Comedy legend Tom Gleeson bringing Lighten Up tour to Warrnambool

The city gig is part of his Lighten Up tour, which has been unusually segmented by the arrival of the pandemic.

"This is a tour I started at the beginning of 2020 which I had planned to tour nationally," Gleeson said.

"Weirdly enough one of the central themes is taking the tough times and putting them behind you; then it was just about the summer bushfires but the pandemic just added to the misery.

"COVID doesn't dominate the show but it's now the lens through which you can see the material."

Lighten Up won Best Comedy at the 2020 Adelaide Fringe and has received glowing reviews.

Gleeson was able to escape most of the lockdown madness by moving to Byron Bay for a few months and jokes he was kicked out because he mentioned to someone that getting vaccinated was reasonable.

He said live shows were rich comedy fodder and were missed sorely by many in the industry.

"Everywhere I go I collect stories from places I've travelled," he said.

"The arts were absolutely destroyed, I was one of the lucky ones who could wait it out but I think the June quarter I made no money at all for the first time ever.

"The sector was down around 95 per cent, it was ludicrous.

"That's another reason I want to do shows; I started in October because I felt like I'm one person and I can turn up at a theatre and suddenly employ the ushers and front of house staff, backstage and the like.

"I wanted to get out there and get things going again."

Shedding a positive light on lockdowns, Gleeson's noticed a newfound appreciation for a night out supporting live acts.

"Everyone's been apart for such a long time there's this new special feeling about being together," he said.

"When people enjoy comedy the part that hits you harder in the chest is being in a group laughing at something we all experienced together.

"It's a really cleansing experience."

For over 20 years Gleeson has built a comedy character that is blunt and unforgiving, best known through his Hard Chat and Hard Quiz series.

"It comes naturally and it's quite simple, every comedian is self deprecating like 'gee I'm shit at this' and 'look at this embarrassing thing that happened to me'.

"I remember years ago on Good News Week everyone was saying they were fat in primary school and then when it finally got to me I was like, I was a school captain, I was a winner.

"If everyone is being self-effacing there's something funny about being self-aggrandising and taking the high road.

"There's something funny about saying I'm better than you.

"I'll go to Warrnambool and say things like 'you're lucky to have me here in this shit hole, I looked at the real estate window and the average price is cheaper than Ballarat'. People enjoy the brashness of it.

"In saying it all it doesn't really matter, I'm not taking myself seriously.

"If you're not pissing someone off you're not even trying.

"Sharing a joke is actually quite an intimate thing so it seems reasonable to me that there would be people who don't get it or don't like it.

"Often jokes are that little bit funnier if someone else doesn't get it. It's like when you have an in-joke with your friends."

Tickets to his February 13 show at the Lighthouse Theatre in Warrnambool can be found here.

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