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Mark Gladman lives in Toowoomba, has a Bachelor of Theology, and a knack for making people laugh. He was a finalist in Triple J's Raw Comedy Search, and this year travelled to Melbourne to perform at the international comedy festival.



"To get to this point I had to move away for a while" he explains, "I've always done speaking. When I was living in Brisbane I went and did a comedy workshop, and ended up doing the mainstream comedy circuit. At the beginning of last year we came back to Toowoomba. There just doesn't seem to be anyone else here who does funny for money", he laughs, "so I guess it's me!"



"Comedy is about where you are, black friday deals on uggs what you're doing, and what's around you, which is why I guess a lot of comedians talk a lot about their family. In terms of living in Toowoomba, instead of looking at things somewhere else, I look at them here. Some of the material might be Toowoomba specific, but a lot of it would apply anywhere. It certainly hasn't been difficult coming back to Toowoomba and still being able to generate material. It's a cool place to be, and I'm still able to find enough humorous things about Toowoomba to write about".



The 'garden city' has been the butt of a few jokes, especially in recent times with the recycled cheap uggs water debate, "there were some guys who went to town on Toowoomba. I think one of the ones I remember was that it was unfair to put the hopes of the whole nation's recycling water debate to a town where formal wear is 'tracky dacks and ugg boots', referring to Toowoomba! I thought that was a little harsh, but again, there's an issue prominent around the nation, and Toowoomba was the main player in that, of course as a comedian I'm going to pick on that, and pick up on that". And then to come back and to see it with Metropolitan eyes you can say 'yeah, ok, we can be a bit like that'. So it's about looking at Toowoomba through Toowoomba eyes, rather than seeing it as a city dweller, and I think I'm enjoying that."



"There's always the pickon towns", Mark says, "if you're in Brisbane you pick on Ipswich, if you're in Ipswich you pick on Toowoomba funnily enough, and if you're in Toowoomba I guess you pick on Dalby!"



"The other thing I've enjoyed is actually picking on Brisbane. They sent us these little sand egg timer things so we can take four minute showers. It takes ages to get it to stick on the wall, so there's the first four minutes, trying to make it stick. I'm working as a chaplain at Toowoomba flexi school, and I also do some recognition of previous learning assessments for Tafe. It's all those things together that pay the bills".



This year Mark travelled to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival to perform, "we decided to give this a go. I say 'we' because it was my wife who supported that, and thankfully she's working which helps pay the rest of those bills. To go down and to know that seven hundred people paid to see me perform, I came home feeling like 'I can do this, and I am doing this' it was really affirming."



As well as being a regionally based comedian, Mark chooses to perform 'clean', "I don't think people, generally speaking, are turned off humour because it doesn't have swearing. I made myself a promise to work clean. People still laughed. That was satisfying to know that I could write a good clean joke that was just as funny as something that was a 'blue' topic or had some 'sweary words'."



As 'clean' comedian, what is the edgiest word he can get away with? "It just comes down to who I am, but the edgiest word I use onstage is 'crap'. Or maybe 'fart'. I do a few song parodies, and in one of those I talk about 'Aussie man' a parody of Robbie Williams' Better Man. Aussie man will drop a fart and blame the dog if it pongs. I had someone come up to me at the end of a show and ask me to do their church. They said 'I want you to do exactly the same show, but we just ask you to change one word', and I thought they'd say 'don't say crap'. But they said 'don't say 'fart'. He actually spelt it out, which is quite humorous, but I was happy to accommodate that."



"When we're writing new material we'll package it around stuff you know always work. My Melbourne show was thirty minutes. A mate of mine in Melbourne had a woman come up to him at Christmas time. She said 'I know you're a comedian, I've got some jokes you might want to use' and literally took a handful of bonbon jokes and put them in his hand. And he actually uses that in his show now. He tells that story and then says 'I said I would, so here we go' and he pulls out the bonbon jokes and starts to read them out. They're so lame people laugh at them anyway!"



So does living in a regional centre help or hinder his craft? "In terms of material and in terms of producing your art, I don't think any artist, and I speak coming from a musical background, I don't think there's any town where you could say it hinders what you do. Who knows, we could build a nice little comedy circuit here in Toowoomba where every week or so you could go out and see some Toowoomba funny people, and maybe even every now and then go to Dalby, and do jokes about Kingaroy!"