Mike van Acker - Comedian & MC
Mike van Acker has spent most of his adult life trying to stay away from stand up comedy. A few years later, he decided to give the street theatre and magic gigs a big miss, and gracefully accept that he and stand up comedy were going to be together a long time.
Mike van Acker has spent most of his adult life trying to stay away from stand up comedy. It was easy when he left high school – there was no stand up comedy in Brisbane. He became a singing telegram performer instead. Keen wasn’t he?
In January 1992 Mike was minding his own business contract cleaning when his acting agent called, reminded him who she was, and told him a new comedy club was about to open at Dockside in Brisbane. It was a defining moment for him. As he stood in his trusty storeroom surrounded by mops and Chux supa-wipes (the extra absorbent type) he received ‘The Comedy Calling’ – a strange, dizzy feeling that seemed to bring stomach cramps as well. Two weeks later, as he failed miserably on his stand up debut, he realised it was not the comedy calling, but the ammonia calling. It really wasn’t a well-ventilated storeroom.
A stint as the audience warm-up comedian for Channel 7’s ‘Family Feud’ did little to dampen his enthusiasm, and after his fourth successful tour of New Zealand’s comedy clubs (both of them) he decided to give the street theatre and magic gigs a big miss, and gracefully accept that he and stand up comedy were going to be together a long time.
In 2006 Mike again flirted with the idea of leaving Stand Up, when he took a year off (year off? Never worked so hard in his life!) to do Breakfast Radio on Brisbane’s B105.