Review – Chopper vs Heath Franklin

HEATH Franklin is a one trick pony.

We know it. He knows it. His entire opening monologue/rant is predicated on it – he’s more than just Chopper, and he wants the audience to appreciate him for it.

Franklin was catapulted into the public consciousness by his shorts on The Ronnie Johns Half Hour, aping infamous gangland heavy Mark “Chopper” Read. Clips of his segments went viral on YouTube, and the rest was history.

Now, after a couple of years, Franklin’s kind of sick of being typecast, and he’s branching out with a few new characters: Man vs Wild’s Bear Grylls and Masterchef Australia’s Matt Preston. There’s a couple of original characters, too: American corporate cowboy Todd Foxx and South African Tourism Minister Jannie de Beers.

As far as derivative enormously over-parodied characters go, good choices. And let’s be clear: Franklin’s a funny man. He’s got Grylls’ peculiar verbal tics (and appetite for yellow bevos) down pat, and contorts his face into a brilliant caricature of Preston (as brilliant as a man who weighs half what the Fat Cravat can get, anyway).

Therein lies the rub. Franklin’s a funny guy and, more importantly, a blank canvas on which great impressionism is painted. But audience response to his other characters is muted. Sure, they’re pretty funny, but can you put a blue t-shirt back on and yell at us some more? Through the magic of technology, the Chopper persona lampshades this halfway through – Franklin (as Chopper) lambastes Franklin (as Franklin) for taking pot-shots at the golden goose.

Ultimately, Franklin is stuck in the middle (that’s not a Reservoir Dogs joke). He wants to be more than just one character. But while the Chopper persona  is enormously versatile (Chopper bingo! Chopper weather! Chopper horoscopes! Chopper Air!) his new characters are less so – there’s only so many times you can drink your own piss before it’s not funny anymore.

If he is going to branch out, he’s going to need a stable of one-gag wonders, or some better-developed characters. Bear Grylls and Matt Preston are more normal than Chopper, so putting them into random situations lacks the inherent surrealism of the Chopper act. And there’s less opportunity to fucking swear at the fucking audience so fucking much, which is really what we’re here for.

You’ll laugh out loud for the whole show, so if you’re up for some comedy (Bikram comedy -Ed) you could do a whole lot worse than Chopper vs Heath Franklin.