[unfrufru]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/perfectly-frank/2008/03/13/1205126112548.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1


Perfectly Frank
Melinda Houston
March 16, 2008

Frank Woodley.
Photo: Simon Schluter
Latest related coverage

Comedian Frank Woodley plays the eternal innocent better than anyone but, as Melinda Houston discovers, he's firmly in control of his story.
On the one hand, it's a case of what you see is what you get. If you reckon that, in real life, comedian Frank Woodley would be sweet, smart, funny and self-effacing, you would be right. On the other hand, is anyone - especially any comedian - really that straightforward?
Supporting the argument for the affirmative, plenty about Woodley makes sense. He likes to tell people he's nine years old: a leap-year kid, born on February 29, 1968.

"I love the fact that he's a leap-year child; it just suits him so well," says Woodley's long-time comedy partner, Colin Lane. "He's rubbery-limbed, he's a little bit of a noodle, a bit of a dickhead."
Tom Gleisner, who first met Woodley on the pilot of Channel Ten's Thank God You're Here, says: "There is without doubt a childlike quality to Frank.
"I think it's a genuine curiosity of the 'I wonder what would happen if I stuck that up my nose?' variety."
Woodley says that being the youngest of seven is probably a big part of his enduring kid-ness.

"I've heard people suggest that the youngest is often more of a show-off," Woodley says. "On the one hand, my desperate attention-seeking feels fairly integral to my personality. But you never know with that stuff. I'm sure there was a kind of a 'look at me' thing going on, being the youngest."
And a family that size inevitably has a certain, shall we say, carnival atmosphere. "I see my friends now who have one or two or maybe three children. They're so involved and so caring and careful with their kids. And I think about my mum saying to us: 'If you're going to fight, go outside'. Not 'why are you fighting?', not 'who started it?' - none of that. It was chaos. Almost a jungle. But I loved it."

The way he tells it, young Frank Wood (he changed his real name to stage-name Woodley a few years ago) - living first above his parents' milk bar in Glen Waverley, then later in a house in the neighbourhood - had precisely the childhood that would set him up for a life of death-defying clowning. Jumping off the roof. Riding the garage door up and down. Riding his bike as fast as possible and then trying to stand on the handlebars. And if his earliest ambition was to be the next Harry Butler, his true vocation wasn't long in revealing itself.

"I do remember, when I was 15 there was a festival in Clayton. And I dressed up as a clown - not as a full-on Bozo, but I stuck on a red nose and put on an old bowler hat and I went down to the Clayton festival - 15, a 15-year-old - and just clowned around all day. That's weird, isn't it? I have absolutely no idea why that happened. It just seemed like a good idea at the time."

It's particularly odd given that the family has, according to Woodley, absolutely zero history of performers or entertainers. The closest anyone came - and it's so unusual it became part of family lore - was the night his father was chosen as an audience participant at the Tivoli.
On the other hand, he says his family are all extroverts. "Nobody's shy in coming forward. We're enthusiastic."

Yet for an enthusiast, and someone who clearly doesn't mind a chat, Frank can be less than frank. He is often both cautious and diffident. Gleisner says Woodley strikes him as someone who absolutely doesn't need to be the centre of attention: "A refreshing trait in a comedian".
Adam Hills, compere of the ABC music quiz show Spicks and Specks, agrees. "I can't imagine anyone talking about Frank without saying what a lovely bloke he is, what beautiful energy he has, what a great person to be around," says Mr Nice. Naturally they've crossed paths a number of times over the course of their professional lives, but Hills only really got to know Woodley in the Spicks and Specks Green Room.

"He's a very giving person. He's very gentle, self-effacing," Hills says. "And that's what makes him such an amazing comedian. He's very sensitive. Comedians are all quite prone to getting wrapped up in ourselves. When you find someone who's so genuinely giving, that person really stands out."

Hills has been a fan since the days of Woodley's first comedy project, Found Objects, and is watching the solo Woodley with great interest. "In Lano and Woodley he was always the put-upon one. And you need that in every duo, the one who controls things, and the stooge. Now he's solo, what he has to develop is that control aspect."

Well, maybe he's working on it. Woodley seemed to enjoy talking about his childhood, and did indeed seem all those nice things people say he is. On the other hand, he then forbade us - very apologetically and politely - from speaking with his family. And while he was at it, forbade us - very politely, and very apologetically - from even mentioning their names. (He also assured us that his wife prefers to be referred to as "the wife" rather than by her actual name.)

