Geraldine Hickey asks Fringe World 2024 audiences Don’t Tease Me About My Gloves at State Theatre Centre of WA

There is a lot that goes into making stand-up comedy look easy, just ask comedian Geraldine Hickey. “I’ve spent years, I guess, curating that kind of feeling in the audience,” the 44-year-old says, who splits her time between Melbourne and her home with civil marriage celebrant wife Cath Bateman in the Gippsland regional town of Moe. “I know it comes across as kind of effortless, but there is a lot of effort that goes into looking relaxed and comfortable onstage, and letting the audience feel that as well. Some fans of comedy want pow, pow, pow, set-up, punchline, whereas that’s not me. I like to take people on a bit of a journey with the story and see what happens along the way. “For many years I was doing comedy in the way that I thought you should perform comedy. So I would try to be more energetic or fast-paced or silly, but my style of comedy is just who I am.” Hickey has been fine-tuning this endearing yarn-like comedic style since entering the 2001 Raw Comedy Festival, taking her from hometown Albury to Melbourne, where she was runner-up in the national finals. Comedy had been at the back of Hickey’s mind since high school, where her dream to become an actor was shattered after discovering she was more skilled at making audiences laugh instead. At that stage the idea of being a touring comic and doing shows was not on her radar, with Hickey’s only comedy exposure coming from TV shows like The Big Gig. An unsuccessful semester studying an arts degree at university saw Hickey back living with her parents, enjoying the ideal work/life balance of casual hours plus free popcorn and movies in a job at the local cinema, before her mum questioned her life goals and Hickey entered Raw Comedy to win the argument. It was a 20-year journey for Hickey between then and winning most outstanding show at the 2021 Melbourne Comedy Festival for What A Surprise, filmed as a special for Paramount Plus. The turning point had been a few years before when she sought advice to take her stand-up shows to the next level and the answer came in the form of “structure”. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s what I’m missing’. I don’t know how to put structure in the show, I’m going to get someone else in to help me with that,” Hickey shares. “So I have a director, a mate of mine Rachel Davis, and we’ve worked together on the last five or six shows. When I’m starting a new show, I think of the audience, and I think of who comes to my show and what they want, and at the end of the day, they just want to know what I’ve been up to. So I just kind of start with that and then make it funny.” It means subject matter has ranged from owning horses and a boat to getting married and discovering a love for birdwatching during Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdowns. That has resulted in this year’s fourth bird calendar, complete with each of Hickey’s photographed feathered friends given a human name and humorous bio. “Birds became like my Pokemon, I just had to catch them all,” Hickey says. “This year’s calendar is the first time it has international birds, with photos I took while doing Edinburgh Fringe and a few shows in London.” After spending Christmas at her sister’s in Perth, Hickey is on her way back west to debut latest show Don’t Tease Me About My Gloves at Fringe World 2024, surrounding her diagnosis of Raynaud’s within the past year, a condition where blood vessels are constricted in the extremities, such as fingers and toes. “It causes numbness, tingling, pain, discolouration and when it gets really bad, you can’t use your fingers,” Hickey explains. “Your hands get so cold that there’s no feeling in your fingers and it’s just really f...... annoying. The first time I got it, my hands were red, but my fingertips were white. So it was like my hands belonged to a pasty white ghost and that ghost was wearing red fingerless gloves.” Treatment involved her doctor advising Hickey to get some good gloves and hand warmers. “I just found myself wearing gloves when it’s not cold enough to warrant wearing gloves, so people would look at me and ask why I was wearing gloves,” she says. “I just got sick of explaining, so thought if I did it en masse and anyone saw me in public wearing gloves, they’d go ‘Oh, you’ve just got Raynaud’s’.” Adding to her list of health issues, Hickey also has an inflammatory arthritis where the medication has stopped any consumption of alcohol. “I guess the show’s about getting older and dealing with things that come up with your body,” she laughs. “I’m venting the frustration.” Geraldine Hickey — Don’t Tease Me About My Gloves is at State Theatre Centre of WA, January 30 to February 4, and Comedy Shack, Wanneroo, February 2. Tickets at fringeworld.com.au.