Australia's funniest adopted Californian is digging deep into 'The Mind Field’.
In this show, Arj Barker is armed with the revelation that all of reality – at least, to the extent that we can ever know it – exists exclusively in our conscious awareness. With this in mind (literally), Arj sets out to answer some of life's biggest questions.
He's also doing some reflecting on his own career as he prepares to take the Brisbane and Sydney Comedy Festival stages. Here, he thinks back on his TV appearances.
Arj has done a fair few TV spots and a little acting here and there, but these five stand out for him – big time.
Five
'Rove Live' (because it was live). Rove and the crew always treated me real nice and the audiences were consistently awesome when I did Rove McManus’s talk show a bunch of times back in the day. I generally love doing a short stand-up spot on TV, but what made these appearances extra exciting, was the fact they actually went out live. There was no safety net in case I totally forgot my jokes or burst out with four-letter expletives for some reason (maybe because I forgot my jokes). It was do or die, each time, and I found that thrilling.Four
'Rage'. I was invited to host 'Rage', I admit that I didn’t really realise what a great honour it was nor what an institution that programme is in Australia. I have since come to know these things, but honestly it was just really fun picking out the songs and also it felt quite novel being invited to do something non-comedy related (pretty rare for me tbh!).Three
'Thank God You’re Here' (first time). Appearing on this show ALWAYS terrified me, and sometimes it went better than others, but the first time I did it was the scariest, because I had no idea if I could cope at all. This was the scene where I was the bad roommate. Anyway, the jokes just came that day (thank the joke god) and I had a blast. Very memorable.Two
Role of ‘Dave’ on 'Flight Of The Conchords'. It’s hard not to put this first, since it was a big chapter in my career and too many good memories to remember. It was a fairly small role on the show, and I was often on the set only 1-2 days per week. The rest of the time I was free to roam NYC and pursue stand-up at the various clubs. What I found particularly enjoyable about playing that role was that the director basically said, ‘don’t act – just say the lines as you would in real life’ so that took the pressure off a fair bit, and made it really fun.One
'Letterman' appearance (first time). Possibly the single most exciting moment in my life (career-wise!) was when my manager called my hotel room in NYC to casually mention that I had booked a spot on 'The Late Show With David Letterman'. I went bananas, jumping up and down on the bed screaming for joy. This was the holy grail of comedy spots back then, and the closest I’ve felt to palpably feeling that I’ve ‘made it’ – regardless that in reality it probably only had a moderate impact on my career. Because you feel like it’s so important, actually doing the spot was nearly overwhelming and felt like an out-of-body experience. Still, it went well and remains a joyous memory, which I hope to never forget.Arj Barker plays The Princess Theatre (Brisbane Comedy Festival) 26-27 April, The Concourse Chatswood (Sydney Comedy Festival) 16 May and Enmore Theatre (Sydney Comedy Festival) 17 May.
