Melbourne International Comedy Festival

When and how did your career in comedy begin?

My first recollections are of my Grade 2 school sports day back in the baton relay, I realised pretty quickly that I had no hope of a win and had to think quickly as to how I was going to save my dignity. I started running with the baton as an improvised flute which went down well in my favour, after the race no one was talking about who had won the race! That moment
sowed the seeds.

I started performing in the late 1980 as part of Found Objects which coincided with the Melbourne comedy scene boom and although, looking back, we may have been averagely funny, it opened the doors
to many opportunities.

What were your childhood career aspirations?

I wanted to be in the wild like Harry Butler, perhaps wrestling crocs ... or maybe just gecko’s. I’m not really sure what I would be doing now if not comedy.

You are performing at the Melbourne Comedy Festival with your show Bewilderbeast, tell us about the show?

I am not going to say you’ll be moved, or your life will be changed forever like you just spent time with the Dalai Lama, but I’m pretty confident the audience will have a good cack. There is no great theme; just a lot of fun and the plan is that you’ll leave feeling a lot better than you did when you walked in.

I see these billboards for Mamma Mia with these big catch phrases ‘The best night of your life’– now that’s a big call! I will be a little more conservative and say Bewilderbeast will rate in your top 10,000 best nights of your life!

As half of the highly successful Lano & Woodley partnership, how hard was
the decision to break up the act and was there apprehension that this might end or lower your high profile careers?

It was a huge decision to break the partnership and one we both understood
the enormity of and the risks. We were facing the possibility of starting from scratch but we also knew what we could risk continuing on as a duo. It was such a privilege to work with such a good friend for so long and so successfully and we could have continued on, but as small cracks began to form we agreed for the sake of our friendship and careers that we were ready to take a chance going into the unknown.

How does the Melbourne International Comedy Festival rate on an international scale?

It’s an incredible festival. Being a Melbourne person you tend to take for granted how envied our comedy festival is across the globe. The three big internationals are the Edinburgh, Montreal and Melbourne Comedy Festivals and ours is quite possibly the best in the world.

In the case of the others you are invited to perform where with Melbourne it is an independently produced festival that brings a bigger variety of performers, it attracts extremely slick and top notch professionals and it also highlights the speciality comedic arts, which makes the Melbourne Comedy Festival unique and extraordinary on a world scale.
What would our readers be
surprised to know about you?
Most nights I am a masked vigilante that roams the city streets fighting for good
over evil! I guess they wouldn’t expect
that I am actually quite gangly and
goofy by nature either.
Being Melbourne born and bred
any thoughts on Docklands?
It’s great I suppose, certainly transformed, from a former ghetto for homeless people into a world class prime development
for Melbourne.
See Frank Woodley in Bewilderbeast
Until: 18 April
Where: Forum Theatre - Cnr Flinders
and Russell Sts, Melbourne
Bookings: Ticketek 132 849