The beloved Aussie comedian talks Taskmaster Australia, a turn to theatre and where you can catch him on Monday mornings.
It goes without saying that Pete Helliar is one of Australia’s most beloved comedians. For the better part of three decades now, the Ivanhoe-based comedian has been lighting up Australian screens, theatres, radios, clubs and more with his own unique blend comedy style. But today, Helliar is doing something quite different.
Currently in Brisbane rehearsing for Peter and the Starcatcher, Helliar’s days are currently “full of learning”. “It’s a Broadway musical about the origin story of Pete Pan, so I’m currently on a steep learning curve. But it’s a great cast. Fun people.”
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It also doesn’t sound much like something that Helliar can’t pull off, given his recent performance on the latest season of Taskmaster Australia.
The comedy panel show, which is a spinoff of the British original, consists of five comedians being given ridiculous tasks to complete which are then judged by “Taskmaster” Tom Gleeson and his assistant, Tom Cashman. Now onto his third season, Helliar had had many challenges thrown at him.
“There was one task where I had to try and laugh for as long as possible. I went away that day with the biggest headache known to man. At one point I was also singing country songs even though I don’t understand music. Sometimes whilst doing it you think, ‘I’m sinking here’. But more often than not you just think, ‘What am I doing next?’. It’s great fun.”
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Conceptually, Helliar also considers the shows to be an interesting study on how a creative brains works. Speaking on this, Helliar offered, “I would do each task pretty certain that everyone else would do it the same as me, but the crew kept on saying there was very little crossover between everyone. It just goes to show five brains do the same task but do all do it differently.”
Helliar received the call to do Taskmaster just after leaving The Project, a show he had been hosting for nearly 10 years.
“I was honoured to be asked. I came out of The Project and wanted to explore different opportunities and challenges. This came at a perfect time where I could just be silly and comedic. Plus, there’s no politics. It’s just its own little world. It kind of reminded me of starting out in the Melbourne comedy scene in the ’90s and just being silly.”
The experience of recording Taskmaster he now considers to be quite refreshing in comparison to The Project. “Sometimes on there, I felt like the kid sitting on the adult’s table. This was just idiots acting like idiots.” The opportunity also offered Helliar a challenge where he could expand his comedy into different areas.
“You’re completely off the leash here. You’re given task and there’s no help. There’s a camera crew. A director and song guy looking at you. It can kind of be quite intimidating if something is not coming to you. There’s no place to hide in Taskmaster. It feels a bit like stand-up.”
Stand-up is, of course, how Helliar cut his teeth in the industry. After falling in love with the craft as a teenager, Helliar eventually decided to throw his hat into the ring.
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“I once watched this ABC show the Big Gig. I loved that. Then the local footy club would have a comedy night and Trevor Marmalade would be performing. I thought ‘What an amazing way to make money’. I went to comedy clubs, went to the comedy festival and it grew from there. I just thought, ‘I’m going to have a crack.”
This crack later turned into a fully-fledged successful comedy career. Breaking though on shows such as The Loft Live, Rove and Before the Game where he appeared as his alter ego, Bryan Strauchan, Helliar soon became one of the most well-known faces on Australian television.
But here today, Helliar is a student, learning the tricks of the theatre trade. After taking part in the Rocky Horror Picture Show earlier this year as the Narrator, he seemingly caught the theatre bug.
“It was my first step into the theatre world. Wanted to see if I liked the rhythm of it. Whether I liked being part of a circus. That was a good first step. Narrating is like MC’ing a comedy. This [Peter and the Starcatcher] is totally different.”
The show is a two-and-a-half-hour play where Helliar’s only break is an interval. While he has set himself a real task here, something tells me he will be just fine.
The brand new season of Taskmaster starts at 7:30pm Tuesday on 10 and 10 Play. For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with Channel 10.
