1984
1988
1993

1994

1996

1997

1998

1999

My history (well the parts that are fit for public presentation anyway):

In 1984, the Sydney Comedy Store was notorious for producing a large majority of the Australian new wave comedians. That is where I started out as a stand-up comedian, in the Wednesday evening try-outs.

There were some talent quests being run in other clubs around Sydney as well, and I entered a lot of them to get practice. I won some of them and came second and third in some as well.

After only three months of performing I was being paid to do my act by agencies dealing with comedy. I also spent a year working as the MC in The Barrel Theatre in Kings Cross.

During the three and a half years I spent learning my craft in Sydney, I trained as a comedy actor at the Australian Film and Television School and as a comedy writer at WEA. I also worked on an Australian film called Burke and Wills.

In 1988, I went to Melbourne to try out on the comedy circuit there. I got a couple of jobs hosting Funaboard Luxury Tours and The Comedy Warehouse while I was studying at the Humour, Comedy and Laughter Centre.

I decided to quit my day job then, working for the government (I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms) and go home and try to open a stand-up comedy club in my home town, Brisbane.

Circa 1989 being chased by Chikako across a beach on the Gold Coast.

My ex-wife, Chikako, who was still just my girlfriend then, said that if I couldn't make enough money being a comedian, she would work as well. She has not worked too much since she said that. And I think that me reminding her she said that is one of the reasons we are divorced now.

We got married and she gave birth to both of our sons in Brisbane while I tried to get a comedy club going. I wrote comedy for the No.1 radio station, B105, as well as working on TV shows and commercials and on some of the films that were being made at Warner Bros Studios on the Gold Coast.

I was training to be a stunt actor as well as operating a karate dojo while doing all of that. I spent three years running shows in pubs and clubs and I started learning to juggle, do magic, pantomime, theatre improvisation and make balloon animals around that time because some of the acts I booked did them.

I have always tried to learn as much as I can about my craft. That is one of the things that I frequently stress to my students as well.

I have two brothers. But Chikako had become an only child in her teens. She had a younger brother who had passed away when he was twelve.

One day she said that she wanted to go home to Japan, so she could be available to help out her parents as they got older. Because I had two sons and my parents-in-law had lost a son, I felt a certain amount of obligation to come and live in Japan.

So I gave up running my comedy club and my karate dojo in Brisbane, and I put together a juggling, magic and balloon animal act that I thought could be translated into Japanese. Then we came to Japan in 1992 and I got Chikako to help me translate the act into Japanese. I learnt all my lines and went out into the streets of Osaka and tried it out.

Since May 1992, I have made a very good living doing that show. It has evolved from 12 minutes of very bad visual performing and even worse Japanese jokes into two different 30 minutes acts. One is made up of some fairly decent juggling and magic tricks, belly laugh Japanese jokes and gags and a wide variety of animals and other structure which allows me to pay for my kids' education.

circa 1997, Marine Park, Noboribetsu, Hokkaido.

I have performed all over the country doing shows and the money that I made also helped me to build my own “hand-made theatre” in an old warehouse. I ran it for three years.

I used to put on theatre improvisation workshops and shows in both English and Japanese, performance competitions and juggling workshops. I also gave lectures on Scientology and held my own private parties where I cooked for and fed my friends and acquaintances.

I also rented it out to theatre groups to put on their own shows. It was once described by one of the leaders of the theatre groups that used it as “paradise”.

But the majority of them did not think it was paradise enough to pay me enough to keep it open. And my ex-wife did not want to help me run it, so I am currently looking for a person to help me organise my theatre activities and a new venue to house my activities.

And I am also looking for a new wife.

CURRENT PROJECT!!!

Recently I organised to do a series of five dinner shows in a restaurant called Pierrot Harbour, in Nakatsu, near Umeda. They will be on Friday evenings from November the 21st to December the 19th.

The shows will all be very different. A variety of other entertainers, magicians, jugglers, clowns and comedians have agreed to help me produce this series of shows and next year we hope to be working there regularly.

If you'd like to come along, please contact me:

Mob. 090-8529-5471 or E-mail butch@butchread.com.

2005 promo shots