This comic wrote a show about Porepunkah. Then the news stole his punchline

When David Quirk performed a small segment of his show Porepunkah at the Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala two weeks ago, he was grappling with the harsh reality of the news cycle: it moves on, quickly.

“I am originally from a little place called Porepunkah,” he told the audience at St Kilda’s Palais Theatre. “Does that ring any bells, folks? August last year, yeah? Do the words ‘Dezi Freeman’ help in any way?”

The set-up, he conceded, was “the most factual and least funny opening line of anyone’s Gala set tonight”. But the payoff was good, if rather solipsistic in the way of much stand-up material.

“I was really surprised the toll it took on me,” said Quirk. “Because until the 26th of August last year, I was the most famous person from Porepunkah. And Dezi Freeman has stripped me of that title, you know. Awful.”

But the news cycle has moved on yet again. And thanks to Monday’s events, in which sovereign citizen and police killer Freeman was shot dead by police after seven months on the run, Quirk won’t have to remind anybody who he is, or what the name Porepunkah refers to for a good while.

The thing is, that has presented him with a whole other problem: his topical material had become instantly dated.

“For the past five-and-a-bit months, whenever I’ve told people I was writing a show about Porepunkah, I’d been asked, ‘But what if they find him before your show happens, what are you going to do?’ And I had no answer for that,” Quirk says.

“I thought, ‘I’ll worry about that when it happens, and it’s probably not gonna happen’. And then Monday morning, eight days until my opening night … what sort of cosmic madness is this?”

Quirk has been doing stand-up for around 25 years. He fell into it while studying acting at Victoria University in Footscray, when a teacher suggested he perform a piece he had written as a comedy routine. The class laughed, he thought, “this is incredible”, and his direction was set.

He still acts, though, and considers his work to be more narrative-based than out-and-out stand-up.

Though it began in response to Freeman’s actions, Porepunkah is a deeply personal work, one that was transformed again by a return to his hometown in early January after what he describes as “some terribly bad life choices” in Melbourne.

“I had to exile myself to Porepunkah,” Quirk says. “I thought, where is the one place I can – sort of ironically – be on the run. And before I knew it, I was down and out, so I picked up work with old high school friends who are painters, and I went into a routine for the next two or more months, painting on Mount Hotham and Buffalo.”

He’d paint by day and write by night. “I would go home and jump in the river and wash myself of the sins of the painter. And then I would go to a park in Bright and write for at least a few hours.”

When he performed at the Gala two weeks ago, Quirk still hadn’t finished writing his show. When he went to bed on Sunday night, he was still tinkering with the ending.

Monday changed all that. “All of a sudden I had to go, ‘Let’s leave how this show ends for a moment’. I rewrote the start twice that day.” Now, he says, “I’m satisfied with the end.”

He’s got way too much material, but he vows to have a workable script just as soon as he’s finished talking with me. “And then begins the learning.”

A week ago, Porepunkah was just one more show among the 800 or so punters can choose from at the mammoth event that is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Monday’s events have changed that. As Quirk acknowledges, “they both don’t help and absolutely help”.

For those who come along, what does he hope to deliver?

“I hope it’s good, I hope it’s valid, I hope it’s funny and sort of does something to the audience,” Quirk says. “And I hope I remember it.”

David Quirk’s Porepunkah is at Coopers Inn, April 7-19. The Age is a Comedy Festival partner. Details: comedyfestival.com.au

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