Harley Breen & Heath Franklin: Captain Fun Pants And The Mystery Of The Fun-O-Matic Fun Wand
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Harley Breen & Heath Franklin: Captain Fun Pants And The Mystery Of The Fun-O-Matic Fun Wand

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The comedy of Harley Breen typically revolves around adults-only subject matter, such as drinking, smoking, masturbation and neuroses. Heath Franklin is best known to comedy audiences in the guise of Chopper Read, and his shows tend to be so cuss-heavy as to give you a seizure. So here’s an unfathomable concept – Breen and Franklin teaming up to write, direct and perform a kids show. But with Captain Fun Pants and the Mystery of the Fun-o-matic Fun Wand that’s precisely what they’ve done.

“I was touring [Chopper’s] Repeat Offender in New Zealand and I brought Harley along to open up the shows for me,” Franklin says. “We were just passing time in the tour van and decided it would be pretty funny for two of the most potty-mouthed comedians that we know to do a kids show and walk the tight rope of good taste.”

Yep, this is certainly a radical shift in circumstances for the two sharp-tongued comics. In the play, Captain Fun Pants (Breen) and his best mate Pirate No Beard (Franklin) are out to retrieve the Fun-o-matic fun wand from WrongTown, where Sammy the Seagull has hidden it. 

“It’s just full on,” says Franklin. “It’s like running a marathon every single time. By the time we get off stage we’ve just been moving constantly and we’re drenched with sweat and exhausted. It’s the only time I think I’ve ever earned a Powerade.”

“It’s a completely different way of engaging an audience,” Breen says. “You’ve got to be able to engage a four-year-old and a forty-year-old and a ten year old all at the same time. That’s not an easy task. But I’m a big kid at heart, so is Heath.”

In contrast to a stand-up set, this show follows a detailed narrative. “It’s certainly the most scripted show I’ve ever written,” Breen says. “My stand-up is sort of a combination of dot points and ideas. But Fun Pants is a two-part play. It’s very much a pantomime-y kind of thing.”

However, the effort that’s gone into the script writing doesn’t mean Captain Fun Pants is an overly complex and emotively dense affair. “Quite honestly we wanted to write the silliest most absurd kids show that the two of us had within us,” Breen says. “To just have 45 minutes of silly chaos, and I think we’ve achieved that. We absolutely thoroughly enjoy it. I think it’s the most fun show I’ve ever been involved in. It’s just being loud, silly, making fart noises, getting crazy and then ending the show.

“It’s really just about keeping that rollercoaster going for 45 minutes,” he continues, “while also being clear that there is a story. Four-year-olds, eight-year-olds, love stories, so you’ve still got to give them a story, but make sure you engage them all the way through.”

Breen and Franklin seem almost alarmingly enthusiastic about this show. Whether they’ll manage to tame their potty-mouthed tendencies, however, remains to be seen. “Even fellow performers were like ‘How do you not get up and swear?’” Breen says. “I’m like, ‘Because I’m performing to four-to-eight year olds.’ It’s not like my choice of vernacular in everyday life is the only way I can talk. You just go, ‘Well now I’m at a kids show.’ There is a bit of purging out back before we start the show, but to be honest, I’ve never really struggled with it. 

“There’s been moments on stage in the past where maybe a certain curse word has slipped out,” he adds, “but it’s usually never noticed. And if it is, no one really gives a fuck.”

BY AUGUSTUS WELBY

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