Tomorrow’s Weather & Other Predictive Errors

Tomorrow’s Weather & Other Predictive Errors

Presented by CJ Delling

Reviewed by Catherine Hollyman

The downstairs room at the City Hotel on Kent Street is like someone’s lounge. The 30 seats – a mishmash of old leather sofas, dining chairs, stools and gilded recliners – are all bundled cosily together facing a make-shift ‘stage’ that has an easel on one side and a glass of wine for our host on the other. We in the audience have brought our refreshments down with us as well. We settle; the lights dim and the music kicks in:

“Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz;

My friends all have horses, I must make amends;

So Lord won’t you buy me a Mer.............

From over the microphone comes:

“....Ladies and Gentlemen, from the country that brought you Mercedes Benz, Porsche and Sauerkraut please put your hands together for Ms C J Dellingggggg!”

Having made her own introduction from the back of the room, CJ takes the five short steps through the audience to her place in the spotlight, armed and ready to pontificate on the predictably unpredictable nature of society.

A comedian, cartoonist, entertainer for the easily amused and SBS German Radio weekly satirist, CJ’s show reinterprets real life, questioning those oddities that we often overlook. With English as her second language, the timing of a few gags was off meaning they a lost a bit of punch, but CJ more than makes up for it by bringing her accent and German heritage into her act, along with a heavy dose of international humour.

On the back of her successful Melbourne International Comedy Festival show last year, CJ decided to bring her show to Sydney. It was refreshing to find her in the bar before the show began, so I took the opportunity to ask a couple of questions:

How did you get started?
I took a course in comedy then I did lots of short five minute gigs. Last year I took the plunge and did the Melbourne Comedy show which was such fun and such a great learning curve.

How far in advance of a show do you write your material?

I actually kept two jokes from my Melbourne show because I love them! Others I wrote maybe six months ago or less. I’m always writing things down - an idea will come to me in the shower and I’ll have to scribble it down straight away. But it always evolves, even during a performance it will change!!