Anthony Locascio has been touring his show for over 18 months, all over Australia, as well as taking it the U.K. and New Zealand. Now he is going large before he wraps it up, with a night at the Enmore Theatre in January, followed by a tour of Canada to Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. Irresistible first saw the show in the Sydney Comedy Festival 2024, and we loved it then.
Apparently it’s even better now, and if you have even the slightest bit of interest in, or ties to, Greek culture, you won’t want to miss it.
Anthony is in fact half- Italian, and half- Greek, but this show focuses on the story of his grandfather, his Pappou, and Anthony’s relationship to him, and the migrant community he was brought up in.
We caught up with Anthony to find out if he’s ready to put the show down, and if his grandfather has actually seen it yet!
What does it mean to you to wrap up the show and where will the last night be?
This is the longest I’ve toured a show – I generally only do 9/10 months before writing the next one – and it’s been a year and a half. I’ll miss it, but it will live on as I’ll use the best jokes from it in club sets for a while. The last planned shows are in Canada in February, but my Australian finale is on 12 January 2025 at Enmore Theatre. It’s nothing short of a dream come true, I think for me, and any other performer from Sydney. I’ve been going to concerts there since I was 12, and from when I started comedy, it has always been THE dream. I thought it might take me 25 years to get to do a solo show there. Somehow it’s only taken me seven – and for that I can thank some lovely people in the comedy industry, and of course, all the beautiful people who continue to come and watch my shows. I have performed on that stage once – the Sydney Comedy Festival Gala in 2021, and I was so awestruck by it that I forgot two of my best jokes and had a pretty mediocre set. So I have somewhat of a score to settle with that place.
Has your grandfather’s response to the show changed over time?
He hasn’t seen it! It’s a bit tough to get that dude out of the house after 4pm at the best of times, and he’s not in the best shape right now. However, I am forcing him to come to the Enmore Theatre show, maybe I can convince him to come on stage with me for a round of applause he so richly deserves.
How has the show changed what you write and how you perform, what will you carry with you into future material?
Its something that I’ve acknowledged for a long time, but throughout this show’s run, I’ve really internalised and felt the notion that my job as a performer, first and foremost, is to make sure everyone in the room has a wonderful time. My own personal validation comes second. I’ve already started testing material for my next show, and I’m trying to adopt that mindset as automatic. Its tricky; stand-up is still absolutely nerve-wracking.
In a strange way, until you’ve done the show maybe 10 times, you don’t really know what it is about. At least that’s been my experience touring in the last three years. You also get a better sense of what the show means to the people who come to see it, which is just as important. Having done this show over 50 times now, across four different countries, it has changed a lot. I’ve completely reshuffled the material to better fit the story, and I have even added newer bits that I’ve tested in the time since the tour started that fit the show better. This is the first time I haven’t gotten bored of a show after about six performances, and I think that has everything to do with the show being a tribute to someone important to me. So I guess what I’ve learned about myself is that I’m not as motivated by selfishness as I once thought.
Comedians often say that different audiences find different parts of a show funny. Did you find that and did you find different resonances in different cities or countries?
There’s one joke about property prices in the show that tends to work extra well in Sydney where it hits everyone in the feels. Similarly, there’s only particularly un-PC joke which really doesn’t fly in Melbourne. Other than that, the show inherently appeals to Greeks, being based on the life of a man who is Greek (I go to great lengths to make sure my shows are completely accessible and universal, so not just for Greeks). As such, Greeks have often laughed before the punchline, getting a kick out of a shared experience or anecdote.
What else do you have planned for 2025?
Well I have the small proposition of getting married in August in Malaysia. Beyond that, for the first time in my stand-up career I’m not planning to run a show next year. I want to take a bit more time and try to come up with something great, because this one is going to be hard to top. Having said that…I may have already started.
PAPPOU
Sydney Enmore Theatre 12 January 2025
Montreal 5 Feb 2025
Ottawa 6 Feb 2025
Toronto 7 Feb 2025
