6. What do your parents think of your job?
My mum is delighted to see her son doing something with his life that he loves. My father is looking forward to my third show next year because "the current schtick's wearing a bit thin".
7. What’s the worst thing about being a comedian?
The nagging fear that my total dependence on autobiographical material has left me plundering my personal life for cheap laughs in a way that is both desperate and massively unsustainable, a short-term trade-off of dignity for minor career progression that is going to leave me washed up and alone in my late twenties, unable to enjoy any experience on a primary level or claw back the respect of even my closest friends. That or the bloody invoices!
8. I think you are very good at what you do (that’s why I’m asking these questions). What do you think of you?
Cheers, Bruce. I think the stories I bash out onstage are interesting enough and sufficiently well told that I provide a comedy audience with a definitively above-average listening experience. I also think I use this excuse far too often to justify the set not having been funny enough.
9. How much do you earn and how much would you like to earn?
I currently earn enough to shampoo and condition my hair with Alberto Balsam, and I'd like to earn enough for Aussie Colour Mate. There's better ways to measure your financial situation than hair products, but it's a great place to start.
10. How important is luck in terms of career success – have you had lucky breaks?
I feel like I have been incredibly lucky in my career so far and that various generous people within the industry have taken chances on me that I have not necessarily always been fully deserving of. That said, I also wrote an essay on military strategy for my A Level History coursework entitled "Great Men Make Their Own Luck", and having ploughed such a tragic amount of my 2008 Easter holiday into researching it, I'm not too inclined to start disputing its logic here.
11. Alan Davies has said that comedians fall into two categories - golfers and self-harmers. The former just get on with life, the latter are tortured artists. Which are you – or do you think you fit into a third category?
It'd be so much cooler to pretend I'm the second, but as a privately educated, mentally stable man from a happy and unbroken home, it would be ludicrously disingenuous to do so. See you on the green.
