Hughes The Boss

When Dave 'Hughesy' Hughes picks up the phone, his country Victoria brogue is backed by the excited squeals of a gaggle of kids.

“Excuse me if there's any shenanigans going on, I'm wrangling two kids at a play centre right now,” says the comedian, who's kindly given up a few minutes of his daddy-time for a quick chat. But that's the life of Dave Hughes now; as one of the founding anchors of Channel 10 success story, The Project, sidelines in stand-up and radio hosting, and a new family to look after, his time is all the more precious these days.

Last year Hughesy's schedule was such that he had no time to put together a Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, so he missed the fest for the first time in 15 years. This year, however, he made time to put together the poignantly-titled The Comeback Tour, which was a huge success for him in April and is now touring the major capitals through to year's end. Along the way Hughesy found the time pressure actually helped his stand-up.

“The more stand-up you do, the more focused you are, obviously – but if you do less of it, like what I've been doing, you're more likely to be in the moment. If you haven't got time to worry about things, and you're not as stressed. You're tired, but you've no time for imagining negativity. Hopefully it means you can be funnier.”

Earlier this year, Hughesy doubled up and went off to perform at the Montreal Comedy Festival – “Walking on stage where no one knows you is really exciting,” he says – and he's making sure to do as many comedy rooms around Melbourne as he can to test out and develop new material.

“Being on The Project is relentless,” he admits. “You really don't have a chance to wallow in anything, on something you should have said, or did say and shouldn't have said. You've no time to be self-critical. But with stand-up, there's nothing more satisfying than walking through your day, coming up with an idea, taking it to the stage and developing it into a three-minute bit that you can do as a joke for the next twenty years. I don't want to fall off the train, so I won't be missing too many more comedy festivals!”

Doing a full-on hour of TV every night, encompassing everything from hard news to human interest, keeps Hughesy's head in the game of developing new material in a way that being a touring stand-up never really can.

“If you're just touring around, doing stand-up, always on trains or planes, there's only so much material you can do about that. So the more you can keep a normal life, the better. You want to talk about stuff that everyone connects to.”

Mind you, not everyone can entirely relate to some of the bizarre and brilliant experiences Hughesy has had at The Project's desk, such as one of his most memorable moments, being pawed by Sarah Jessica Parker.

“She came on the show and was effusive in her praise for us, and she grabbed me at one moment and I thought 'Carrie from Sex and the City is all over me',” Hughesy says. “It was a big moment for me. I mean, I'm a guy, but I used to enjoy that show, I won't deny that.”