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Home / Rotorua Daily Post

Australian comedian Chopper bringing his new show to Rotorua

Alice Guy
By Alice Guy
Reporter, Rotorua Daily Post·Rotorua Daily Post·
10 Jul, 2018 06:00 PM3 mins to read

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Heath Franklin will be hitting the Rotorua stage as Chopper for his upcoming show. Photo / File

Heath Franklin will be hitting the Rotorua stage as Chopper for his upcoming show. Photo / File

New Zealand's favourite Australian comedian Chopper will be hitting the Rotorua stage this Friday as part of his Bogan Jesus tour and the Rotorua Daily Post caught up with the man behind the moustache Heath Franklin about the new show.

Heath Franklin knows it's odd that he has multiple personalities, but he said he was getting better at switching between.

"At the start, I would have to get into character before my shows, now it's just like an on and off switch.

"It's not like I wake up as Chopper and then struggle to get my body back."

His new show sees Chopper starting his own religion as Bogan Jesus and "giving hell to the Almighty".

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"It's funny to see the things he does when he thinks he has the divine behind him."

Franklin said Chopper's description of the show was a little different.

"Basically the show is me telling everyone what I think," Chopper said.

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"It will be fun, I will just have a couple of beers and talk some s***."

Due to his 7.30pm show almost selling out Franklin has added a second show to the night starting at 9.30pm.

Chopper would rather it all wrapped up after the first show.

"I'd rather finish early and head off for a few beers and something to eat, but you f***ers bought so many tickets I've got to do 9.30pm as well," he said.

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Franklin said he was different to Chopper in quite a few ways.

"He has a lot more confidence to be honest, and I was going to say he has a dirty mouth, but I do too, it's just toned down a little bit since kids.

"One of the big differences is the tattoos and the moustache."

He said despite getting some awkward looks taking his "moustache in a box" through airport security it did have some benefits.

"It doesn't happen too often that I actually get recognised by people, we look so different it's actually a little bit creepy when people recognise me."

Franklin has made it to Rotorua on most of his tours and said he was looking forward to another Rotorua audience.

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"I'm pretty sure from memory it was one of the first places I was asked to do an encore, which made me panic because I was totally unprepared."

He acknowledges he's pretty lucky to be doing what he loves as a job and hopes he can keep coming up with fresh jokes.

"If you're not looking for them, then they're very hard to find, it's about keeping your eyes and ears peeled for something that can be material.

"Then I sit down to write and it seems to just snowball into a show."

He said there were still some tickets left for 7.30pm and hopefully people would get behind the 9.30pm show.

"If you don't come, you'll always just be left wondering what you missed."

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