Linda Haggar
She built a blueprint for aggressive, deliberately baffling character comedy.
1 special · 2001
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As half of the nineties duo Miss Itchy, Linda Haggar treated the audience like an inconvenience. She played a deeply unsettling teenage bridesmaid named Miss Gerda by acting like she had no idea how to run a show. She would stumble over the script on purpose, direct her lines to voices offstage instead of the crowd, and pace through talk-show formats designed to fall apart. A typical hour might feature a prize wheel that handed out terrible prizes, or an extended interview with a room-temperature pony, all delivered while she fidgeted and belched into the microphone.
Specials
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Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala 2001 with Jimeoin, Chris Addison & 10 more
A rapid-fire 2001 charity showcase of Australian and international stand-up.
Network Ten
On stage
There is a direct line from Haggar’s stage choices to the strange, combative character acts that populate modern alternative rooms. Comics who get credit in Los Angeles and London for tearing up the traditional standup format are often doing variations of the ground she broke thirty years ago in Australia. She was doing weird, abrasive work in front of confused crowds long before the industry knew what to call it.
Haggar and her comedy partner Fahey Younger took home the top prize at the 1998 Melbourne International Comedy Festival for Miss Itchy’s Creme De Menthe Breakfast Show. Beyond her own stage time, Haggar forced the Australian circuit to change by launching the Jeez Louise forum, an initiative designed to build industry support for women in a scene that was largely uninterested in making room for them.