Reykjavík Grapevine - jun. 2020, Side 29

29The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 04— 2020
Stop Tryin" To Make
Jono Duffy Happen
Because, accordin! to the comedian, it mi!ht never happen
Relaxing in a booth at Frederiksen Ale
House, Jono Duffy, Iceland’s best (and
only) gay Australian comedian, is, for
lack of a better term, done. As the title
of his newest Reykjavík Fringe Festi-
val show—“I’m Tired”—explains, he’s
tired. The show will be his last, he re-
lays. It’ll be his retirement opus—well,
possibly.
Always hustling
“They way I’ve put it is that it could be,”
he says with a smile, sipping his beer,
unexpectedly jovial about the sub-
ject matter. “See, in 2019 I had sellout
shows in Iceland. I got to tour Europe. I
got taken to Brighton Fringe. It was the
best year of my career... But at the end
of that, I felt like I needed to step back.”
Much of that, he explains, is due to
the realities of being a performer in
such a small country. “When you’re
a performer in a country this small,
you’re constantly afraid that people
are going to get sick of you, but to be
honest, I was sick of myself,” he shrugs.
“There’s only so many times you can
plug shows on Facebook before you
say, you know I want to use Facebook
to look at memes! Not to be constantly
harassing people. Hey, buy tickets to
my show! How can I get someone to
write about me? What favours can I
pull?”
And when he was celebrating the
holidays with his fiancée and family in
France, a lightbulb went off. “I remem-
ber saying, ‘ok, here’s my vacation. I
finally have the time I have been wait-
ing for when I can sit down and write
a new show.’ So I sat down with my
laptop everyday and, after three days,
I had nothing. It was a surreal experi-
ence,” he says. “For the first time ever,
nothing came to me. I was like, ‘I’m not
funny anymore. I’ve got nothing left.
Can I even do this?’”
So he decided to simply write a show
about where he was at at that exact mo-
ment. “The only thing I felt was that,
you know, I’m tired,” he laughs. “Am I
tired of making people laugh? No. I love
that. I’m tired of the hustle.”
Am I Grandi?
“See, as a performer, there’s only so
long you can do this before you start
thinking, am I any good?” he contin-
ues. “You know Grandi? I always think
about Grandi, like, stop trying to make
Grandi happen. It’s never going to hap-
pen!” he says, imitating the incompa-
rable Regina George. “Then I thought,
oh my God, am I Grandi?”
So, as he relays, he put the question
to the universe: Should I, Jono Duffy,
continue comedy? “Well, then COVID
happened. So sorry everyone. I think I
made it happen,” he says, a cheeky grin
taking over his face. “I lost six months
of work in one day.”
But, he emphasises, the answer is
in the show. It might be his last show
forever, or just for a while.
That said, if this is Jono’s last show,
the Reykjavík Grapevine—which has
covered every single one of Jono’s
shows—will no longer have any reason
to ever talk to him again. So does he
have one last statement for the paper
that’s fangirled on him since the be-
ginning?
“If this really is my last show, I have
one last thing to say, and that’s that I
love you all, and well, I tried,” he sighs
in a faux-dramatic manner, before
breaking off into his characteristically
boisterous laughter. “But it will be fun-
ny! I promise. Or, well, I hope.”
Hey! Thanks for checking in! I'm still a piece of garbage...
Words:
Hannah Jane
Cohen
Photos:
Art Bicnick
and
Natan
Ndi-Etienne
Info
‘Jono Duffy:
I’m Tired’ is
happening July
8th and 10th at
Tjarnarbíó at
22:00, July 11th at
the Secret Cellar
at 22:00, and July
12th at the Secret
Cellar at 20:00.
Tickets are 2,500
ISK.
Culture