Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

Wednesday, October 22

Ronny Chieng is trying to work out the most productive sleep pattern for a comedian: getting up early or sleeping in.

Lately he's been in bed by 10pm and up by 8am - a byproduct of appearing on radio.

Prior to that he lived the night-owl life of a stand-up comedian.

"I've been trying to figure out what's the optimal way to do it," Chieng says.

"I think there's definitely something psychological about being more productive waking up early, but when you do comedy you keep really late hours anyway.

"So I could wake up at 6am every day, but if your gig is at 8pm, 9pm and you're going on last because you're the 'headliner' you get home at 11pm or later.

"So they're incompatible philosophies."

But when he is awake, he tends to be productive - which is likely a throwback to his years studying commerce and law at the University of Melbourne.

So, while studying law might not be a barrel of laughs, it does teach you how to get stuff done.

"I was probably one of the worst law students, but it turns out that even the worst law student's work ethic is pretty good," he says.

"I'm starting to realise that now. Law-school training and the work ethic definitely does come through.

"If you do something really, really tough, when you do anything else you compare it to that.

"You go, 'at least it's not as bad as that. At least it's not as bad as studying property'."

While Chieng was at university, he still found time for comedy.

Or at least to put his name up for the annual Raw Comedy competition each year before chickening out.

That was until the final year of his degree, when he figured he should get on stage because it was his last shot.

"I thought I had something to say, so I did it," he says.

"I just thought it was something I could do so I really wanted to give it a try.

It's a good thing he did because he won and ended up competing in the national final, where he finished runner-up.

That 2010 appearance launched a career that has included snaring several awards at both the Sydney and Melbourne comedy festivals and popping up on a range of TV shows, including Problems, It's A Date and This Is Littleton.

"Those TV shows especially help the career because the more times you pop up, the more people go "hey, I like that guy".

"I think it gives credibility and familiarity and performance experience," he says.

"It's not a guaranteed thing to get TV work, so when you do get it, it's still pretty special because it's so hard to get."

A Malaysian-born Chinese, Chieng says it can be tricky to avoid being unfairly stereotyped as an "ethnic comic".

"For me, if I do one Chinese joke then it becomes, 'oh, he's a Chinese comedian', when in reality I only did one Chinese joke in the whole show," he says.

"I'm pretty cool with it now. I'll do whatever comedy I think is funny. I'm not going to talk about race on purpose, but if it comes up, it comes up."