ABC COMEDY TV PILOT – Why Are You Like This?

Lawrence plays coder Daniel in the ABC Comedy Fresh Blood TV pilot WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?

 

 

Best friends Penny and Mia are navigating their 20s in Melbourne. Guided by their own modern day moral code, they confront complex social issues in an outrage-driven world, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

 

Created by Naomi Higgins, Mark Samual Bonanno and Humyara Mahbub

 

FRESH BLOOD is a ground-breaking ABC and Screen Australia initiative that seeks to uncover the next generation of Australian comedy talent. There are four pilots and only one will be commissioned for full series. Let’s hope it’s this one.

 


DEBATES, PANELS, SPEAKING & START UPS


ACMI CONVERSATIONS

Lawrence recounted tales, triumphs and tribulations when it comes to being an Asian Australian working in media. This ACMI panel included playwright/actress Michelle Law (Single Asian Female, Homecoming Queens) with director Corrie Chen (Homecoming Queens, Mustangs FC) and TV showrunner Tony Ayres (Family Law, Glitch).

ANNUAL DIVERSITY DEBATE

Lawrence gave an hilarious and insightful speech at the recent 7th Annual Diversity Debate, presented by the Diversity Council of Australia. Lawrence was on the affirmative team arguing that “It is a good idea to bring your ‘whole self’ to work.”

 

CREATIVE TECH PITCH NIGHT

Lawrence hosted the ACMI X-CEL ACCELERATOR pitch event. After taking their tech ideas through a 12 week boot camp of ‘start up’ coaching, seven teams pitched their creative visions in 5min mini-TED talks to hopefully secure funding and interest.

 

Feel free to drop us an email,  if you would like Lawrence to speak at your event.

UNTHINKABLE – FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY

WHAT IS UNTHINKABLE?

UNTHINKABLE is Lawrence’s new hilariously twisted, mind-bending theatre show and the follow-up to last year’s award-winning “Very Strange Things” (2017 MMF Directors Choice Award 2017, Best Comedy Nominee 2018 Fringe World).

FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY

JULY 10-14

THE DARK @ 35 Johnston St Collingwood, Victoria.

BOOK TICKETS – CLICK HERE

(Cheaper Preview ticket – Tues 10th July only)

An unbelievable evening of twisted experiments, psychological game-play and intimate investigations into bizarre coincidence and unusual phenomena. The beginning is unexplainable, the ending is unthinkable.

Lawrence Leung is an award-winning comedian, screenwriter, science communicator and designer of illusions for stage and screen. He has spoken about paranormal investigation at science and skeptics’ conferences, lectured on the psychology of magic and lying at universities and made a feature film about con artists (SUCKER). He also created the ABC documentary series UNBELIEVABLE where he travelled the globe, meeting famous sceptics, mentalists, pickpockets and neuroscientists that explored the edge between deception, illusion and the unexplainable.

UNTHINKABLE.

FOR MORE:  CLICK  HERE

NEW COMEDY FESTIVAL SHOW ANNOUNCED

Lawrence is excited to bring you his brand new hour of jokes and tomfoolery that will tour comedy festivals around Australia.

MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL Mar 28 – Apr 22 – Tickets Here

SYDNEY COMEDY FESTIVAL May 10, 11, 12  – Tickets Here

PERTH COMEDY FESTIVAL May 18 – Tickets Here

Sometimes seemingly unimportant moments and choices can have surprising and unexpected consequences. Lawrence (from TV’s OffspringMaximum ChoppageThe Feed) delves headlong into fate, coincidence, unforeseen consequences and an absurd web of interconnected events that led to a humble sandwich changing the course of human history.

Lawrence is a multi-award-winning Melbourne comedian and screenwriter. He’s best known for his TV work including the AFI-nominated Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure and Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable for the ABC and getting his butt kicked in the ABC2 action/comedy Maximum Choppage. He’s also appeared in Newton’s Law, Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake: China Girl, as well as playing that awkward doctor named Elvis on Ten’s Offspring.