Is there a dark side to Frank Woodley he doesn't want us to discover? Is there an Evil Frank who appears only in the company of his family? Are all his siblings actually in witness protection? Do they actually exist? Maybe those charming childhood tales are all part of an elaborate fiction. Who knows?
It's all very mysterious. And it makes the following potentially enlightening anecdote go something like this...

"There's me. XXX. XXX. XXX. XXX. And XXX. My oldest brother, XXX is, like, 17 years older than me. So it's spread out." The eldest three siblings - assuming they actually exist - were adults by the time young Frank was talking but he had, he says, a close and formative relationship with the next-in-line, his brother XXX. (Whose existence has been confirmed.)

"XXX would look out for me. But he also would bully me," Woodley says. "It was sort of his job. I remember XXX pinning me down and dribbling on me or something, making me cry. And then he said something about me being immature. And I said, 'Well you're so mature, aren't you. You're Victor Mature. You're Victor Mature. Aren't you Victor?' And I started taunting him by calling him Victor. He'd grab me. He'd pummel me. I'd plead for forgiveness. He'd let me go. I'd get just far enough away to be out of his reach and I'd say, 'Have you got that out of your system - Victor?' And it'd all start again."

That anecdote - true or not - will ring loud bells to anyone familiar with Woodley's professional oeuvre. Colin Lane has described Lano and Woodley's act as "true tales of adolescence". "And there's definitely some stuff in The Adventures of Lano and Woodley," Woodley says.
"Like, a sequence of showing-off at the pool. That was definitely part of my history. XXX would do a back-somersault off the top tower of the pool. And that would make me think, 'Maybe I can go and do that'."
Which may or may not have happened, of course. Since XXX is unavailable to confirm or deny.

Anyhoo, there comes a time when everyone must leave their family - real, fictitious or re-created - behind. And that's about where Woodley is right now. Having turned 40 (in trips around the sun, if not in birthdays) he's not exactly in crisis, but these are interesting times.

"I'm actually feeling pretty good. But because me and Col have had this parting of our creative lives, I'm probably in a bit of a...not a panic, but a bit of a (insert ear-piercing panicked screeching and mad hand-waving here).

''I'm excited, but there's a bit of fear and apprehension there as well. I don't really know if it's going to work, or how well it's going to work."
The regular spots on Spicks and Specks, Thank God You're Here and, most recently, Good News Week, have been welcome. And he's about to launch a solo show as part of the Comedy Festival.

"It's really exciting to be doing something where I am out of my comfort zone. There are some aspects of the show I'm going to explore that I couldn't explore with Col because it just didn't fit."
It's hard to imagine the show, Possessed, fitting anywhere but in the unusual mind of Frank Woodley. Essentially it's about a man who falls in love with the ghost of a woman who's possessing his body. "I don't know what Freud would say about a play about a man who falls in love with himself as a woman. But I am going to be playing the romance sincerely - giving that part of the story a certain integrity."

It's hard, some might say impossible, to imagine how such a thing might be realised. To everyone but Woodley. "It's just doing what I want to do," he says. "I've just set out to do the best show I can make and therefore I will enjoy doing it the most. I'm lucky in that the thing I want to do the most is quite different to what most comedians are presenting."

"It's not luck," says Woodley's long-time friend, actor Craig Goddard. "He's an incredibly skilful, creative, brilliant bastard." Goddard and Woodley met in a Carlton share-house 20 years ago - a house that at times accommodated 10 people including Woodley's original comedy partner, Scott Casley, and the woman who would become the wife. (Let's call her XXX.)

Goddard's aware that Woodley comes from a large family, and has met a couple of his sisters and the much-mentioned brother, XXX. "They didn't fight," he says. "They seemed to love each other."
Goddard says that while the years are - very slowly - catching up with Woodley physically, essentially he's the same person he knew way back when: incredibly interested in things, sometimes obsessively so, enthusiastic, athletic.

"He'll talk 'til three in the morning - about anything and everything," Goddard says. "And 20 years later, he hasn't shown any signs of stopping. I think that's the thing I like most about him. That I can be enthusiastic with him. He'll dissect and unravel and rave about something for ages."

And the thing you like least about him? Goddard laughs. "He asked me not to say anything bad about him." That's funny. Because, well, there's the whole "don't mention the family" thing too. "Did he say that?" Goddard sounds amused. "Well. That would be because they are in witness protection. The whole family. Frank himself is a trained killer. Our friendship is actually based on fear. But for God's sake don't tell him I said that." See. We knew he had something to hide.
Frank Woodley - Possessed is at the Comedy Theatre, March 19 to April 13. Tickets 132 849 or at the door.