On The Rocks

Joel Creasey cut his teeth on Perth's comedy scene, smashing through two rounds of Raw Comedy and putting on his first festival show by the time he was 19. He's now writing Rock God, his fifth full hour, and he's become a regular on the comedy festival circuit. It's a bold title – but then, Creasey's past shows have included The Drama Captain and Naked.  “I don't like people looking at me, I'm very shy,” Creasey deadpans.

In fact, he says his love of theatre shines through in his solo shows. “I'm sooo dramatic. Each show is themed, and there's some element of costume because I am a cliché. This show is all about how I'm desperately trying to get famous.”

If Creasey keeps on the way he's going, it's only a matter of time. He's already becoming a familiar face on national TV and a review from last year called him “Graham Norton's younger Aussie clone”. “I hate getting compared to people, but when I got that review, I tweeted it and Graham Norton himself tweeted back to me 'Awesome review! The comparison, however, is a vile slur. You should sue'. I've sent him a copy of my DVD with a note saying 'Put me on your show, arsehole'.”

The greatest achievement, however, of Creasey's burgeoning career came last November. “I did New York Comedy Festival and I got to open for Joan Rivers on Broadway, which was the highlight of my life. I spent some time with Joan and she gave me an awesome quote for my poster. She's a legend.” With the peaks come the troughs, and one of Creasey's worst gigs two years ago saw him being chased out of Colac in western Victoria for calling them “backwards”. Undaunted, he returned. “Three months ago I went back with a film crew and the ABC paid me and Rhys Nicholson, another gay comic, to go back and live in Colac for a week. It was serious danger money. When you see some of the stuff that happened to us while we were there – my mum will not be happy with me. That's going to be on the ABC later this year: Gay Crashing Colac.”