Beard Game Strong is much more than the title Nick Cody’s new show: it’s a lifestyle. “I haven’t been cleanly shaven in four-and-a-bit years,” he declares. “Because I just do stand-up now and I don’t have to go to an actual job, I find no need to be clean-shaven. But my girlfriend saw a photo of me cleanly-shaven the other day and she said, “I don’t know who that little boy is, but I definitely wouldn’t fuck him.’”
And so, the beard has prospered. Just as Cody has cultivated a fine beard over many years, so too has he cultivated an enviable career. Cody’s comedy odyssey began from a young age, his parents playing their part. “My birthday is at the end of April, so from about 13 [years old] onwards, my parents would just give me money a couple of months before, so I could get tickets to see MICF shows.”
“I think I gave RAW Comedy a shot at about 18. I did it three years in a row, never got past the first round,” Cody explains. “But now I get to host to a bunch of them, so that’s weird. I was going to say I’ve come ‘full circle’, but that’s not full circle, is it? Full circle means I’d be back in it and not getting through. It’s half a circle.”
Whichever way you slice it, Cody has arrived. The past few years have seen him entertain Aussie troops in Afghanistan, venture into TV and become an acclaimed figure of the Australian comedy scene. So what’s the secret to his success? “ I’m lazy. I don’t like looking at a piece of paper, trying to write stuff out all day,” he explains of his process. “There is no way I could be bothered. As soon as I sit down for ten minutes, I go outside or go and play FIFA or something.”
Cody instead favours a trial-by-fire approach that would likely terrify his contemporaries. “My writing process ends up on-stage,” he reveals. “If I can, I’ll try and do two spots a night, if possible, so by the end of the week I’ve done ten spots. I work best when there’s that pressure, when there’s a room of strangers looking at me and I go, ‘Fuck. I’ve got to make this funny.’ I either make it funny or gets zero. Whereas, if I sit at home all day, there’s just no pressure to make anything funny.”
When it comes to being proactive, Cody takes cues from his comedy heroes. “You always hear the same thing: just keep getting up there and keeping working, take gigs where you can. I try to stick to that and it seems to be working out pretty well, sticking to those words of wisdom.”
Cody has also discovered the freedom to lead his audience on a journey. “It’s awesome that that’s an option, because I like that style. I don’t like changing subjects every minute or two, it’s just not how I think. I didn’t know you could just talk about anything at all, I didn’t realise you could make something like that funny. It’s not so much storytelling: it’s not just these short little bits. They’re larger chunks.”
Beard Game Strong will see Cody spin a variety of yarns. “I talk about getting up to some mischief with some of my SAS mates. I talk about meeting a guy Mark Donaldson, a Victoria Cross winner and something stupid that I did in front of him. It’s an hour of stand-up, of me killing.”
BY NICK MASON
