Colin Stuart Lane is a comedian and actor, best known for being one-half of former comedy duo, Lano and Woodley.
Lane performed with fellow comedian
Frank WoodleyFrank Woodley is an Australian comedian who is best known for his work alongside Colin Lane as part of the comedic duo, Lano and Woodley. The two performed together for almost 20 years in live shows, a television series and an album of comedic songs, before deciding to pursue individual careers...
as part of the duo Lano and Woodley for a period of almost 20 years. The two met through
theatresportsTheatresports is a form of improvisational theatre, which uses the format of a competition for dramatic effect. Opposing teams can perform scenes based on audience suggestions, with ratings by the audience or by a panel of judges...
in the mid-1980s and first performed together at an
open mikeAn open mike or open mic is a live show where audience members may perform at the microphone. Usually, the performers sign up in advance for a time slot with the host or master of ceremonies.-Poetry/Spoken Word:...
night at the Prince Patrick Hotel in
CollingwoodCollingwood is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra. At the 2006 Census, Collingwood had a population of 5494....
, Victoria in 1987 along with their friend Scott Casley, calling themselves the Found Objects.
Colin Stuart Lane is a comedian and actor, best known for being one-half of former comedy duo, Lano and Woodley.
Lano and Woodley
Lane performed with fellow comedian
Frank WoodleyFrank Woodley is an Australian comedian who is best known for his work alongside Colin Lane as part of the comedic duo, Lano and Woodley. The two performed together for almost 20 years in live shows, a television series and an album of comedic songs, before deciding to pursue individual careers...
as part of the duo Lano and Woodley for a period of almost 20 years. The two met through
theatresportsTheatresports is a form of improvisational theatre, which uses the format of a competition for dramatic effect. Opposing teams can perform scenes based on audience suggestions, with ratings by the audience or by a panel of judges...
in the mid-1980s and first performed together at an
open mikeAn open mike or open mic is a live show where audience members may perform at the microphone. Usually, the performers sign up in advance for a time slot with the host or master of ceremonies.-Poetry/Spoken Word:...
night at the Prince Patrick Hotel in
CollingwoodCollingwood is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra. At the 2006 Census, Collingwood had a population of 5494....
, Victoria in 1987 along with their friend Scott Casley, calling themselves the Found Objects. Over the next six years, the trio performed in venues throughout Australia and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They became semi-regulars on
ABC TVABC1 is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 5 November 1956, it is the responsibility of the ABC's television division, and is available nationally. As of August 2009, ABC1 has a 19.1% audience share...
's
The Big GigThe Big Gig was a popular Australian television comedy series based on the English TV series Saturday Live. It was produced and broadcast by the ABC in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was produced and directed by Ted Robinson, who started his career as the director of the second series of the...
, a show known for boosting the careers of new comedy acts, had their own commercial radio show for six months and were part of the short-lived
Seven NetworkThe Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by the Seven Media Group. It dates back to 2 December 1970, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Sydney and Melbourne. It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
sketch show
The Comedy Sale. When in 1992 Casley moved away to Alice Springs, Woodley and Lane decided to continue as a duo, drawing their name from childhood nicknames.
As Lano and Woodley, the two adopt humorous onstage personas, with Woodley playing a "goofy innocent" who is frequently bullied by Lane's pompous, controlling character. Their first show as a comedy duo, "Fence", debuted in 1993. It toured throughout Australia, winning the Moosehead Award at the
Melbourne International Comedy FestivalThe Melbourne International Comedy Festival is the third-largest international comedy festival in the world and the largest cultural event in Australia. It is generally regarded as the least commercial and most relaxed of the three major comedy festivals...
for best act and was eventually taken the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1994, where it won the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award. Subsequent live productions have included "Curtains", "Glitzy", "Slick", "Bruiser", "The Island" and their 2006 farewell show, "Goodbye". In 2000, they co-hosted the televised Melbourne Comedy Gala.
Woodley and Lane have created two television shows together.
The Adventures of Lano and WoodleyThe Adventures of Lano and Woodley is an Australian comedy television show starring the comedic duo of Lano and Woodley , consisting of two series which aired on ABC TV from 1997 to 1999...
