“You’ve probably noticed I’m an old angry man, and that sucks.
Society doesn’t want old angry man.
Society romanticises angry young men.
They’re in movies and music.
We think the angry young man is deep.
We don’t want to hear from the angry old man.
Nobody’s buying tickets to see Rage Against The CPAP Machine!”

If you’ve seen me on stage in the last couple of years, there’s a slim chance you might have heard me say this on stage. I think it’s funny and so do a lot of other people.

As I write this I’m rapidly approaching my 58th birthday. My 7th comedy birthday is not long after. I wanted to talk about that.

Actually, before we go any further I’ll share the post in one of the comedy discussion groups that inspired this article. I’ll also share some of the responses it attracted. I haven’t responded on the thread. I’ll probably just post a link to this page.

So, realistically what chance does a 60+ type have of getting an open mic start ?
Performed in Raw Comedy 2000 (Heat and Qld semi finals)and again in 2013.
Wouldn’t mind having a few more goes but also don’t want to get in the way of younger ones keen for a shot.
Also not sure if an audience of likely 20 /30 somethings interested in hearing about ageing, retirement or the seniors dating scene ?


This post breaks my heart for a few reasons. As with many things comedians say, it communicates a lot in it’s few words. The writer is in their sixties and has at least 26 years of experience, and their repeated success in RAW tells me that they are very experienced and skilled for someone working at the open mic level.

And yet somehow they feel that they’re not only irrelevant and uninteresting to comedy audiences, but they also feel like they’re “getting in the way” of young comics. That’s the saddest thing I’ve read today.

The responses were mostly positive. I’ll share some of the highlights before getting into my own response.

I love when older people get up. Keeps it different and you’ve got a unique perspective of being an old fogey

Mate get out there….. I have been hammering the 60+ dating scene stuff for a while, there’s nearly as many older comics doing dating scene “at our age” stuff as there is comics doing ADHD stuff, so be sure to have something else in your arsenal sooner or later. That’s not to say don’t do it by any means, get out there and sign up

Old people are funny (and 60 isn’t that old

funny doesn’t expire.

Im 55 in my 10th year. Some audiences won’t be for you. But there’s plenty of folk who aren’t so keen on a 20 year old talking about his dick and its relationship to Tinder.

I’m 64 and been doing stand up over 5 years. Everyone thinks my audience is the oldies but I have had the most fun and best feedback from youngsters…and young men at that. I think they see me as some weird aunty who’s escaped from lock up in the attic 

That last one is from my friend Sarah Stewart, who I’ve shared a stage with on a few occasions – many of which are open mics. She’s funny.

I also loved the sentiment behind “funny doesn’t expire” even though I just wrote a post arguing that it does.

My own reactions will be more comprehensive than is allowed in a brief message board comment, so I’ll be unpacking it all here.

Before I address any other point, though, I’d like to respond to the Open Mic aspect, the one in which the writer assumes they’re speaking to a young audience who aren’t interested in their perspective, and that they’re getting in the way of younger comics. It’s the bit that concerns me the most and I couldn’t disagree with it more.

Firstly, open mics are different everywhere but I find the age demographics at the ones I attend to be better distributed than that. I don’t see Zoomers impatient with “old fogey” material. I see older couples patiently waiting through act after act of young comics, many of whom are wannabe edgelords trying to shock an audience who’s heard it all before, or narcissists not caring that their their self-centred in-joke references aren’t relatable at all to anyone who’s not identical to them.

When I go to open mics and see young people talking to mixed audiences, I get the impression that live stand-up is a comedy platform for my generation and that the kids should probably stick to memes and 10-second TikTok videos. Too harsh? Probably, but no less “savage” than some of the kids gleefully are to us.

Second, let’s look at the relatability and content issue. When I started doing stand up, one of the topics I discussed was the weirdness of coming back to the dating scene in my middle age. Not just how dating itself has changed with apps different mating rituals, but also aspects of the dating scene that apply to people who’d got kids, been married, etc that just never came up in the relatively straightforward “You’re hot, I’m hot, we’re both drunk” club scene I remember from my twenties.

This topic might not make an identical match to your current circumstances, but it definitely ticks the Relatable box. It’s comedy that’s interesting and potentially funny, regardless of your current age or marital status. Other aspects of elder life are still of potential interest, unless the listener is convinced they’re going to die young and uninterested in the experiences of others.

Let’s talk experience. I once heard a comic claim that there ought to be a rule that new open mic comics should only be allowed to talk about iPhones and masturbation in their first year. I’m not unsympathetic to this. I’ve written in this blog about people on their Comedy P-Plates attempting tricky maneuvers that require more skill and experience than they currently have and how catastrophic the results can be.

