If you’re at all familiar with Frank Woodley, you’ll know he’s an exceptionally gifted physical comedian with energy to burn. These days, in playing the part of Australian comedy’s best-known jester, it’s recipe for success. Once upon a time, though, it meant something entirely different. “I do remember my Mum telling me that, in grade one, she was called into the classroom. The teacher started sobbing and said, ‘He doesn’t seem to understand that I’m in control!’”
As the youngest of seven children, Woodley found plenty of inspiration to play up, if only to stand out. “I think a lot of my comedy has been forged in the furnace of being the underdog to my older brother. It’s classic sibling rivalry,” muses Woodley. “I do think that possibly my comic perspective has come out of the fact that, when I was a kid, I couldn’t compete with (my brother) in any practical sense… I was always going to be stupider and weaker and less capable. So I do wonder if, at that point, I kind of realised in some way that I had to make being a failure work for me. But you never know – you can’t see your own eyeballs, as nobody says.”
When Australia’s beloved comedy duo Lano & Woodley called time after 20 great years, Woodley was forced to find his feet as a solo performer. “It took me about six months to a year to work it out. I’d spent the last twenty years being, in a sense, a force of anarchy in our act. I could just follow any impulse of impetus that interested me and, in a sense, sabotage Col’s efforts to put on a show. Whenever that got too out of control, he would just abuse me and pull me into line.”
“I definitely found that, for the first six months, I would kind of go off on these weird tangents but I wouldn’t’ really know how to control them. It was far too erratic and inconsistent,” Woodley recalls. “Slowly I realised that, in a peculiar way, I kind of had to fulfil that ‘responsible adult’ function as well as being the child on stage. I had to work out a way to oscillate between the two and that did take quite a while, I must admit.”
Woodley has since settled into a successful solo career. He presents a hilarious new show, Fool’s Gold, at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “It’s pretty much classic stand-up, in that it’s a whole lot of disparate comic ideas that have been cobbled together into a magnificent tapestry of nonsense,” he explains. “I just do my own poster quotes now. They’re not quite as convincing if you look and they’re all quotes from me. ‘5 stars – Frank Woodley’ doesn’t quite carry the same sort of weight.”
As Woodley edges ever-nearer to a “ridiculous” milestone – three decades in comedy – he continues to enjoys his craft as much as ever. “The amazing thing about comedy is that it’s actually impossible to rest on your laurels. If there isn’t that tension, that energy and freshness in the moment, the audience just won’t laugh…so you’ve got to find a way to keep it alive for yourself or it just doesn’t happen,” he says. “It’s kind of wonderful and frustrating at the same time. I’m still as nervous now when I’m doing new material as I was over 20 years ago. That’s a great thing but it means that it’s still kind of terrifying. It certainly keeps the whole thing fresh.”
BY NICK MASON
Venue: Melbourne Town Hall – Lower Town Hall, Cnr Swanston & Collins St, CBD
Dates: Currently playing April 20 (except Mondays)
Times: 8.20pm (Sundays 7.20pm)
Tickets: $28-$39.50