, which premiered on the ABC in 1997, was a comedy series which featured the duo living together in a fictional suburban
MelbourneMelbourne is the capital city and most populous city of the State of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne city centre is the anchor of the larger geographical area and statistical division known as the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area – of which Melbourne is...
flat and frequently getting into trouble. It aired for two seasons, becoming the first Australian show to be sold to the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
and airing in 38 other countries. Although they were offered the opportunity to make the series in England, the pair decided to remain in Australia because they did not want to live in London. In 2004 their live show,
The Island, was filmed as a TV special and aired on
The Comedy ChannelThe Comedy Channel is an Australian subscription television channel available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television.-History:...
. The duo have also released an album,
Lano & Woodley Sing SongsLano & Woodley Sing Songs is the live 2005 album by the Australian comedy duo, Lano & Woodley.The album was recorded at a show the pair did in August 2005 at the HIFI Bar in Melbourne, and features many visual jokes that the listener is unable to identify, which was joked at several times during...
, and a novel,
Housemeeting.
In 2006, after close to 20 years of working together, Woodley and Lane decided to part ways. Woodley states the split was due to a desire to pursue new challenges. "We just got to the stage where we felt we had to make a decision," he says. "Either we were going to spend the next 20 years doing this, this'd be our career, our lives forever. And that wouldn't have been a terrible thing. Or we could go, 'Let's have a bit more variety in our lives'." In one final tour, the duo travelled through 37 Australian cities with their farewell show, "Goodbye".
Solo work
Since Lano and Woodley's farewell tour, Lane has appeared in
Don's Party for the
Melbourne Theatre CompanyThe Melbourne Theatre Company, which is the oldest professional theatre in Australia, is known popularly as MTC. Despite being recognised as Victoria's State Theatre, it is a Department of the University of Melbourne...
, followed by a season with the
Sydney Theatre CompanyThe Sydney Theatre Company is one of Australia's best-known theatre companies operating from The Wharf Theatre near The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Sydney Theatre and the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre....
. In 2008, he was cast as Pooh-Bah in Essgee Productions'
The MikadoThe Mikado or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
.
He currently has a show in the 2009 Melbourne comedy festival, a cabaret act about a man who loses the music and finds it again.
He has made numerous appearances on Australian television, having had guest appearances on
Good News WeekGood News Week is a Logie Award-nominated satirical news-based comedy quiz show on Australian television. It originally ran from 1996 to 2000, and returned to Network Ten in 2008. It currently airs on Mondays at 8:30pm on Network Ten. Hosted by former Doug Anthony All Stars member Paul McDermott,...
,
Spicks and Specks,
Welcher & WelcherWelcher & Welcher was an Australian sitcom written by and starring Shaun Micallef which aired on the ABC in 2003. The show revolved around a husband and wife run law firm.-Regular Cast:...
,
Thank God You're HereThank God You're Here is a Logie Award-winning Australian television improvised comedy program created by Working Dog Productions, which premiered on Network Ten on 5 April 2006, and aired for three seasons with the final episode airing on 26 September 2007. On 2 December 2008 it was announced that...
and
NeighboursNeighbours is a Logie Award-winning Australian soap opera, which began airing in March 1985. The series follows the lives of families who live in the six houses at the end of Ramsay Street, a short cul-de-sac in the fictional middle-class suburb of Erinsborough. Storylines explore the romances,...
. He has also been a presenter for two
Nine NetworkThe Nine Network, or Channel Nine, is an Australian television network based in Willoughby, a suburb on the North Shore of Sydney. For nearly 40 years between 1956 and 2005, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
shows,
Wine Me, Dine Me and
Kings of Comedy. His film credits include
JimeoinJimeoin McKeown, who goes under the name Jimeoin , is a Northern Irish actor and stand-up comedian who made his name in Australia.-Life and work:...
's 2005 movie
The ExtraThe Extra is a 2005 Australian film starring Irish comedian Jimeoin.-Plot:Jimeoin, in the title role, plays a man obsessed with becoming famous. He is passionate about being a celebrity, but unfortunately he just isn't very talented...
, in which he played a movie extra, Danny, and the short film
White Lines.
External links