Australian Penthouse

Is it true that when you were younger you thought about joining the circus?
Yeah, I wanted to be a circus performer, and a stunt man as well. I used to be a juggler, and there was a show one night where a guy had some balls with him, and I was ripping the piss out of him—just on how sad juggling is and how anyone who’s taken the time to learn juggling is basically a loser. He literally walked right into it.

So he looked at me and said, “Oh yeah, you think you’re so good,” and threw the balls up on stage. So I spent the next five minutes blowing his mind with all my juggling tricks, to the point where after the show he came up to me and asked, “Could you show me how you did one of those?” [A few non-comedy tricks] are a good thing to have in your back pocket.

Do you regret not pursuing the circus?
Being a circus performer? Not so much. I probably would’ve ended up shovelling elephant shit in my downtime, so yeah, I’m kind of happy with the way it went. In the UK set on the DVD Things (the DVD features a set performed in the UK and a set performed in Australia), you focus the show on pineapples, Aerosmith and two unfortunate bastards who arrived late to your performance.

Were you surprised at the direction that show took?
What’s funny about that is, in Australia pineapples are a lot more normal, more readily available. I mean, you’ve got giant ones on the side of the road and everything. Whereas in the north of England, they’re not really the first thing you expect to see at a comedy gig and suddenly became the main point of the show.

You get quite animated and physical on stage. Do you have any influences when it comes to comedic physicality?
Before I played the large venues, I was limited to what I could do physically. I was constantly smashing into walls, banging my head on air-conditioning units and that sort of thing. I do like the old slapstick comics—you know, Chaplin and such—and for falling down, you can’t get much better than Buster Keaton. I draw the line there, though, as he broke his neck doing some of his stunts. (Laughs) The line has to be drawn.

What are the differences between working the comedy festivals you frequent?
I haven’t played Edinburgh in ages, actually; I got a bit bored with it. I shouldn’t really say that, but it’s true. Edinburgh has become a bit of an industry showcase. A lot of people “do” Edinburgh so they can get seen by the people that book Melbourne, with many acts motivated by the chance to come to Australia—which is quite an amazing thing, as Edinburgh is the biggest comedy festival in the world. Edinburgh has the feel of people trying to make a name for themselves, whereas Melbourne is a lot more about just doing a show. It feels like the continuation of a tour rather than a separate thing in itself.

Do you have any crazy fan stories?
How long have you got? (Laughs) The best one recently happened when I was doing a six-week run in [London's] West End. There was a theatre next door featuring a Michael Jackson tribute show, and one Monday night all the crazed fans came to see me. So I walk out on stage and the whole front row is dressed up as Michael Jackson.
(Laughs) I don’t know whether they qualify as my crazy fans, but they certainly were crazy fans who ended up at my gig.