Australians should still mourn the day Steve Hughes left their country for good.
He's the man with all the answers, delivered in a calm, steady tone. Should Her Majesty get along to see one of his shows she may even consider knighting him for it. That is, should he decide to put down that beer and get a haircut. In other words, no.
"The latest show, Big Issues, involves what I usually talk about, in the sense of ideas of the current free world. England is becoming less and less free under the guise of certain ideologies like political correctness. It's very funny."
Something that strikes you about Steve is his ability to remain firmly connected to the ground — a decade spent living in Europe still hasn't washed the Australian out of his bones. But while it's often his bluntness that makes the jokes land so well, it's also what allows him to analyse our current situation so succinctly.
"Hate speech is really just bullshit. Hate speech used to be called 'free speech'. Speaking out against anything which is then deemed by the system to be partially offensive or inciting some sort of violence or hatred now has to be neutered.
"Whereas the entire idea of democracy is the idea of, 'Well, I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend your right to say it'. You can't make offending someone into a law, it's just unquantifiable."
Honestly, the whole conversation was like watching an episode of Alf. I laughed, I cried, but most importantly, I learned.
"Australia has always been completely conservative. I mean, conservatives are always arguing that we should give the cops more things and when the cops kill someone they probably have a reason for it. But there never seems to be anyone in Australia or the media that says 'Why is it there's 30 cops with drug dogs at a train station at 8am on a Tuesday? This is not fucking normal!'
“See, people shouldn't be asking whether marijuana does that much damage to be criminalised. People should be asking who has got the fundamental right to make something that comes out of the earth illegal. I mean who said you can't have any of this? It came out of the earth!"
Steve Hughes Dates
Tue Mar 5 - Sun Mar 10 — Brisbane Comedy Festival @ Brisbane PowerhouseThu Apr 18 - Sat Apr 20 — Melbourne International Comedy Festival @ Forum Theatre
