Heath Franklin, or rather his alter ego Chopper Read, is perhaps New Zealand's best loved Australian comedian.
He even wants to unite both countries and call it the New Republic of Anzakistan, and he's taking that idea on the road.
Franklin is the notorious criminal Chopper Read, a character he absorbed in his youth.
"I used to go running around doing him at parties and stuff like that," Franklin says.
Sometimes confused members of the audience expected the real thing.
"I'd like to hope that they walked away liking me better but I don't know.
"There was a moment when Chopper died when 7 Days had to put out a press release saying, 'Nobody panic, the other Chopper's gone, not our Chopper'."
The pair did meet, briefly.
"And I can highly recommend if you're going to meet somebody who's murdered people you don't go as a mad pantomime version of themselves," Franklin says.
Pantomime Read was a little underwhelmed.
"I was hoping it would be like a little more interesting, and that he'd be friendlier or more homicidal, but he wasn't. He was just kind of like, 'Errr'."
Read even wanted a slice of the action.
"There was a time there where Chopper was a little bit cranky and he was like, 'I reckon you owe me money', and I was like, 'I don't think so, legally', and he was like 'I reckon you owe me money' and I was like, 'Nope'."
The self-confessed leftie says he has a responsibility to make sure his audience is in on the satire, but also to make them laugh.
"If I can sneak a few ideas in on a kind of secondary level then yes I'll do that but, yeah for the most part I want people to leave with their sides hurting," he says.
Franklin is on tour for another week.
Newshub.