 

‘One of Melbourne’s great comedy talents.’ The Age

‘Mindblowing.’ Time Out Melbourne

‘Superb and ingenious.The West Australian

LAWRENCE PRESENTS ABC CATALYST’S SLEEP DOCO

Comedian and human guinea pig Lawrence donated his mind and body for science in an all new episode of ABC’s science program Catalyst. He presents SLEEP MATTERS a hour-long documentary about the science and importance of getting a good night’s shut eye. The documentary includes encounters with sleep scientists, researchers, tired late-night DJ and elite athletes. Perhaps a highlight (or lowlight in his sanity!) involved Lawrence participating in an extreme sleep deprivation experiment, trapped inside a Monash Uni laboratory with no clocks, no windows and no iphone. Then to look at the effects on his brain and body, straight away, he had to perform a new stand up routine at a packed comedy club (written whilst half asleep in the lab)! Did he die on-stage (in comedy terms)?

What’s Sleep for, what happens if you go without it and what can you do to improve it? It aired this Tues 27th on ABC TV

Full episode is now online on iView: WATCH HERE

VERY STRANGE THINGS AT PERTH FRINGEWORLD

VERY STRANGE THINGS show completed its limited run in Perth’s Fringe World

with a five star review and a nomination for the festival’s

BEST COMEDY AWARD.

VERY STRANGE THINGS @ PERTH FRINGE WORLD

FOUR SHOWS ONLY. FEB 1-4

STATE THEATRE CENTRE, WA

BOOK NOW:  CLICK HERE

UPDATE : SEASON ENDED

“Lawrence has a stage presence that others can only dream of. Laughs non-stop, moments you will say “Whoa!” out loud… a comedian that should not be missed. FIVE STARS”

– Perth Happenings 3/2/18 review

SKEPTICON 2017

Pro-science comedian and celebrated nerd, Lawrence Leung hosted the 33rd Annual Australian Sceptics Conference, if you can believe it.

Skepticon Australia was a massive two day event in Sydney for all lovers of science & mythbusting. Speakers included scientists, documentary filmmakers, astrophysicists, former-naturopaths, doctors against anti-vaxxers, cancer biologists, poets, secular activists, comedians and podcasters.

Prof Alan Duffy and a Mars Rover.

Some highlights included ‘walking-wikipedia’ Dr Karl talking about Great Moments in Skepticism, Youtube sensation Captain Disillusion talking about viral scepticism without the cynicism,  vaccination campaigner Catherine Hughes relating her encounters the anti-vax movement, ABC’s astrophysicist Professor Alan Duffy introducing a Mars Rover on stage , Cara Santa Maria (Talk Nerdy, National Geographic) dissecting the state of science communication in post-truth America, Ruth Ellison on escaping a religious cult, and a live recording from the comedic Cognitive Dissonance podcast.

Attempting to solve a Rubik’s Cube whilst blindfolded is one way to impress and out-geek the celebrity super-minds in my company.

The Bent Spoon Award – Australia’s least coveted prize is bestowed annually upon the country’s biggest bullshitter. This is an individual or organisation that peddles nonsense claims or products without any scientific evidence that they actually work, or the promotion of pseudoscience in the public sphere.

 

BILL NYE SCIENCE GUY

Lawrence joined famed science communicator and US national treasure Bill Nye on-stage at his Melbourne show. Together they tackled all manner of fascinating, geeky and curious Audience Questions.

Lawrence wore a bowtie to match Mr Nye, but came across looking like “Bad Chinese Doctor Who Cosplay.”

Off the back of his new Netflix series Bill Nye Saves The World, the educator/science activist toured packed-out theatres Sydney and Melbourne with his trademark wit, wisdom, no-nonsense evidence-based rants and entertaining anecdotes covering everything from his mother’s top secret Enigma codebreaking, to solutions for climate change and the limitations of Mars colonisation.