Mandy Nolan ran for The Greens in the seat of Richmond in the 2022 federal election. She got a 4.9% swing – that’s big – but the seat went to Labor with a margin of 2%. The only positive of not having her in our Australian Government is that we get to see her show The Candidate.
There are two of her graffitied campaign core flutes on stage. One has her face surrounded by sparkly colourful flowers with her wearing a crown and a #1-medal; the other has a cock and balls drown on her forehead with a black marker. Welcome to politics.
Mandy is a feminist activist who also has a long career as a stand-up comedian. Her story of being a political candidate makes those years of working as a woman in comedy seem relatively easy.
The seat of Richmond is in Northern NSW. It’s as much old-school hippy, as super-rich Byron Bay influencers and super-conservatives who miss the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government in next-door Queensland.
Mandy is from the hippy capital of the country: Mullumbimby. Although now there’s a housing crisis, it’s expensive to live there if you do have a house, and the 2022 floods devastated the area.
Would a 55-year-old mother of 5 who has lived and worked in the community be an excellent parliamentary representative?
Yes.
She even started wearing jackets and bras to look the part. That’s not a joke. Even representing The Greens, women have to look like they are trying to look like the men in government. It’s almost like years in comedy prepared her for being judged by everything except what she had to say …
I’d vote for her. She actively talks about how a woman is killed every week in domestic violence in Australia – and has a political solution that would work. She campaigned for the people in her community who lost everything they owned in the floods.
She was so close. The votes of the butcher who made her a meat bikini for a protest, the shooters-party supporter who liked her simply because she asked him what he thought, and the husband of a woman she drunkenly shagged years ago all helped, but we still missed out on having her voice in Canberra.
She’s thinking of running again for no other reason than middle-aged women have had enough and we are ready to fuck the old ways up and make change happen. Damn right we are.
Mandy Nolan: The Candidate
Regent Room – Melbourne Town Hall, 100 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Performance: Friday 7 April 2023 – 7.40pm
Season continues to 23 April 2023
Information and Bookings: www.comedyfestival.com.au
Image: Mandy Nolan (supplied)
Review: Anne-Marie Peard