Heath Franklin is extending the tour of his award-winning show ‘Bogan Jesus’ with appearances in Queensland.
This follows on from 2018 where ‘Bogan Jesus’ proved a bestseller and took out the Comic’s Choice Award at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
Heath explains how the show is continuing to grow.
“It’s been going for a while now and the nature of the thing is, the more you do a show, the more you think of jokes to go here and there. So it’s slowly getting longer and longer, I think if I keep it going for another year or so it’s going to be three or four hours long,” he laughs.
Heath uses his character Chopper based off the late real-life nefarious underworld figure to poke fun at various things. Following a show where Chopper created his own country, he’s now created his own religion. “It does touch a bit on the hypocrisy in some religions and the perversion of religion that seems to happen more and more. People have their selective memories when it comes to what is important about their particular religious sect.
“It’s also just a bit of an experiment in what would happen if you gave Chopper divine authority.”
Elaborating further on religions the comedian adds, “They’re supposed to be based, for the most part, about preaching tolerance and kindness and generosity and then there’s always a perversion of those things where it gets twisted and distorted... All of sudden it’s about kindness and generosity for everyone except for those people.
“That was the main thing, just being around people who were religious who should’ve been good people, but were just assholes.”
In addition to his continued success as a comedian Heath has also recently featured in more dramatic roles including playing a part in ‘Top of the Lake: China Girl’ directed by Jane Campion and opposite Elisabeth Moss.
“I haven’t had a tonne of experience at it, so every time I do get a chance I want to make the most out of it. Maybe I have a tendency to make dramatic roles seem funny especially in auditions where I’m like 'well there’s a joke there, so I’ve got to get that out'. There’s a little part of me that’s obviously condescending and says 'drama is just comedy that’s not very funny'. But I don’t think that’s quite true either.
“No, cool, I’m right... Dramatic actors are just people who aren’t funny.”
When asked what’s next for Chopper, Heath has to think about it, but it seems some ideas might be forming.
“It’s very hard to figure out what to do after starting your own religion, as I’m sure everyone who has started their own religion has said. That’s the big question. I don’t know, there might have to be a bit of reset after this. After being sort of a self-ordained head of a religion and imagining yourself being head of a country, there’s got to be some sort of crash back to earth so we’ll just have to see what shape that takes.”
'Bogan Jesus' Tour Dates
31 January – Racecourse Hotel (Ipswich)1 February – Empire Theatre (Toowoomba)
2 February – Hamilton Hotel (Brisbane)
3 February – Kallangur Tavern (Brisbane)
28 February – Pilbeam Theatre (Rockhampton)
1 March – Mackay Entertainment & Convention Centre (Mackay)
2 March – Kirwan Tavern (Townsville)
3 March – Edge Hill Tavern (Cairns)
