Lawrence Leung (born 25 August 1977) is an Australian comedian, writer, director and actor from

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. He is best known for his television series ''

Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure ''Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure'' is a six-part Australian television comedy series, starring and primarily written by Melbourne comedian Lawrence Leung and produced by Chaser Broadcasting. The series was filmed over nine weeks fr ...

'' based his one-man shows on stories about his obsessions, such as

breakdancing Breakdancing, also called breaking or b-boying/b-girling, is an athletic style of street dance originating from the African American and Puerto Rican communities in the United States. While diverse in the amount of variation available in t ...

, ghosts, the Rubik's Cube and his family. The son of Leo and Doris Leung, he grew up in Box Hill, Melbourne.

Comedian/Writer

Leung has performed in shows in London's West End and at the

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

festival, as well as having toured Australia extensively. In 2001, his show ''Sucker'' won Best Solo Show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, and in 2007, his show ''Lawrence Leung Learns to Breakdance'' won the Age Critic's Award for best Australian show at the

Melbourne International Comedy Festival The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. Established in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typicall ...

and the Best Local (Australian) Show at the 2008 Sydney Comedy Festival. His other shows included ''Skeptic'', ''The Marvellous Misadventures of Puzzle Boy'' and ''Lawrence Leung Wants A Jetpack''. He has also written pranks for the satirical comedy TV show '' The Chaser's War on Everything''. Leung often performs with

Andrew McClelland Andrew McClelland is an Australian comedian, writer and DJ from Melbourne, Victoria. Comedian McClelland has performed hour-long comedy shows around Australia, New Zealand and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival since 2003. His past shows have inc ...

; the pair have been friends since school and started in comedy together in an improvised comedy group called the Improbables, which also featured other young Melbourne comedians including Nick Caddaye (from sketch troupe Anarchist Guild Social Committee),

Adam McKenzie Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

(from comedy trio The Hounds) and UK-based comic Yianni Agisilaou. Their most recent collaboration was ''The Paradoxical Adventures of Lawrence Leung and Andrew McClelland: Time Ninjas'', which both parodied their usual comedy styles and explores their youth together. ''Time Ninjas'' won the Jury Award at the 2009 Sydney Comedy Festival.

TV series

Leung was the writer and star of ''

'', which aired on

ABC1 ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship ABC Television network. The headquarters of the ABC TV channel an ...

and

ABC2 ABC TV Plus (formerly ABC2 and ABC Comedy) is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and part of its ABC Television network. The channel broadcasts a range of general entertainment pr ...

in 2009. The show revolves around Leung attempting to re-live childhood ambitions and is described as "an imaginative documentary/comedy/adventure series where the innocence of childhood ambition clashes with the realities of adulthood, resulting in unexpected consequences that are hair-raising, heart-warming and hilarious." In April 2009, he released a soundtrack EP from the show called ''Choose Your Own Adventure: Music from the ABC TV Series'', consisting of six tracks, mostly from the "Be a Rock Star" and "Find Love" episodes. The 2-disc complete series DVD of ''Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure'' was released on 7 May 2009. Extras include deleted scenes, music videos and a 57min tutorial taught by Leung entitled "How To Solve The Rubik's Cube". The series was nominated for a 2009

AFI AFI may refer to: * ''Address-family identifier'', a 16 bit field of the Routing Information Protocol * Ashton Fletcher Irwin, an Australian drummer * AFI (band), an American rock band ** ''AFI'' (2004 album), a retrospective album by AFI rele ...

Award in the category of Best Television Comedy. Leung returned to ABC1 in 2011 with a new six-part documentary series titled ''

Lawrence Leung's Unbelievable ''Lawrence Leung's Unbelievable'' is a six-part Australian television comedy series, starring and primarily written by Melbourne comedian Lawrence Leung and produced by Unbelievable Productions. In each episode, Leung—a self-confessed scep ...

'' which investigated supernatural phenomena such as aliens, psychic powers, magic, and ghosts – and why some people feel the need to believe in these things. ''

Maximum Choppage ''Maximum Choppage'' is an Australian television comedy series starring Lawrence Leung. The six-part series premiered in 2015 on ABC2. It is directed by Craig Melville and written by Leung, Duncan Sarkies and Josh Mapleston. It is produced b ...

'' is an Australian television comedy series starring Lawrence Leung. The six-part series premiered in 2015 on ABC2. It is directed by Craig Melville and written by Leung, Duncan Sarkies and Josh Mapleston. It is produced by Julie Eckersley, Sophie Miller and Linda Micsko with executive producers Tony Ayres and Debbie Lee. The series is based on the film work of Timothy Ly which was developed into the TV series by Matchbox Pictures. Lawrence Leung stars as Simon Chan who has returned to his hometown of Cabramatta. Whilst everyone thinks he was studying at a legendary martial arts school in Beijing, the truth is he was at Marshall's Art School, in Melbourne. Skilful with a paintbrush but clueless in combat, Simon is the exact opposite of an action hero. However, due to his mother's boasting, everyone in Cabramatta thinks he is a kung fu master and the new saviour of their town.

