Heath Franklin’s Chopper

But for all that, he’s actually a bit of a sweetie (don’t tell him I said that). He likes New Zealand because it’s super chilled out, he doesn’t give a f*** about how you live your life as long as you aren’t a c*** and he reprimands a puppet for appearing onstage with his pants around his ankles.

Franklin as Chopper appeared at the Metro as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival, complete with sunnies, moustache and texta tattoos all over his arms that were probably drawn by himself in the car on the way over.

He fills most of his allotted hour with his thoughts on the world today, then asks if we want to f*** off home or see some weird s***. Obviously we say yes to the weird s***, and that’s when the puppet appears. Chopper has a conversation with the puppet (a smaller Chopper) about how he doesn’t have any friends and how he just wants someone exactly like himself to hang out with – hence the puppet. Unfortunately, little Chopper is a little too crude, even for big Chopper, and he is unceremoniously stuffed back into the suitcase.

Chopper then turns his attention on the audience and pulls a girl onstage to be his new buddy. He kits her out with her own sunnies, a texta moustache and a Chopper strut. His attempt at being besties with her is hindered by her shyness and the stage manager telling him he’d gone twenty minutes over his allotted time, but he does manage to get a “f*** yeah!” from her, and a cheer from the audience.

He finishes half an hour late, apologising for going so overtime, leaving the audience feeling like they got more than their money’s worth, and fulfilling a long-held dream of mine of seeing a comedian dragged offstage. Thanks, Chopper.

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