Review – Heath Franklin

Better known for playing the part of tough guy Chopper Read, comedian Heath Franklin stepped out from behind his pseudonym for this year’s fringe to simply play himself. In Can I borrow a Crisis?, Franklin explores the dark humour hidden within the misery of our everyday problems.

While the concept of laughing at people’s bad luck usually trumps, unfortunately this time it just didn’t go to plan. Firstly, the audience were reluctant to divulge details of their crises within a tent full of strangers, which ultimately meant Franklin never really had a joke to run with. Although he labelled our particular group ‘privileged’ for our lack of tragedies, I can’t imagine any audience being overly willing to spill their misfortune.

I’ll give him credit for filling the gaps though – his narratives of life as a husband and father produced several laughs and his general story-telling abilities were sound; you could tell that he was naturally quite a funny guy. In saying that it appeared that without his criminal alter-ego Franklin wasn’t as confident on stage as he usually seemed, even referring back to his Chopper mimic to steal a few laughs when the crowd grew silent.

The general consensus seemed positive though so maybe I’m being too harsh, but when you have seen a performer at their best it’s hard to look past the sudden obvious inadequacies. But I will say that, even without the notion of a theme, Heath Franklin has the natural comic ability to stand up on stage and keep the crowd laughing with his personal anecdotes alone.