4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Societal collapse deftly fought
Heath Franklin's Chopper was in Dunedin on Saturday night. PHOTO: SUPPLIED HEATH FRANKLIN'S CHOPPER
The Last Hard B*stard on Earth
Saturday, June 14
Regent Theatre
Storming in with a chip on his shoulder, Heath Franklin's Chopper claims he has travelled back from a future where humanity has slithered into "giant pink slugs".
The collapse, he warns, stems from an epidemic of arrested development: adult colouring-in books, budgie-brained influencers and drink bottles the size of "a submarine full of dead billionaires" all cop the blame.
Dunedin, he concedes, might resist a little longer because locals still wander about in shorts when it is four degrees outside.
Franklin controls this "bogan" mask with precision.
The real Chopper Read's menace is dialled down to cartoon bravado, letting the comic satirise violence rather than trade on it.
Years of touring means he now carries the character with nothing but a microphone and impeccable timing.
That raucous facade grants licence to roam touchy ground.
One minute he skewers woke fragility, the next he mocks apocalypse-hungry doomsayers.
Some of his sharpest laughs arrive when the time-travel premise falls away and he attacks a simple irritation.
A furious digression about men having to act as custodians of handbags in nightclubs soars precisely because it feels petty, real and unfiltered.
An over-the-top detour into sex robots however shows how far he can push an absurd idea while still landing deft wordplay.
Relentlessly profane yet linguistically nimble, Franklin's Chopper blends aggressive bluster with sly self-awareness.
Beneath the swearing lies a plea for perspective: yes, you have problems, but so do 8 billion other people, and not every feeling needs a global broadcast.
The profanity-averse may never be converted, yet for anyone who enjoys rough-edged satire, this foul-mouthed warning from the future proves the cult of Chopper is alive, mutating and very much in Franklin's hands.
