Perth Voice Interactive

COMEDIAN Claire Hooper was taken aback when her boyfriend’s mum handed her a lengthy and very personal questionnaire at their first meeting.

She must have passed the test, though, as not long after he was upgraded to husband.

Ten years on Hooper stumbled across mama’s inquisition, unleashing a rich well of inspiration for the brand of humour she’s unleashing for this year’s Fringe Festival.
“[The show] is about the document she gave me, which was very strange at the time…[Finding it] was a real gift.”

But it’s not all mother-in-law jokes: “It’s about family, and not just the nuclear family,” Hooper says.

“You find ‘the one’, but don’t realise you’re signing on for a lot more [people].”

Now based in Melbourne she hails from Perth, growing up on the family’s Maida Vale nursery.

“I worked in the nursery but didn’t see it as a career.”

Good News Week

An arts degree led to the stage and a career she was happy to embrace: “If you can earn your living from something you would do anyway you have it made,” she says.

And she has, with regular performances at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, team captain on Good News Week for four years and now hosting TV cooking program The Great Australian Bake Off.

Claire Hooper is back home for the Fringe Festival performing at the State Library venue, January 27–28.