Lawrence Money – former columnist turned comedian and one 'O' short of Lawrence Mooney – is to perform his debut comedy show 'Loose Change' at Speakeasy HQ in Flinders Street.
“I figure some will mis-read the poster as Lawrence Mooney,” Lawrence says.
“Now and then someone would credit the other Lozza as the writer of my newspaper columns.”
With 50 years in the journalism industry writing for Melbourne metro papers, Lawrence wrote his 'In Black And White' column for the old afternoon Herald to his 'Spy' column for the Sunday Age, before finishing with the daily Age's Diary.
“Fifty years in the newspaper trade all-up,” Lawrence says. “Life as a columnist was great – I couldn’t believe they paid me to do the job. Then two years ago The Age paid me a great big steaming pile of redundancy money NOT to do it. How good was that job!”
Since his time finishing with The Age, Lawrence helped Brighton's John Knowles write his autobiography, before taking on a weekly sports column for Sportshounds.com. Now choosing to try his hand at stand-up over cleaning the desk in his study, Lawrence wanted to surprise his wife, taking on the easier option due to his many years of built up material up his sleeve.
Recently trying out his material at the Speakeasy, run by Roy Malloy, Roy claims a world record for stilt-walking and built most of the Speakeasy interior himself.
“Roy’s the sort of character I used to write columns about,” Lawrence says.
