LIKE many Australians Dave Hughes wishes he was an astute financial investor. Knowing when to buy shares, knowing when to sell and in the process earning millions to set up a retirement of decadence.
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Yet like many Australian men he spends a great deal of his life focused on sport. Namely his beloved, yet struggling, AFL club Carlton.
“I got in just before the GFC,” Hughes tells Weekender. “My joke is whenever I buy shares you should sell them. If I keep saying that to myself it’ll come true. I’ve got to stop being self-deprecating and say I’m a genius investor. I spend most of my life thinking about sport, which at the end of the day gives me no financial pay-off.
“If I spent my life thinking about financial stuff I could possibly have a pay off at the end and be spending the rest of my life on a beach in Hawaii because I’m obsessed with the share market. Rather than being obsessed with sport, no matter what sport it is.”
Hughes may be no Jordan Belfort or Gordon Gekko, but when it comes to comedy the boy from Warrnambool has a high-market value. He is arguably Australia’s most well-known comedian and has built an envious multi-media career.
Hughes hosts a drive-home radio show syndicated across the KIIS Network with Kate Langbroek and has appeared on TV shows Before The Game, The Project and Australia’s Got Talent.
However, stand-up comedy remains his greatest love and the king of deadpan delivery is bringing his Sweet show on the road in September. His honestly has always been one of his endearing characteristics.
“I’m a fan of comedy and just love it, so generally what goes on in my world gets on stage,” Hughes says. “My three small children drive me insane, so that gets a run and you never know what I’ll talk about on stage.”
On his 2014 comedy tour Hughes travelled around with his wife Holly Ife and their children Rafferty, 7, Sadie, 5, and Tess, 3.
“We went around the world actually,” he says. “That was interesting. Taking a one-year-old, three-year-old and five-year-old on a flight where they’ll be in the air for 36 hours certainly keeps you guessing.”
The 45-year-old quit drinking at 22 after alcohol threatened to derail his future and then started doing stand-up while failing to hold down a variety of jobs at an abattoir, as a bricklayer's labourer and in retail.
Hughes discovered early on that his failures presented the greatest comedic fodder for audiences and he regularly joked about life on the dole. Over the past 15 years his career has soared, so how does Hughes find self-deprecating material among his overwhelming celebrity and success?
“A friend of mine said when you get rich and successful you won’t be able to talk about being on the dole and I said, ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it’,” Hughes says. “There’s always things, you’re never a complete success in your life. I certainly have many things in my life that can be humbling, no doubt about that.
“There’s failures on a daily basis. When you get some level of success your ego gets involved and it’s very easy for people to dent your ego in many ways. You get assaulted left, right and centre in many ways. You’ve got to deal with that.”
But has fame made it harder to be funny?
“It’s made it easier to get a better table at a restaurant,” he says. “That’s good. I’m happy to be recognised and I make fun of the fact I get recognised. It’s probably made it easier to be honest because people expect you to be funny, well I hope they do.”
Dave Hughes’ Sweet show comes to Belmont 16s on September 3 and Nelson Bay Diggers on September 9.
