Naked and famous

"I started in Perth, when I was 17,” Creasey begins with a weary sarcasm. “I entered a comedy competition, it was in a pub, so I had to take my mum with me. She had a few wines, and…well, it's a weird day when your mum's your heckler”.

Creasey, whose name contains the inscrutable quality of sounding like someone you went to school with – Bloody Creasey! Or: It's Joel Creasey's fault, miss! – explains, offhand (and totally unrelated to that observation) that his influences were always women. “I had a fair few,” he notes, “and I really modelled myself on them to begin with. One of my early comedy heroes was Fiona O'Loughlin, and I used to always watch the Comedy Festival gala just for her, and now [I'm] directing her show this year, so it's all come full circle, which is totally crazy.”

Creasey's new show Naked explores the bare rationale behind some of his other fixations. “I've always liked the title of the show, Naked,” he explains. “I've had that in my mind for a while. It's all about fears and secrets, one of my major fears being nudity. However if there is someone naked, I'll have to look. It's like looking into a solar eclipse; I can't look away.”