As if we haven't got enough to laugh at. At the moment, Festivals Up North are piling on the pressure with Mike Van Acker and Greg Sullivan performing at the Sit Down Club in Cairns on Friday April 27.

If you're asking 'who are Mike Van Acker and Greg Sullivan?', well wash your mouth out and get back under the rock from which you've obviously been hiding for the past 20 years!

Alternatively read on and we'll tell you all about them....

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 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 the 'Sit Down Comedy Club' was about to open 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. 

A few years later becoming a bit good at comedy Mike sold his contract cleaning company and began making a full time living as a performer. 

To facilitate this, there may have been a time when he regularly dressed up as (among other things) a clown, a spy, a waiter, and at one memorable gig the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.  What can  I say?  He was young.  He needed the money.

Mike continued to avoid doing stand up where possible - he even took a year off to sing and dance in a theatre restaurant on the Gold Coast, but always found his way back to stand up. 

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Stints 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 are going to be together a long time.

Mike's list of foreign countries worked in reads like a list of foreign countries worked in, and includes England, USA, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and New Zealand.  Some people are impressed by stuff like that.

And then there is Greg Sullivan.  He is one of the most experienced and accomplished stand up comics and entertainment personalities around.  Sully worked at Triple M for fourteen years, as a writer for the first seven, and then graduating to co-host of the top-rating breakfast show “The Cage”. 

He has been invited to the world famous Improv Comedy Club in Los Angeles, performed at major festivals such as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Sydney Comedy Festival Gala, and has appeared in a variety of roles on television shows such as Good News Week, Home Delivered Humour, O'Loghlin on Saturday Night, The Today Show and A Current Affair.

Despite a lack of sporting prowess, Greg has entertained at functions for the Queensland Reds, the Queensland Bulls, the Brisbane Broncos and the Brisbane Lions, and stayed in camp with the Queensland State of Origin team. 

From the club website we learn that through his affable charisma, dedication and entertainment value, Sully has developed an eminent and likeable public profile throughout Australia and they wouldn't tell porkie lies would they.

Don't miss these two guys, no really.

For ticket information visit www.festivalsupnorth.com.