Mel McGlensey revs up the MOTORBOAT for Fringe 2025

American comedian Mel McGlensey is performing at Perth’s Fringe World for the first time this summer. Her award-winning clown show Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT hits The Parlour at The Pleasure Garden from Saturday, February 1, to Sunday, February 16, with tickets available here. The show, that features McGlensey as “Part woman, Part boat, Full clown,” is an entertaining mix of comedy, burlesque, and character improvisation. NATASHA PAUL caught up with Mel McGlensey to find out more about her hilarious nautical show. 

It’s great to have you in Perth for Fringe World 2024 with your debut clown show, Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT. As someone originally from America and now based in Melbourne, what is it like to be performing at Perth Fringe?

I’m so excited to be performing at Perth Fringe. It’s my first time at the festival, but I’ve heard so many good things about it. Several international clowns I know speak of it as their favourite festival, so it’s been really high on my list for a while. It’s definitely known as a place that embraces the weird and wild and wonderful, which is what I’m all about.

Your debut solo show, The Briefing, was a hilarious American political satire involving a press briefing, improvisation, and audience interaction. What can audiences expect from your new show MOTORBOAT?

MOTORBOAT is unlike anything you’ve seen before. It’s strange and wacky and silly and sexual. Audiences can expect something a bit raucous, a bit raunchy, and a whole lot of fun. They can also expect to be invited to get involved! The show is heavy on the audience participation but also offers the crowd many different options for ways to get amongst it that range from the suitable for the more shy audience members to those who want to get fully involved in the show. Come along, sit in the front row, and have a blast.

You’ve spoken about attending clown school in France and how you were given the nickname ‘Motorboat Mel’. Was this the inspiration for your show?

Yes, in the summer of 2023 I attended École Philippe Gaulier, and it changed my life. It was really revelatory for my creative practice. Before that, my shows were all really cerebral with lots of standing in one place and talking. Afterwards, I learned to use my body to tell stories and to make comedy. It felt like up until that point I wasn’t using all the tools at my disposal, so my comedy was clever, but it wasn’t resonating as deeply as I wanted it to with audiences. While I was there studying, I booked a gig in Paris, and I panicked because I had never done a clown act before.

I barely even knew what a clown was yet. So a bunch of my housemates and I sat around in our living room in our rented flat in Etampes and had some beers while we workshopped a new bit for me. When I told them I could motorboat myself (if you don’t know what that means, come to my show to find out), they all laughed and agreed I needed to find a way to do that onstage. One friend started throwing nautical sound effects at me, and another suggested I move my body in a particular way. From there we just kept playing around until the bit was born. I performed it that night, and everyone loved it.

I knew then we were onto something good when people started calling me ‘Motorboat Mel’. A few months later I went to the Edinburgh Fringe and workshopped the bit in a bunch of different line-up shows, and people just loved it. I immediately started thinking about how to turn that eight-minute bit into a whole show.

You’ve received countless accolades for MOTORBOAT this year, winning the Best Comedy Award and Hollywood Fringe Tour Award at Adelaide Fringe Festival and being nominated for a Golden Gibbo at the 2024 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. How does it feel to receive this recognition for your first-ever clown show?

The recognition feels great but was honestly so unexpected. I never in a million years thought this very niche show would speak to so many people. Who knew getting onstage and pretending to be a sexy little boat was the ticket to critical acclaim? But at the end of the day, I made something that was so silly it just thoroughly delighted me; it still does, and I think people responded to the joy.

I never set out to win awards or be nominated for things with this show; I just wanted to have a tonne of fun onstage and in my body. I made something very true to myself, the kinds of things I find funny and the particular skills that I have, and I continue to be touched every time somebody else thinks it’s funny or good.

Your comedy work often plays with politics, body positivity, feminism, and general ‘silliness’. What message do you hope audiences take away from MOTORBOAT?

I like to joke that MOTORBOAT is just a show about boats. But of course it isn’t. Nothing is just about one thing, even if you tried hard to make it that way. Which, to be clear, I did not. But I hesitate to speak about MOTORBOAT‘s other messages because I think the show is first and foremost a fun time. It’s a show that you can engage with on a surface level if you want, or you can dive deeper, but at the end of the day, everything I make is political in some way. Art itself is political. I can’t stand on a stage in my body and not be saying something.

I just choose to say whatever I want to say through the medium of laughter. So what do I hope audiences take away? Well, I hope they have a blast and see something they’ve never seen before. And if they want to also think more deeply about the show’s messages, then they are welcome to, and they can take those away with them as well. But if not, then at least we were all very silly together for an hour.

You have studied and performed improvisation, stand-up, and sketch comedy all over the world. What have been some of the most memorable moments during this time?

Yes, it is true I’ve spent over a decade training and performing as a comedian. I’ve learned so much about my craft over the years, whether it was playing indie improv shows in a bar basement in New York, doing sketch classes at Second City in Chicago, or hitting the stand-up circuit in Melbourne. My training has been so varied, but at the end of the day, it has all been valuable experience.

Some of my favourite memories are performing with my beloved improvised Shakespeare troupe, Soothplayers. But I also loved co-creating and directing Completely Improvised Survivor and playing as a member of the Melbourne branch of The Big HooHaa. All of this performing prepared me to play the character of Motorboat and has given me the gift of feeling at ease in front of crowds, even when totally off script.

What are you most looking forward to at Fringe World 2024?

I can’t wait to sink my teeth into these beautiful crowds I’ve heard so much about! A Fringe Festival is my happy place because it’s where you find punters who are so much more willing to take a chance and see something new and different. Those are my people. I have heard such great things about Perth audiences, and I just can’t wait to have a big ol’ play with them for two weeks. That’s what I’m most looking forward to. Well, that, and also maybe a cheeky beach trip here and there between gigs.

Mel McGlensey is MOTORBOAT hits The Parlour at The Pleasure Garden from Saturday, February 1, to Sunday, February 16, 2025, with tickets on sale now.