DAVE HUGHES: POINTLESS
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
December 4
Wollongong Entertainment Centre
By the time comedian Dave Hughes hits Wollongong with his show Pointless, he will have performed it about 250 times this year.
And that's a good thing for anyone going to the show because Hughes says the last shows are always better than the first ones.
"If I'm doing a season somewhere, maybe at the Melbourne comedy festival or somewhere I'm playing for a few weeks, and someone says 'I'm going to come and see your show', I say 'wait 'til the last week'," he says.
"I feel like the more you do it, the more you iron out the kinks. And the show is getting longer and longer now - I'm doing an hour and a half. I'm having to cut myself off now, thinking, 'that's enough, Jesus Christ, people must be needing to go to the toilet by now'.
"I'm feeling more and more comfortable on stage - it can only be a good thing for the audience."
He's been able to rack up that many shows because he gave up his radio and TV work last year because he missed performing stand-up.
Hosting breakfast and later drive-time radio as well as working on TV show The Project meant less time for stand-up. So he gave them up, which also meant giving up the early starts for breakfast radio.
"I'm over those hours," he says.
"I'm over the feeling of 'oh no, it's 9 o'clock at night and I'm not asleep. I'm going to be tired in the morning'. That would happen pretty much every night. I'm bloody hopeless at sleeping and I love working at night as well.
"The combination meant I was burning the candle at both ends. And I was doing TV as well. For five years I did The Project as well so I was flat-out. It smashes you, there's no doubt about that."
Part of the problem for Hughes was having to come up with fresh jokes every day.
Some days on The Project were easy, other days he says the jokes weren't really up to scratch but he had to go with them anyway.
Touring is a very different beast - not only can he perform the same show each night, but a new town offers up a load of material to freshen things up.
"Touring gives you your own material," he says.
"Whenever I got to a new city there's at least five to 10 minutes of stuff on that city. I enjoy just turning up to somewhere and seeing something and thinking 'well, that's ridiculous. I bet most people in town have seen it, but haven't thought it was funny'.
"I'll take that to the stage and get a laugh out of it," he says.
He also makes sure to ask the sound man at the gig "what's the suburb we make fun of here?", because local references always go down well.
"I'll also ask, 'what's happening? What's making news?' Generally, they'll look at me dully and go 'nothing ever happens here' ... but once you get them going, you can get some gold off anyone."