Once upon a time I found myself selling tickets and stamping wrists at a metal gig in Melbourne, where the pay was happily outrageous and the cider flowed freely.

It was all fairly standard until an earless figure appeared before me, asking questions in a nasal drawl mostly drowned out by the music behind – but even without context, Chopper Read presented a uniquely heavy presence. Cut to Heath Franklin, who for ten years has been impersonating the peculiarly iconic criminal to hilarious ends. The trick now is to find the performer within the character.

“To be honest, after ten years of Chopper, what I’m working on the most is me, which is a little weird,” Franklin laughs. “When you’re Chopper you can always be Chopper pretending to be somebody else, but that gets hard. Whereas when you’re me, you can just switch into all sorts of ridiculous characters. I have to admit that after such a long time, switching it on is pretty easy. I don’t know how long I could go. If it was some kind of Guinness World Record charity thing I reckon I could probably go for a week, and after that it would be a matter of needing an exorcism. There are times when after gigs I’ll stick around to chat with punters, since when I go to a gig I always like that opportunity. So I try and stay in character for those moments as well. The funny thing is, after a show, everyone who’s there – be it my producer or tour manager, your audience afterwards, even the staff of the venue – they all get a little bit more Chopper. A few more F-bombs tend to sneak in, everyone gets a little bit more bogan and a bit more of a nasal twang.”

The real-life Mark Brandon ‘Chopper’ Read has long been something of an underworld legend, but with his death in 2013 the unrepentant (if colourful) murderer at last passed into myth. Australia has an idiosyncratic love of the outlaw – Ben Hall, Ned Kelly – and while Franklin’s portrayal has its tongue firmly in cheek, the potential for outrage will always exist for those who ignore the caricature and set their cross hairs on the glamourisation of a killer.

“Occasionally I get that kind of scrutiny, but it’s usually from people who aren’t actually all that familiar with what I do,” says Franklin. “The more I found out about the real Chopper, the more I found it kind of depressing. Even his early background, there was some pretty unpleasant stuff that happened to him that I’m sure shaped his character. I mean, the idea of him stabbing someone in prison as a punchline is pretty funny, but when you read on about it, and you add things like people begging for their life, it becomes a whole lot darker.

“I try and portray the fun, not-alienating version. And people are allowed to be manipulated by really horrible things in drama. Some of the character arcs in Game Of Thrones are nothing but misery and torture. And there’s a little part of me that thinks, ‘Now, if drama is allowed to manipulate you with all of these things, then why shouldn’t comedy?’ I think there’s a strange misconception that just because something is being mentioned in comedy, it’s being made fun of. I used to do a show every ANZAC Day. I wasn’t making fun of veterans or troops, anything like that. But everyone was like, ‘How dare you?’ And I thought, ‘Well, all the supermarkets get to have ANZAC-branded milk and whatever, and nobody gets upset at that.’ There’s a level of exploitation that people seem happy with, and when it gets transferred to comedy everyone thinks we’re just taking down sacred cows.”

Franklin’s creation – and it very much is a creation, a heavily fictionalised lampooning – is cheerfully despicable, as his masses of firm fans would attest. Sure, he may have a body in the trunk, but when he’s teaching an L-plater how to drive he’s doing it with a heart of gold. The character has evolved over a decade’s journeying, but while the content may be updated, the snickering career crim beneath is here to stay.

“There’s such a fine line between fact and fiction in everything he did,” Franklin says. “I’ve found that these days, a lot of my material is becoming more urbane. It’s less about footy and more about the internet and all that comes with it. It’s ridiculous in some ways, but the show now is about a reformed career criminal who’s decided to get a little Gaddafi and take over the country. In some ways I’ve tried to avoid making it a banana republic, and make it interesting to think if we actually did have a total scumbag like Chopper start to make sense on all the political and social issues. It’s like, ‘Well, if a guy who stabs people for a living can figure it out, then why can’t the people we’re paying to lead the country?’

“I’m not trying to be shocking,” Franklin laughs. “I think when you get people on edge, the release from the punchline is much greater. If the stakes are high, when you provide levity it’s a bigger reaction. Bad things happen, but if you can find a way to have a bit of a giggle about it, it might not seem quite so bad.”

Republic Of Anzakistan,runsThursday May 5 – Sunday May 8 at Factory Theatre, as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival 2016.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine