Matthew Hardy
Matthew Hardy is a Melbourne-based comedian and comedy writer who was the first Australian to cement himself full-time on the UK live stand-up circuit, - “In heaven, everyone will be as naturally funny as Matthew Hardy” (Time Out London) - spending eight years there in the 1990s, including regular headlining appearances at Jongleurs and The Comedy Store in Leicester Square.
A regular at many international stand-up comedy events, he is the author of Saturday Afternoon Fever (Random House), the Best Selling childhood memoir - “Laugh out loud hilarious” (Liz Ellis, Australian Netball Champion) which became the basis for three separate seasons of a one-man stage adaptation at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Hardy also appeared in the Festival with his own take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, along with special guest Julie Dawn Cole, who portrayed Veruca Salt in the 1971 film version. “A tragic and triumphant, touching, and genuinely funny true story” (The Age)
Hardy's TV credits include hosting two series of The Big Schmooze, Foxtel's only Tonight Show on The Comedy Channel and appearing as a panelist and roving reporter on ABC-TV's The Fat. He was part of the BAFTA-winning The Sketch Show writing team for ITV in the UK, and subsequently wrote for Kelsey Grammer's sketch series on FOX in the US. He has also appeared as a panelist on ABC TV's 'Spicks & Specks', and on Network Ten's 'Good News Week'. In 2009, he was the UK correspondent during the SBS 'live' ASHES cricket broadcasts.
In 2008 Hardy's debut DVD/CD was released (Sony), titled 'I'm So Australian', a view on what it takes to be Australian.
In the UK, Hardy toured with Irish comedian Ed Byrne for 30 gigs in the Scottish Highlands in 2010, and with Shappi Khorsandi on her 60 date national tour. In the same year Matthew wrote for The Stephen K Amos Show on BBC One, The Graham Norton Show, Channel 4’s Stand Up For The Week, and co-wrote the BBC Radio 4 series, Shappi Talk.
In 2015 Hardy created and wrote the smash-hit international touring show ‘One Man Breaking Bad’, then in 2017 conceived and co-wrote the live Mary Coustas ‘comeback’ vehicle titled ‘Effie The Virgin Bride’ in his role as Creative Comedy Director at Frontier Touring (a branch now branded as Mushroom Comedy). In this role Matthew discovered and produced various live tours including reviving the touring life of US sound fx machine Michael Winslow from the Police Academy film franchise, with a sold out 30 date tour of Australia and New Zealand.
At the 2018 Melbourne Fringe Festival, Hardy debuted a show he’d written titled ‘Cleese vs The Volcano’ (starring Lawrence Mooney & Stephen Hall), depicting the real life taxi trip which Cleese took from Norway to London during the ‘ash cloud crisis of 2010’, which saw all international flights into and out of Europe cancelled indefinitely, following a volcanic eruption in Iceland. The show will tour nationally, then internationally, in 2019.
Hardy has run Yarraville Laughs in Melbourne’s ‘New West’ since 2012, a live comedy venue described publicly by Mick Molloy, Denise Scott, Mary Coustas and the Doug Anthony All-Stars as the best comedy club in the country, which, aside from shows by most touring acts has enjoyed rare live performances from Rhys Darby, Shaun Micallef, Libbi Gorr, Tony Martin and Sam Pang.