Lizzy [Hoo] from Brissie on growing up with mixed heritage and her dad’s big gig

Image: Supplied/Lizzy Hoo

As the final act during her latest run of gigs in Brisbane, comedian and TV personality Lizzy Hoo had a surprise special guest.
Her dad, 87-year-old Mr Chan Hoo took the stage to perform a closing song for the hometown crowd.

And he stole the show.

“In Brissie [Dad got up on stage] four nights and yeah he loved it,” Lizzy says. “I just did 55 minutes [of warm up] so he could just destroy at the end.

“It was the biggest cheer. He got a standing ovation a couple of nights, I was like, ‘what the hell?’.”
Born in Brisbane to her Malaysian-Chinese-Australian dad and Irish-Australian mum, it wasn’t the first time Lizzy’s dad wooed her crowd.

As a school kid in the ‘80s and ‘90s, her dad’s cooking was the first introduction to curry for many of her friends.

And at international food days at school, Mr Chan Hoo was a hit.

“He’d cook satay at my school fete when we were little, and his satay stand would sell out by midday. It was a real legendary thing: ‘Chan’s satay’,” Lizzy says.

Despite being proud of her dad’s Chinese-Malaysian culture, and especially of his cooking, she says the approach for kids with Asian heritage in Brisbane during that time was mostly to try not to stand out.

But there were plenty of reminders for her siblings and herself that some saw them as different.

“Mum raising three Chinese-looking kids, she’d get asked all the time like ‘where’d you get ‘em’?,”Lizzy says. “All the time.”
And it still happens.

“Even recently, I got into an Uber with Mum and the Uber driver thought I was her NDIS care worker.

“She laughed. We both laughed. We thought it was so funny. I put that in my show.”

She uses a lot of her personal experiences for material.

Though she’s not overtly political, she thinks comedy can be used to shine a light on issues in a non-confrontational way.

“Sharing your experiences in a funny way makes light of them, but you still get the message across,” she says.

Most of all though, it’s her own family in the firing line.

“My family is also… they’re very funny. It’s an eccentric family. I have to tell stories about them, and to tell stories about them I have to set them up as their characters.”

This August, she’s performing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival where her family will still no doubt feature heavily.

Her dad won’t be taking the stage this time. But she doesn’t think his performing career is done just yet.

“He’s already talking about next year.”