You might not recognise Scott Dooley if you walked past him on the street, but chances are, if you heard him talking, you’d recognise his voice. For years ‘Dools’ was one of the key personalities of triple j, hosting the all-important afternoon drivetime show, bringing us good tunes and good times all the while being the bane of Dom Alessio and Robbie Buck’s existence.
Throwing Stuff at Robbie Buck is never not funny.
But Dools has been off of the airwaves for quite a while. In fact, since departing triple j in 2009 and after a brief stint on Nova, he’s barely been in the country, having packed his bags and headed to the Big Apple to pursue his long-time passion: stand-up comedy.
“You kind of start all over again; it was weird,” he explains. “Things like little references that you just can’t do – like no one’s gonna know who Plucka Duck is – so I found it made me a stronger writer… which could be completely false, we’ll find out when the next show starts I guess.
“I know a few comics who’ve gone over and found it hard because you’re so used to being treated nicely by everyone, and then you go there [New York] and no one gives a shit and you’re back to starting all over again. But I really enjoyed that part of it and still am.”
The move from behind the mixing desk to behind the mic is one that makes perfect sense for Dooley, his mischievous personality a fondly remembered part of triple j’s pre-#Tay4Hottest100 history. And as it turns out, the transition had been in the works long before he made the continental jump.
“I always did stand up, though most people knew me better from doing radio. It was probably something I didn’t concentrate enough on when I was doing the radio stuff, but when I decided to go back full-time I was confident that after a little while I’d be… proficient,” he says. “And that’s the thing: never shoot for ‘good’. If you shoot for ‘proficient’ you’re never gonna be disappointed!
“All I want is for it to be believable,” Dooley continues. “I want people to walk [away] from the stage and go, ‘Yeah, I believe that was meant to happen’. I don’t want people to be like, ‘How the fuck did that guy get on the stage? They need more security here, he just wandered on! I think a tramp is doing some observations about men and women! That guy needs a meal!’”
Thankfully, he’s been getting plenty of meals as his stand-up career has quickly taken off. After 12 months of touring his mischief around the world, Dooley has finally made his way back home, and he’s brought with him Debut, his first comedy DVD. But this isn’t just a recording of one of Dooley’s sets with some fancy titles over it. It is, as he puts it, “documentary-y”: a stand-up film that goes behind the scenes to capture some of the more intimate highs and lows of touring as a stand-up comic.
“We tried to get that essence of what it is to do a tour like this: you do press and a lot of sitting around, and my grandmother features heavily in it ‘cause I stayed with her for like three weeks, which was the best time ever,” says Dooley. Aw.
If the DVD isn’t enough, Adelaide is getting an extra helping of Dooley when he brings his brand new show, Eva, to the Fringe Festival. Just like in Debut, Dooley isn’t afraid to get personal with Eva, where he discusses the darker side of the last year of his life.
“It’s about the last 12 months I’ve had in New York and… I wouldn’t say ‘getting over a break-up’ but it’s about me just trying to be a nice person. I was really miserable for about 12 months and then I slowly became happy, so it’s about that. The miserable bits are funnier than the non-miserable bits,” he laughs.
“I like writing to a theme. I kind of need parameters otherwise it’ll just be a scattergun approach of ‘can’t win, textbook funny!’ and there’d be no flow to it. So I need that because I am… I’m not very bright, so I need someone to tell me what to do. And if that person’s me, then we’re in trouble, which it is. It’s me leading the me, which is just idiocy.”
It’s been a busy, chaotic few years for Dools, and it doesn’t look he’ll stop moving anytime soon. But that’s the life of a stand-up comic, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Yeah, I’m busy but you know, busy’s good,” he says. “I’d much rather be busy than [be] really good at The Sims. I’ve got a friend and she would deliberately kill her Sims off because they represent people that were annoying her at work, so she’d go ‘That’s Karen’ and then she’d set a fire at Karen’s house and just watch it burn. Is that crazy?! I reckon it’s a gateway; I reckon it’s like a serial killer! You know with serial killers they always go, ‘Yeah, we should’ve known when he was strangling puppies at 9 that this wasn’t gonna have a happy ending’? That’s what I think about this one, so I’ve got my eye on her…”
Debut is available now digitally and on DVD. Scott Dooley performs ‘Eva’ at Comedy SuperNova for the Adelaide Fringe on February 19-21.
Who
Scott Dooley
What
Scott Dooley: Eva
When
Thursday, February 19 to Saturday, February 21
Where
Comedy SuperNova
Palace Nova Cinemas, 251 Rundle St, Adelaide
Comments