When Paul Hogan brandished a Bowie knife in the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee and told a scared New York mugger “that’s not a knife... that’s a knife”, he introduced the world to some of the traits of Australian comedy: dry, brash and anti-authority.
More than 30 years later, the template has been shaped by a new wave of Australian comedians, led by Jim Jefferies, whose credits include multiple Netflix specials, the sitcom Legit and his eponymous Comedy Central talk show. Speaking to The National ahead of his Saturday show in Dubai’s Coca-Cola Arena, Jeffries calls the Crocodile Dundee scene as his go-to description of humour Down Under.
“That famous and iconic line by Hogan, to me, is really what we are all about,” he says. “There is a bit of that Hogan line in all of us.” While Jefferies's material, whether it's on his family life or society's evils, skates close to the edge at the best of times, he says it is always underscored by gratitude, because he is able to do what he loves.
“I feel it when I travel and land at airports, filling out the customs form where it says 'occupation'. I get to write 'comedian'. How cool is that?” he says. “You get to the desk and the guy behind it says: 'So, you're a comedian, are you?' And they want you to tell a joke. But I'm like, if you had told 14-year-old me that one day I’d be writing 'comedian' on my customs form ... what a blessing.”
It’s a view increasingly shared by Aussie comics who Jefferies predicts will become future stars, including Amos Gill and Mel Buttle. He describes the latter as “the funniest person I have ever seen”.
Like him, they build on the work of numerous lesser-known but influential veterans such as Rod Quantock, Wendy Harmer and Kevin Bloody Wilson – comedians who, Jefferies says, never reached the heights they deserved because of Australia’s geographic isolation and the absence of international streaming platforms.
“There were world-class comedians who never really got to perform outside of Australia because it was just too much of a hassle. It takes you all those years to conquer Australia, so why would you bother going to another country?” he says. “I just consider myself a lucky man who got a few opportunities. I had a lot of luck in my career and I took advantage of it.”
The offers have been varied, with Jefferies recently returning from South America where he hosted the US reality show The Snake, set for release later this year. He also has a small role in the Jordan Peele sports-horror film Him, due out in September.
“It’s a couple of scenes,” he says. “I haven’t seen the movie yet, but when we were making it, I knew it was going to be awesome – and the trailer for it was killer. The film is about American football, so it will come out once the NFL season begins, which will be exciting. But standup will always remain my first job. It allows me to control my destiny and pick where I get to go.”
That path wasn’t so clear in 1994 when Jefferies, then a 17-year-old musical theatre graduate, began performing at open mic nights in Sydney. “Two of them went really badly and one of them went OK,” he recalls. “In fact, the one that went badly hurt me so much because I thought: ‘This is all I’ll ever do in my life.’ So I didn’t get back on stage until I was 20. Now, it’s all I could ever do in my life and the only real job I’ve had. I think about it a lot, and I do feel really lucky.”
As for his Dubai show, part of a world tour, Jefferies says to expect material as edgy as a Bowie knife. “I still push boundaries, but it’s less about shock and more about clarity now,” he says. “The funny thing about comedy is that it’s a lot more universal than people think. People everywhere relate to having kids, hating their jobs, worrying about money. The accent changes, but the laugh is the same.”
Jim Jefferies performs on Saturday at Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai. Show starts at 8pm; tickets from Dh295
