During the hairy despair of Melbourne’s lengthy pandemic lockdown, friends Judith Lucy and Denise Scott helped each other unload.
In doing so, they created a show that broke new ground for them as entertainers.
Still Here, which they will perform at the Cairns Performing Arts Centre later this month, is not your usual stand-up comedy but a hilarious musical production in which the pair sing, act and dance.
The duo told Tropic Now they wrote the script after ignoring advice from their agents and publicity managers to not ever mention the ‘c’ word.
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“Some days Judith (who was living alone) would just cry during the Zoom meeting and I would just stare off into the middle distance unable to offer any consolation,” said Denise, AKA Scottie.
“Nevertheless, we ended up writing a show.”
“Generally the conversation would go with me saying, ‘Scottie I’ve got nothing’ and Scottie saying, ‘Yeah I’ve got nothing,’ and then we’d somehow talk for another 40 to 60 minutes and out of those conversations came the show,” Judith added.
“We’d always talk about what we were having for dinner – that was about the most exciting thing we had - and I remember one day Scottie said she was having chops for dinner and one of us said, ‘Write that down!’.”
The show covers the whole gamut of lockdown life.
Denise spent a fortune making a still-unfinished tapestry cushion cover, while Judith bought bulk bags of rice she will never cook.
Both women worried about their drinking and had issues with unwanted hair.
Denise made the mistake of shaving her face.
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“I felt subconscious but then what do you know - mandatory masks happen and no one could see it so that was very liberating,” she said.
In a testament the advice they were given was wrong, the topic has created comic gold for a whole nation that can relate - to some extent at least.
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In true self-deprecating style, Judith said their foray into singing, acting and dancing is a triumph over their extra left feet as well as her frozen shoulders and Denise’s arthritic knees.
“Not only do we lack talent but it’s more than that,” she said.
“Cobbled together, we’re barely one functioning human and yet we still manage to do three dance numbers and we act and we sing and we can’t do any of those things.”
Still Here runs for one night only on August 31 as part of the Cairns Festival.
More information and tickets can be found here.
