https://benjamin-english-the-ossie-spaniard.blogspot.com/2025/11/australian-actress-rebecca-gibney.html
Post from late last November.
That's a better gig than the ex-con characters in that Australian movie we just reviewed yesterday. As questionable and low career standard as those Australian lady characters were from yesterday's movie, the timing was great as it was the kids first day back at school after 6 or 7 weeks of school holidays.
The second day back for the kids today, in years 8, 6 (school captain) and 4 respectively... So they must be settling in. I flew off to the comedy club this evening after a few weeks away, to continue my training.
Let's revisit Benji's training thus far.
Step 1) go to an acting school and request one class at $100 for one hour. Take a one hour class with a young man, Dane.
Dane says he did a stand up circuit in Canada around like Vancouver, didn't get paid what he was promised and found work in Los Angeles as a grip on film sets including a movie with Lucy Liu. It's not that hard to believe, I remember walking around LA one time when an Adam Sandler movie was shooting, I don't think I've seen it yet but I think it was the one after Switch or whichever one he has the remote controller in. Some film crew guys told me which movie it was and I just kept walking, proceeding to source a muse figure for the future coveted Benji award or whatever I was up to that day in Hollywood.
Dane's story about his wedding was odd but young people did do a lot of stupid shit so also seemed possible/plausible. Dane was an actor so he'd have to memorize lines and get in front of a big audience. I mentioned fear of audience major problem for me at the time and he said it could happen to him and he once forgot his lines. His advice: just go to the comedy club and watch for now. Then see how I go. Last thing he said, he believed in me.
2) I start going to the comedy club. It's low priority for me so I'm not rushing over there all the time. I might go to a church lunch or join some folks for a yacht race or Thursday I'm challenging myself to sail my own yacht Red Herring back to pittwater harbor from Sydney harbor, sharks or no sharks. At one point I'm literally taking notes at a small table nearest the stage. One chap gets up and asks if I'm taking notes and I gave him two thumbs up. I mean at the time, in my inner life I was going through like 20 gallon drums of anxiety by the truck load like pei mei just gave me brain damage making it 100 times harder to deal with. Anyway I noticed the comics at Newcastle were going for it bc and I my was still at a loss, how to break my cherry.
3) pivot to Newtown. One girl gets on stage and tells everyone she's a lesbian. Like so many me me me, I, I, me me younger generation morbid self obsession it fell flat for me. But there she was anyway on stage with her gumption and lack of fear. She asked the audience if anyone liked playing sim games. I put my hand up and said I do. I should mention also this stand up set was preceded by a free class given by some kind of dipshit guy which I attended as part of my training. "What did you like about playing sim games?" Well I liked building cities from scratch I told her. I think eventually she felt blocked and just walked out.
4) return to Newcastle comedy club. Who wants to volunteer? I put my hand up, I had to approach the stage and face my fears. My friend, a guitarist who has performed on stage a lot, told me to bring some sunglasses for the stage lights which I did. The lights at Newcastle comedy club are so bright and it completely distorts your visuals of the audience who you can barely see. Someone from the audience even commented on me wearing sunglasses. Anyway I never froze up. And I had gotten on stage, albeit as a volunteer.
5) get on stage once and for all. Near Central station I found somewhere that felt comfortable. Listen to everyone's bawdy jokes. I never realized at first I'd want to be in character so just presented as my baseline personality however I wasn't able to write and memorize a clinical kind of set like I saw a lot of comics doing so I just focused on riffing and feeling comfortable. I should mention at Newtown I did talk to one comic off stage and she mentioned doing a lot of community theatre and acting. I did try out for one community theatre roll David Williamson play however I never got it and the players were all Northern Beaches Sydney pseudo Brits so I looked like a fag or something to them because I didn't sound like a British little bitch. Whatever. This one lady comic at Newtown, not the self described lesbian lady, was doing incredibly self deprecating shit. Really messed up talking about dating etc as she obviously was unrealistic about dating. Kidding herself.
6) continuing my regular baseline personality at comedy club a few times, one time mocking some Chinese lady's accent. Finally some Russian guy comes in with a thick heavy accent and it must have impressed me as I tried a different venue.
7) play my Dimitur character on stage in glebe. This is where I'm at. Twenty years after academy award winning actor Nick Nolte's fiancee or wife/baby momma to be or baby momma whatever, after her dumb bitch British mom calls me a fag, yeah fuck all you British little bitches, fuck you. 23 or 24 years after taking a couple of acting lessons in Paris with Angelina Jolie and Christopher Walken's acting teacher, and many other acting lessons with other folks. This is where I'm at creatively. Tonight I felt more awareness of audience individualities and doing crowd work etc. I'm feeling more and more relaxed on stage. I'm not in any hurries. I'm not sure what this is leading to but it's important to have an extra hobby.
8) I forgot to mention, I did a podcast around the time of my second or third set on stage. At the podcast I met a couple that runs a theatre school in Newtown that sounded like I could study with them and bring it up a level. I might look into that later.
