Stand-up comedy with funny man and break dance dancer, Lawrence Leung

We catch up with award-winning comedian Lawrence Leung from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He has managed to turn the complex subject of science into an enjoyable and entertaining experience by incorporating break dancing and wacky experiments into his live acts. So what is really going on inside the mind of an ‘Albert Einstein-cum-Eddie Murphy’ type person? Lawrence takes us on his intimate journey.

Interviewer: What were you like when you were a kid?

Lawrence: I remember being a curious kid. I wanted to know how things worked, so I dismantled phones and watches. Sometimes they didn’t work again, so I got into trouble. He used to climb trees just to see the view from up high. The top of a tree is the most inspiring place to daydream. It is also a good place to throw nuts at the neighbor’s children.

Interviewer: When did your interest in comedy / entertainment start and did you complete any training / study for it?

Lawrence: I knew I always enjoyed making people laugh as a kid. My fellow students thought I had a knack for clowning comedy, but actually I was clumsy. I still am. I exploited that physical comedy in a lot of Theartesports competition shows in high school. I guess my “training” in comedy was during my college years with a comedy company called The Improbables. We were a handful of friends who performed sitcoms and impromptu movies at theaters, pubs, and comedy festivals. Some of us (Andrew McClelland, Christina Adams, Nick Caddaye and Yianni Agisilaou) went on to become successful comedians both here and in the UK.

Interviewer: Did your family support you?

Lawrence: They had a bit of a hard time understanding what he was doing. Stand up is not a regular career with role models my parents had heard of or liked. My parents want me to have a job with financial security, but that is difficult in the arts. I was stubborn and sticking to what I believed to be good, practiced my skills in pubs, stages and festivals and finally job opportunities came (writing for TV / film, presenting on radio and live touring). My parents have calmed down a lot now.

Interviewer: Are you a born comedian or have you learned it along the way or is it a combination of the two?

Lawrence: Definitely a combination. I think it helps to have an innate “comic sense” and also to experiment with your comedy in different situations and audiences.

Interviewer: Where does your passion lie, since you have a wide variety of talents (comedian, director, radio host, filmmaker, writer)?

Lawrence: I get restless and bored very easily. All my favorite works have been those that involve creativity. But since I get bored easily, I want to try to be creative in as many different mediums as possible.

Interviewer: Describe your first standing routine? How was it? Were you nervous and how did you get over it? How old were you

Lawrence: I used to be scared before every concert. I was 22 when I did my first stand up routine. It was on a weekly open mic night called “King Of The Ring.” The small audience consisted of nervous newcomers and their drunken friends. The MC announced my name incorrectly (“Please welcome to the stage, Lance Long!”) So I wasn’t ready. Too late I realized that he was referring to me, and ran to the stage during the awkward silence that occurs when an audience has exhausted all their welcoming applause. I tripped on the step leading to the microphone and fell onto the stage. That made me laugh for the first time. I hadn’t even told a joke yet and I laughed out loud. I won the open mic competition and got a bottle of cheap wine and a ‘prop spot’ that Saturday night to do it all over again in front of a bigger drunk crowd. I still get nervous before a concert, but as soon as the first laugh comes, it’s always fine.

Interviewer: Was performing at the Melbourne Comedy Festival on the agenda early in your career?

Lawrence: When I was in high school, the only thing I saw at the Melbourne Comedy Festival every year was the Raw Comedy grand finale. It is a stand-up comedy competition, with finalists selected from hundreds of aspiring comedians from across Australia. I used to imagine standing on that stage at Melbourne City Hall. I was so inspired that I thought of jokes and routines and scribbled in workbooks. A couple of years later in college, my friends at The Improbables submitted my Raw Comedy application form because I was too nervous to enter. A few months later, on stage at Melbourne Town Hall, I was lucky to be runner-up. There was never a plan to get into the Comedy Festival because I didn’t think telling jokes was a career. It was a hobby or a passion that, by accident, turned into something more.

Interviewer: What was it like to do your first solo show instead of doing a stand-up comedy?

Lawrence: My first solo show was very different from my brief stand-up positions at a club. The main difference is in rhythm and rhythm. Get up in a club setting tends to last 5, 10, or 20 minutes with lots of “bang-bang-bang” phrases to compete against the attention-sapping effects of alcohol and the soul-weakening effects of slot machines. . Individual shows (usually 60 minutes) allow stand-ups to take their time, create an intimate relationship with the crowd, and perhaps address concepts and topics that may take longer to explain. Sometimes I like to tell long stories that may not have a lot of laughs until the final payoff. The downside is that if the audience doesn’t like the comic, they’ll have to work especially hard to make the room feel less like an hour-long hostage situation.

Interviewer: With Sucker you took a risk not only as a performer, but also as a writer, was it very discouraging?

Lawrence: Unlike actors who primarily interpret other people’s scripts, stand-up comedians (as opposed to film / television comedians with writing teams) write their own material. So whether it’s a full-length solo show or a 5 minute ad, it’s extremely daunting to expose yourself on stage. Sucker was my first solo show and it was very daunting due to the research and the amount of writing that I had to do. I had a wonderful and smart director named Clare Watson who gave me the confidence I needed and had the brutal honesty to tell me what worked and what didn’t.

Interviewer: When and where did your interest in breakdancing develop?

Lawrence: I wanted to be cooler than my older brother Dennis, who has always been more fashionable than me all my life. He played bass in bands and has a goatee. So I decided to learn to breakdancing and write my latest show about this silly quest for coolness. It’s called “Lawrence Leung Learns to Breakdance.” I will do it again at the Sydney Opera House on April 15-26. Come along.

Interviewer: Have you felt many ‘ouch’ moments (I confess that I grew up at that time and tried it; fun but very exhausting!)?

Lawrence: Every time I act on the show there are moments of “ouch”.

Interviewer: Without talking to you and just developing my questions from your biography, you see yourself as a very intelligent person who successfully mixes comedy with facts; what is your iq?

Lawrence: I have no idea what my IQ is, but it’s probably higher than a shark’s but lower than a dolphin.

Interviewer: How did you get involved with the “Cazadores” team?

Lawrence: I first met them when they were acting like professional corporate robbers driving a silver Lotus on Hollywood Boulevard. They got lost and asked me for directions that I thought were a request to write contributions. From that flirty initial misinterpretation, a fairytale world of polo games and diamond necklaces and … no, wait, that’s Pretty Woman. For the past few years, the members of The Chaser have been attending my Comedy Festival shows. My shows often feature social experiments and jokes, so they asked me to write for their show War On Everything.

Interviewer: Who are some of the comedians you admire and inspire?

Lawrence: I really admire Andrew Denton, a guy who has done it all: live shows, radio broadcast, presentation, and television production. I also quite admire Daniel Kitson, Josie Long, Frank Woodley, and Tony Martin. These people do high-quality work, have unique voices, operate without regard for business commitments, and have no interest in stardom.

Interviewer: Your ultimate goal and how far are you from achieving it?

Lawrence: I don’t really have an end goal. I just want to create work that I can be proud of and I hope some people like it.

Interviewer: If you weren’t a comedian, would you be a …..?

Lawrence: filmmaker.