Radio and television appearances

Leung has been a regular guest on breakfast radio (3RRR Breakfasters) and appeared on Tony Martin & Ed Kavalee's ''

Get This ''Get This'' was an Australian radio comedy Radio programming, show which aired on Triple M and was hosted by Tony Martin (comedian), Tony Martin and Ed Kavalee, with contributions from panel operator, Richard Marsland. A different guest co-hos ...

'' (3MMM) and ''Loose Ends'' (BBC). Leung performed a guest stand up set on

RMITV RMITV is a not-for-profit, community access television production facility based at RMIT University City Campus in Melbourne, Australia. It is a full member of the Melbourne Community Television Consortium, a not-for-profit consortium that ...

's ''

The Loft Live ''The Loft Live'' was a weekly live variety hour television program produced by RMITV that broadcast on C31 Melbourne. The cast included Rove McManus (1997-1999), Scott Brennan, Peter Helliar, Adam Richard, Myf Warhurst, Ged Wood, Bert Kennedy, ...

'' Episode 12 of Season 8 13 April 2000 broadcast on Channel 31 Melbourne. He also co-hosted the Sunday morning breakfast show on Melbourne's Fox FM in 2005 and 2006 with Courteney Hocking and Andrew McClelland. Leung wrote and presented regular off-beat mini-documentaries for Steve "The Sandman" Abbott's variety show '' In Siberia Tonight'' (SBS TV, 2004). He was a writer of pranks for two seasons of ABC TV's '' The Chaser's War On Everything'' and has appeared on a variety of television shows including ''

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It ...

'' (Nine Network), ''

Stand Up Australia ''Stand Up Australia'' was an Australian comedy TV program locally produced by The Comedy Channel from 2006 to 2008. It was hosted by Cameron Knight, and featured four Australian or international comedians on each one-hour show. Season two was p ...

'' (The Comedy Channel), ''The Edinburgh Show'' (BBC2), ''Open House'' (RTÉ). On 4 April 2009, Leung was guest programmer on

's popular and long running overnight music video show '' Rage''. On 26 May 2009, Leung appeared as a guest on Australian game show ''

Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation ''Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation'' is an Australian game show produced by Granada Productions which premiered on Network Ten on 5 May 2009. It is hosted by Shaun Micallef. History Original run The first series ran on Network Ten for 18 epi ...

''. On 7 April 2013 Leung appeared on Australian television series ''

Offspring In biology, offspring are the young creation of living organisms, produced either by a single organism or, in the case of sexual reproduction, two organisms. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This ca ...

'' as Dr. Elvis Kwan. He is to replace Asher Keddie's character Nina Proudman at St Francis Hospital while she takes maternity leave. In 2017, Leung recorded Episode 1 of Series 2 of ABC Kids '' Play School'' Story Time, reading

Lynley Dodd Dame Lynley Stuart Dodd (born 5 July 1941) is a New Zealand children's book author and illustrator. She is best known for her '' Hairy Maclary and Friends'' series, and its follow-ups, all of which feature animals with rhyming names and have so ...

's "

Hairy Maclary ''Hairy Maclary and Friends'' is a series of children's picture books created by New Zealand author and illustrator Dame Lynley Dodd. The popular series has sold over five million copies worldwide. The character Hairy Maclary made his first ap ...

and Zachary Quack".Lawrence Leung: Hairy Maclary And Zachary Quack

ABC Kids (Australia) ABC Kids is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's part-time channel, broadcasting shows between the hours of 5am and 7:30pm for children under 6 years old in each local Australian channel. It shares the same bandwidth as ABC TV Plus which b ...

, accessed 29 June 2020

Personal life

Leung has two children with his long term partner.

Recognition

Leung has a Star Wars character named after him (Lar Le'ung, a Jedi Master) in the 2009 Star Wars comic book series '' Star Wars: Invasion'', written by

Tom Taylor Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of ''Punch'' magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literature and language a ...

and illustrated by

Colin Wilson Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...

. He also won GQ (Australia) Magazine's Man of the Year 2009, in the category of Comedic Talent of the Year.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

Lawrence's Official WebsiteLawrence Leung's Official Facebook groupLawrence's MySpace Page
*
Lawrence Leung's Choose Your Own Adventure TV siteLawrence Leung's Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leung, Lawrence Australian stand-up comedians Australian people of Chinese descent Comedians from Melbourne 1977 births Living people People educated at Xavier College Australian male comedians Australian male film actors Australian male television actors Male actors from Melbourne 21st-century Australian male actors 21st-century Australian comedians People from Box Hill, Victoria