So An Asshole Gets Together With A Blackbird...

“It’s about how the loss of love can turn you into an asshole.”

On the face of it, the show sounds thematically similar to something Englishman Daniel Kitson – widely regarded as ‘the comedian’s comedian’ – would do, and indeed Workman cites Kitson, along with Irishman Dylan Moran and American Bill Burr as comedy influences – but he forges his own path. “When I started writing festival shows, Kitson was the paragon I looked to, but as the years went by I discovered I had my own very different things to say and I think that what I’m doing has verged away from that. I’m a lot angrier than him. He has these very sweet narratives about human frailty and the unexamined life and I’m just more of an angry old man. I’m more noir.”

Indeed, Workman’s first foray into comedy was born of a rather dark place. Once a gigging musician, the Perth-born comic gave that up, and found himself falling into alcoholism and depression. “I was looking for a new way to get on stage and get my ideas across so I started doing comedy. I think that having a background in music performance really helped because I didn’t have as much nervousness getting on stage – but doing comedy, you’re not able to hide behind a musical instrument with all your friends, and no one is obligated to clap when you finish the thing that you’re doing. It’s a more scary and immediate art form.”

"I’m just more of an angry old man."

And while Workman can craft a punchy one-liner that will kill in the comedy club circuit with the best of them, he says he is drawn more towards letting a show breathe and settle, getting to know an audience, and drawing them in on the festival circuit. “A festival show is a great opportunity to do something more and have a bigger impact on people, so it would be remiss of me not to put a story or a message in there and if that resonates with people, great,” he says.

The first stop on this year’s festival circuit is Perth. Now based in Sydney, the comic says he’s excited to debut the show in his hometown, “although there will be people there who know the story that I’m talking about, which is a little bit weird.”