru­ly would nev­er dare utter with­out weeks of care­ful study), her atten­tion to the cor­rect pro­nun­ci­a­tion of her inter­na­tion­al guests is part of how she makes you feel at ease. She cares to get it right. McLeod’s love of com­e­dy began watch­ing tele­vised sketch com­e­dy shows and, you guessed it, con­nect­ing with her school­teach­ers by rat­tling off catch phras­es or impres­sions from the show. And at less than 15 min­utes into our con­ver­sa­tion, McLeod self-declares ​“I’m a con­nec­tor, I love to con­nect peo­ple.” Even so much that at one point, New Zealand com­ic Cal Wil­son declared McLeod as the fairy god­moth­er of Mel­bourne comedy.

As for her expe­ri­ence with per­form­ing com­e­dy, McLeod felt that her wardrobe lent itself to out­ward the­atri­cal­i­ty and let her break out of her shy­ness. Even­tu­al­ly, mov­ing from her home­town of Bal­larat to Mel­bourne, she was observ­ing a show from back­stage when the emcee vol­un­told (cred­it to Nkechi Chibueze for this turn of phrase) her to per­form a brief standup set. Many times her ear­ly per­for­mances were clos­er to one-woman sketch per­for­mances. I would have very much liked to have seen McLeod’s per­for­mances with the inflat­able chair (you can lis­ten to the pod­cast to hear her hys­ter­i­cal play-by-play).

As we shift to how she began to con­nect with the glob­al com­e­dy scene, she attrib­ut­es a lot of that to her atten­dance at the largest fes­ti­vals in the world — Edin­burgh Fringe, Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val, and JFL Mon­tréal. She notes that the com­e­dy world is small­er than we real­ize and it does­n’t take much to be con­nect­ed by 1 or 2 degrees of sep­a­ra­tion to any giv­en com­ic. Do you hear that Jer­ry Sein­feld? Open invi­ta­tion to be on our pod­cast, over here (no car or cof­fee necessary)!

Her own cur­rent per­for­mance style was born out of being hand­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take over her friend’s show who sad­ly passed away. Among the lessons she’s learned are the impor­tance of work­ing with nice peo­ple and hear­ing dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on stage. 

If you think Amer­i­ca is going through tur­moil when it comes to the recent spike and man­age­ment of the COVID out­break, McLeod explained the con­fus­ing and frus­trat­ing state of affairs in Aus­tralia in its han­dling of the virus. After spread­ing her­self thin with live shows, she piv­ot­ed to online shows and ulti­mate­ly began pro­duc­ing online cor­po­rate triv­ia events which helped her sus­tain her­self finan­cial­ly and cre­ative­ly. As she admits, she ​“uses Zoom as an enter­tain­ment plat­form.” She admits it’s an imper­fect for­mat, but it is a for­mat she has adapt­ed and thrived with. She loved the aspect of help­ing oth­er comics have fun with the online plat­form as well. 

McLeod says “…one of the great things from last year, one of the things that I enjoyed being able to do was to help come­di­ans gain that confidence…and find a way that com­e­dy would work in this sort of a plat­form.” The online plat­form will stick around, she pre­dicts — whether some­one is home­bound due to phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions or social anx­i­ety, the world of online com­e­dy has made it pos­si­ble for all of us to enjoy com­e­dy from the com­fort of home.

As McLeod grap­ples with the Aus­tralian state and fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s han­dling of COVID (includ­ing lim­it­ed access to vac­cines), she will con­tin­ue to work online and bide her time until she can return to live per­for­mances. The good news is she is well equipped, from 3 dif­fer­ent cam­eras, to mul­ti­ple light­ing optins, to her stel­lar ener­gy, she’s ok with the sta­tus quo for now. She had a sneak peak of the post-COVID com­e­dy world by attend­ing the Ade­laide Fringe Fes­ti­val was a phe­nom­e­nal reunion and she real­ized how much she missed live per­for­mance, but rec­og­nized the hard work that goes into mak­ing it safe for every­one to return to comedy. 

The good news is McLeod con­tin­ues to be incred­i­bly well-con­nect­ed to the glob­al com­e­dy scene. For her, ​“the con­nec­tions I’ve made have been part of my toolk­it of sur­vival.” We’re hap­py to have bor­rowed some­thing from that toolk­it last year and look for­ward to one day con­nect­ing with her in real life.

Want to know more about com­e­dy in Mel­bourne, Australia?

Janet’s men­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions for comics to check out from Mel­bourne or larg­er Aus­tralia include: Cal Wil­son, Tim Minchin, DJ Andrew McClel­land, Ethan Cavanagh, Oliv­er Clark, Dane Simp­son, Jude Perl, Reuben Kaye, Geral­dine Quinn, Kirsty Webeck, Claire Hoop­er, and Ivan Aristeguieta.

If you’re in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia Janet, rec­om­mends that you check out the hand­ful of com­e­dy clubs in town and there are 3 – 5 standup com­e­dy shows each night. Sim­i­lar to most devel­oped Amer­i­can com­e­dy towns, you can see every­thing from bar shows, to club shows, to large the­ater shows. We won’t com­ment on whether this is sim­i­lar to oth­er scenes or not, but McLeod likens the Mel­bourne scene to a giant dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly — full of cama­raderie, but brim­ming with hilar­i­ous oddballs.

Janet can be seen and heard:

• Plan­et Janet Triv­ia Events 
• Local Laughs — return­ing soon!
• Cin­e­ma Fias­co with Geoff Wal­lis — return­ing soon!
• ABC Local Radio’s Overnights With Trevor Chap­pell. She’s on every sec­ond Tues­day at 2.30am (local time which late morn­ings in the US).

Fol­low Janet

• Web­site — www​.com​e​dy​gold​.com​.au
• Twit­ter — @janetamcleod
• Insta­gram — @mcleod.janet
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​M​c​l​e​o​d​Janet // Face​book​.com/​P​l​a​n​e​t​J​a​n​e​t​T​rivia