'I Was Incredibly Lucky' With Chopper Skit

Performing on national television for The Ronnie Johns Half Hour, the advent of a video-streaming website would significantly change the life of the stand-up comic, Heath Franklin. “I was incredibly lucky,” says the man once nominated for both a Logie and ARIA Award. “I was on TV just as people were starting to figure out YouTube. If it had been six months earlier no one would have known what YouTube was and had it been six months later, you’d have to wade through seven million keyboard cats.”

Over the years the skit he’d based on the late Mark “Chopper” Read morphed into a stage show that has toured internationally in various incarnations, including festival shows titled Harden The Fuck Up, A Hard Bastards Guide To Life and Shitlist. Despite the loaded titles, the latest instalment, Repeat Offender, has something of a social consciousness lurking beneath its hardened exterior.

“It’s Chopper starting to process the fact that there are consequences to his actions and trying to get to the bottom of his anger issues. Every time somebody asks me what the show’s about, it makes it sound like a TED talk,” Franklin laughs.

While Read, who died in 2013, has provided inspiration through his erratic behaviour, short-lived “art” career and even a gangster rap album, it’s Eric Bana’s characterisation in the 2000 film, Chopper, that Franklin draws most from. “Everything I thought that was good about the Chopper character came from the movie. There were never any points during his real life where I was like, ‘That’s really funny, I should add that.’”

In a disconcerting case of life imitating art, the two once briefly met and it didn’t exactly go to plan. “It was really weird, mostly because it was for a photo shoot and I was dressed up as him... I’m going to avoid meeting people dressed as them in future,” he pauses, “especially people with a violent past.”

Read would later publically threaten harm against Franklin over what he claims was a broken promise, telling The Standard, “next time he shakes my hand I’ll break his arm.” Franklin laughs off the threat, quoting the man himself, “‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn,’ was pretty accurate.”

Losing the handle-bar moustache, DIY tattoos and potty mouth momentarily, Franklin, with the help of close friend Harley Breen, will shift tack at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, also performing in a children’s comedy show, Captain Fun Pants. Playing a fun-loving pirate by day and a vicious killer by night is fraught with danger. “The worst-case scenario is if I start doing kids’ stuff during the Chopper show. Imagine if you came along expecting shoot-from-the-hip stand-up and you start all of a sudden getting balloon animals and fancy dress.”