It’s Luke Heggie’s 12th year at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and the Sydney comedian is explaining the title for his new show, ‘Grogan’.
“It means sh.t, really,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s an actual turd.”
“It’s an old-fashioned word from my youth. My dad used to say it. ‘Oh, who left a grogan on the ground?’ It’s specifically Australian, and I think maybe even a Queensland term. I’ve never heard too many non-Queenslanders say it.
“It’s a really funny word. I used it in my show last year and got a knowing laugh from people of a certain age and demographic. I thought, ‘Alright. I’ll have that. That’ll appease them’.”
It’s bold to name a show ‘Grogan’ – something Luke acknowledges could be fodder for critics. But it perfectly fits with his dry, Australian humour, having named previous shows ‘Tiprat’ and ‘Lowbreed’, the latter winning the 2021 Sydney Comedy Festival’s Best Show award. Luke’s style of comedy came fully formed when he entered RAW Comedy in 2010. The televised grand final of the competition at Melbourne’s Town Hall was only his fourth gig ever, and his set of short deadpan jokes saw him crowned as that year’s winner.
“I thought it was everyone’s first gig,” he says. “At the time I thought they were all these young people, very confident for their first ever gig, but it wasn’t. Ignorance was a bit of an ally there.”
Since winning RAW, Luke has worked hard at his comedy, delivering an hour of comedy every year for 12 years. He simply surmises the theme of his shows as: “The tribulations of me”.
“I’ve never had one of those shows where it’s like, ‘This day I did this and people turned against me and then my life changed’,” he says. “I’m usually just waiting for some funny or annoying stuff to happen to me.”
Alongside his comedy, Luke has found popularity with the podcast he co-hosts with fellow comedian Nick Cody, ‘Mid Flight Brawl’.
“I’ve always liked fights,” he says. “Not actually doing them. I’ve been impressed with people fighting each other, verbal or otherwise. And Nick’s very much into aeroplanes. So, we mixed the two of them. And there are so many fights. Each week we’ll catalogue a new fight, and there are thousands.”
The podcast has run for more than 200 episodes, which is a lot of fights. On the morning we speak, a man was arrested for biting a flight steward on a flight to Japan.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of biters,” he says. “There’s a lot of people mixing sleeping pills with alcohol. Everyone’s angry, everyone’s entitled. It’s a bit of a powder keg getting on a flight now.”
While Luke has managed to avoid any mid-flight fights of his own, researching for the podcast has led to him identifying the worst flight routes for brawls.
“There’s obviously Bali to Gold Coast. That’s a hotbed. For Trans-Atlantic flights, a lot of Shannon, Ireland, because that’s the first airport where thugs and idiots get dropped off from flying from North America. The Shannon courts are flooded with mid-flight brawlers.”
As Luke prepares for a hopefully uneventful flight to Adelaide’s Fringe Festival, I ask if there were any obscure words he hopes to use for his thirteenth show.
“I’m open to suggestions,” he says. “I’ve got a thesaurus sitting right here. I might just look up ‘sh.t’ and see what else comes up,” he laughs. “Maybe I’ll just use a ‘sh.t’ synonym for the next 20-30 years.”
Luke Heggie plays Drama Llama (Rhino Room) 5-10 March, Upstairs (Rhino Room) 12-16 March and Ground Floor (Howling Owl) 16 March (Adelaide Fringe).
