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Stockbroker by day, stand up comedian by night. Andrew Wolfe says the two are surprisingly similar

Andrew WolfeThe West Australian
Andrew Woolfe
Camera IconAndrew Woolfe Credit: supplied

I first became interested in comedy when

. . . I realised you could get paid for being a little weirdo. Actually, it was probably watching my granddads horse around, or seeing Eddie Murphy’s Raw for the first time. I know that album is a little problematic nowadays but I didn’t realise another human could make you laugh like that. I howled for days after.

The first time I got up on stage in front of an audience . . . was for a gong show. I was gonged off immediately after my opening line. The audience obviously didn’t like what they saw — many still don’t. It’s basically been downhill from there.

The thing I most enjoy about stand-up comedy is . . . yelling at strangers from the comfort of the stage rather than out the window of a speeding car. Also, being able to say things people shouldn’t and then saying, “lighten up mate, it’s just a joke”.

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What a lot of people don’t realise about comedy is . . . a lot of comics are very serious and boring off stage. They have groomed a funny persona through meticulous planning and repetition. They have effectively turned the greatest job in the world into a Coles shift, sentenced to be little more than a wind-up doll trapped in a cage of their own making.

Most of my ideas come from . . . talking garbage with comics or mates. It's actually annoying because they then see it on stage and think I have been rehearsing material on them. To avoid this, I now just carry a phone around and record my jokes as I think of them and rob my friends of the laughs.

The biggest learning curve has been . . . the realisation that like all crafts, in comedy, genius is the result of hard work. To get good at anything, it takes discipline and effort. Don’t believe the pretender's false narrative that they were just born that way. It is a decoy to trick newcomers into coasting and resting on their laurels. The guy with a six-pack always goes to the gym, no matter how many Bacardi Breezers he pretends to sink on Christmas Day.

Comedy isn’t completely different to my regular job . . . in many ways, they are very similar. Both are high-wire acts that require you to think outside of conventional logic and lead to grave consequences if you get it wrong. However, as with all risks, it can lead to rewards that no normal life can offer. I say this from the comfort of my parents’ spare bedroom.

In the future, I would like to . . . free people from the idea they have to fit in in order to be worthwhile. The true rewards in life lie just outside the scope of what everyone is thinking and telling you to do. Dare greatly, or die a coward. Failing that, buy yourself a jet ski.

Do you have a passion you would like to share? Email play@wanews.com.au

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