Funny things always seem to happen to Joel Creasey. And it’s a good thing, too, as it means he’s never short of material to fill both his stand-up gigs and his new lunchtime radio show on Nova.

“I got locked in my car boot the other day for an hour. Seriously,” the comedian tells Stellar with the whispered excitement a teenager might use to confess an embarrassing secret to a pal. “I’m in an ice bath phase, and fell in trying to get the ice bags out of the car. I was screaming for help but Jack [Creasey’s fiancé] didn’t hear me because he had his headphones on playing Fortnight. I was like a whole piece of salmon being delivered somewhere.”

Thanks to the advice of famed US comedian Joan Rivers – who asked Creasey to open for her 2013 Broadway show, a year before she passed away at the age of 81 – he now treats any misadventure or challenge in life as humorous fodder.

“She said to me, ‘Joel, my darling, just laugh. Laugh through it and eventually that laugh will become natural,’” the 35-year-old recalls. “And she’s right. Because life is funny. I know it’s so dumb, but I hear that voice in my head whenever something crappy is going on.”

Even in these uncertain times, Creasey doesn’t have much need to reach for Rivers’ mantra. As well as having a wedding to plan, he and his partner of nine years, actor and model Jack Stratton-Smith, are embarking on a home renovation.

“Both my sisters are engaged, and they’ve got babies; we’ve got a renovation,” he says of discussions of who will make it to the altar first. “So it’s a little bit of a game of chess at the moment as to who goes first.”

While he’s quick to downplay any suggestion of a triple wedding, he is happy to share the spotlight with one Creasey woman: his mother Jenny.

The former actor and singer – who met Creasey’s father, Terry, when they were extras in the 1980 Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back – will perform alongside her “son in their hometown of Perth in July, and has requested that he play Jennifer Lopez’s hit single ‘Jenny From The Block’ to introduce her.

Rather than feeling like he should rein in his often salacious set with his mum present, Creasey points out that his parents have heard it all, anyway.

“My parents drove me to my first two years’ worth of gigs, because they were all in licensed venues,” says the Melbourne-based comic, who first hit the stage at 16. They’d then stand at the door thanking patrons for coming.

Now celebrating two decades on the stand-up circuit, Creasey says, “I love dipping my toe in everything. I’ve done theatre, I’ve done TV. I just love performing and entertaining people.” So he jumped at the chance to do season 5 of 10’s comedy game show Taskmaster Australia (which premieres May 7) with Celia Pacquola, Rove McManus, Anisa Nandaula and Brett Blake, which he filmed before a recent glow-up that resulted in darker hair and a manicured beard.

“Did I accidentally have spew-green hair at the Logies one year? Yes, I did. And I just embraced it. It was funny then and it still makes me laugh now,” he reflects on his past looks. “The professionals at Stellar styled me for this [photo shoot] so no doubt I’ll look back on this with a smile as opposed to a laugh.”

Thanks to a unique set of skills, Creasey felt confident he’d knock it out of the park on Taskmaster.

“Some of the comics found being sequestered away in a bedroom [in between the challenges] hard because comics are control freaks. We perform solo, we control the crowd, we control the sound, we control everything. But because I’d done I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, I was able to be quite submissive,” he adds of being on the reality show’s first Australian season, which aired on Network 10 in 2015 and saw him finish fifth.

It’s with the same mischievously laid-back approach that he’s launching his solo radio hour, The Joel Creasey Show, when all eyes and ears are on the airwaves. The networks have seen big changes since Creasey recorded his last drive show in January with co-hosts Ricki-Lee Coulter and Tim Blackwell, with that duo moving to the breakfast slot, and Kate Ritchie, Ryan “Fitzy” Fitzgerald and Michael “Wippa” Wipfli taking over drive.

Meanwhile, the on-air bust-up of their network rivals Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson has led to their show’s axing and a bitter legal battle with their bosses at KIIS.

“It kind of feels like the charming, handsome, charismatic, wonderful bosses at Nova have realised that it’s a weird time in radio, and in the world… and they’ve gone: ‘YOLO. Let’s just see how much damage you can really do. Let’s just pour some more fuel on the fire,’” Creasey jokes.

Asked if he’s glad to be pioneering a new lunchtime show rather than setting a pre-sunrise alarm like his former co-hosts, Creasey replies, “When this timeslot came up, I thought: it’s time to put on my big boy pants and tackle it solo. Plus, I’m time-fluid. I don’t think anybody on planet Earth would be trusting me with a breakfast radio slot.”

Now master of his own show, Creasey enjoys keeping his bosses on their toes about what’s in store for his listeners. “I’ll be like: ‘Let’s be the first show to give away a billion dollars’ and then I’ll just keep walking,” he says. “And I keep going up to the music director and saying, ‘So how many times can I play Barbra Streisand?’ I can’t name a Barbra Streisand song to save my life. I just want to freak him out.”

Ultimately, though, it’s Creasey’s name in the title, and he understands the show’s success or failure rests solely on his shoulders. Sort of.

“I no longer have anyone to blame, but I can assure you, I will find somebody,” he says, laughing.

“Some of the best advice I ever got came from Gretel Killeen,” he says, referencing the comedian, author and TV host, who is a self-confessed fan of “exaggerations of the truth”.

“She said to me, ‘If something goes wrong, just blame anyone. No-one knows if you’re lying.’ So that’s what I will do.”

The Joel Creasey Show will air nationally from 1pm to 2pm weekdays from April 20 on the Nova Network and Nova Player.

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