We’re talking serious bombs. We’re talking about how badly it stinks up a room and turns everyone’s night bad when a comic without maturity, empathy or nuance gives us their hot take on gender or race or abortion or something where the outcome can be divisive at best and turn everyone off at worst.

I’ve already talked about it this year because it feels like it’s increasing and the effect needs to be considered. But there is also the point that only experience can endow a comic with sufficient skill to handle more delicate or sophisticated incredients.

That older comedian you think is irrelevant might be the only person in the room with the maturity and sensitivity to tackle some of the stuff that younger comics stink up the room with.

I blame pop music.

I’d better explain that. Music, especially pop music, is the youth-obsessed corner of the arts. It’s aimed squarely at a young demographic and it’s purveyors all have to be young and sexy.

Lets get one thing absolutely straight – this is a marketing consideration. There’s nothing intrinsic about making music, even music for young people, that’s done better by child labour. If the delivery platform requires a lot of dance and sexy posing, then young performers will be selected every time. But often the songs are written and produced by older people because experience and knowledge and maturity and insight count when you’re creating a piece of art.

Our history seems to be roughly split into two eras. There was the era for literally thousands of years in which most art was writing, storytelling, painting, sculpting, poetry, design, architecture, acting, etc. In these times it was considered a given that maturity and experience were considered good things and that the artists got more skilled over time. The influence of these arts created a society in which elders were respected and revered.

Then there’s the very recent era where, when we refer to “artists” we’re mostly talking about people who sing and/or dance. Here, being young and fuckable are the primary considerations. This is a very recent development, barely a blink in the timeline, but it’s the dominant paradigm right now and it’s influence has created a society in which elders are sidelined and deemed irrelevant.

Anyway, there’s nothing intrinsic to stand-up comedy that suggests it’s done better by inexperienced hands. I’ve already argued that the opposite is more likely true. The comic has to be relatable, but that’s always the truth and applies equally to everyone.

Third, I want to tackle the assumption that our age means old ideas or perspectives.

I think I’m a pretty unconventional and progressive guy. My ideas are generally not conservative. They never have been

And some of the comics I work with, ones half my age, have some very regressive and conservative opinions. I regularly ask them whether they’re not 100 years older than they look, because they vote Liberal or One Notion and spout a lot of phobic 1950s bullshit.

Trust me: The freshness and social relevance of our ideas is not determined by how long we’ve walked the earth. I’m rapidly approaching my sixties but I’ve been punk and think I still am in a lot of ways. I won’t be told my ideas are old fashioned by a Young Liberal.

The final aspect of the question I want to address is the question of who the open mics are for. A curated comedy night where the audience purchased tickets is pretty clearly for the audience who paid to be there.

Open Mics are a weird hybrid of being partially for the audience but also (and mostly) as a development tool for the performers. There’s less expectation that the comedian’s performance satisfy the audience as if they were paying customers. It’s as much a testing and practice session for the comedians as anything else.

In this sense it’s semi-acceptable for the edgelords and crappy comics to create bad feeling in the room. I’ve seen loads of open mics where most of the comics are just performing for each other. There are several types of open mic, each with their own rules and culture. With all of them, though, is the pervasive sentiment that they should be democratic in spirit.

This means we’re often waiving quality control. I’ve seen some truly terrible performers, ones who will never be invited to participated in curated shows, regularly take space at open mics and create 10 dead awkward unavoidable minutes in every single show. Often with the same script that hasn’t gotten laughs in the last five years.

Some open mics enforce strict time limits, allowing additional minutes to seasoned performers who have proved that they will use the time well. Some limit the number of performances on the night, with a first-in-best-dressed policy. Other might introduce some subtle curation. And others will call themselves “free speech absolutists” and allow everything.

Whatever the policy, it’s a decision for the room-runner and not for the performers. You shouldn’t ever have to censor yourself because you think you’re getting in someone else’s way.

Especially if nobody else has suggested anything of the sort.

Without witnessing and evaluating the performers myself, I’m still very confident that the comic with 26+ years of experience including accounting for themselves well at 2 RAW events is not the one getting in anyone’s way. When I recall the standard of most open mics I’ve seen lately, I’d assume they’d be extremely lucky to have you.

Open mics are supposed to be democratic and open to all. If you’re asking the public for permission to be in one, you’re probably not the person there who should be.

And asking for permission of license to do comedy just because you’re older? That’s sad. Nobody should need permission from the peanut gallery. And if we ever did it shouldn’t be because of your maturity.

Don’t let the kids gaslight you. It’s not fucking Logan’s Run.

Ironically, that’s a reference that won’t be recognised by anyone under fifty. Whatever….

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