Mark Lee believes his road to fame started with a dustbin.
“The first character in my entire life — dustbin. Don’t look down on this dustbin, okay? It’s because I played it that more people came to know about me,” the 58-year-old local actor recounted during his standup comedy show held at the Sands Theatre last evening (Feb 3).
While some people didn’t know his name then, they recognised him as the dustbin character from local director Jack Neo’s Comedy Nite and called him that when they saw him on the streets, Mark said, earning chuckles from the audience.
Comedy Nite, fronted by Jack and the late Moses Lim, is a comedy variety show that aired from 1990 to 2003 on Channel 8.
Mark earned $25 per session of Comedy Nite — amounting to only $100 a month despite the long and tedious practice hours — but he sometimes pocketed less because he had to purchase snacks for Jack and Moses without reimbursement. However, it was the beginning of his success in local showbiz.
Mark’s standup comedy show Old Horse Still Have Spring — a play on the Chinese idiom ma dao cheng gong which literally means success upon the horse’s arrival — is his unfiltered take on work, money, marriage, ageing and the relentless effort to keep up with appearances. The show is part of Marina Bay Sands’ first Chinese language comedy festival.
Welcoming ‘cultured’ people to a ‘one-night stand’ with him
Mark started his show at 8pm with a topic that most Singaporeans are familiar with — CDC vouchers and the SG Culture Pass.
He reminded the audience, which consisted mostly of senior citizens, that they should use their CDC vouchers as soon as possible before the expiry date on Dec 31 and humorously hinted at the politics behind giving out the vouchers for “votes”, which everyone cheered and applauded.
Mark added that the audience, many of whom he believed had purchased the tickets using the Culture Pass, are all “cultured” people — a phrase he emphasised every time a sexual innuendo was shared during the show.
He also welcomed everyone to have a “one-night stand” with him, clarifying after the laughter that it was because his show was held for only one night.
Throughout the two-hour show, an extension from the original 90-minute set, he captured attention with his easy humour, making appropriate pauses to let the jokes sink in, and engaged everyone in his usual casual and lighthearted manner.
He also recounted his humble beginnings growing up in a kampung in Bukit Panjang, where he was a playful child who didn’t enjoy studying, purposely getting third place in a storytelling competition because he wanted the “KGB” (Khong Guan biscuits) as his prize.
The turning point came after he served his national service, when he came across Jack’s acting class advertisement in the newspaper and signed up for it, borrowing the $430 class fee from his mum and elder sister.
He didn’t expect he would get in with his appearance but prepared himself to look good for his first lesson, wearing tight skinny jeans and splashing water in his hair before entering class to look “cool”.
“But as I opened the door, oh my gosh, it’s a whole class of monsters,” he said.
Mark showed a photo of his classmates, among them the late John Cheng, also known as Ah Nan. Known for playing burly gangster roles on screen, he died in 2013 at the age of 51 from a heart attack.
Though Henry Thia wasn’t seen in the photo, Mark insisted he was there: “He stood behind Ah Nan, so he wasn’t shown in the shot.”
Mark also shared his long friendship with the 73-year-old local actor-comedian, recounting the times they worked together in Comedy Nite and how Henry would give him a ride home after their show every week, picking up carton boxes on the way, so Henry could sell them to the karung guni (rag-and-bone) man to earn an extra income.
Henry, who was signed to Mark’s King Kong Media Production, announced his semi-retirement in 2024.
‘My wife I choose myself’
Close to the one-hour mark of the show, Mark introduced his guest, 73-year-old DJ-singer Marcus Chin, on stage, making a pun about “old cow eats new grass”.
The duo engaged in lighthearted jokes, and Marcus took over the stage briefly, sharing his own showbiz experiences, and performed two songs, Chun Tian Li and Shen Qi De Ma.
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When Mark returned to the stage, he talked about courting his wife Catherine Ng like a “gentleman” and his “secret formula” to maintaining a good relationship and preventing arguments with her, which is to sit in a prayer position in a quiet room while chanting “My wife I choose myself”.
Ng, who married Mark in 1999, was seen in the audience together with their three children last night.
Mark is mostly regarded as a movie actor now and he also recounted how he got on that path.
Jack had wanted to discuss making the film Money Not Enough (1998) — while they were in a pool in Malaysia — and the movie eventually earned $5.8 million in the box office, becoming the highest grossing Singapore film till 2012, when Jack broke his own record with Ah Boys to Men.
Despite the success, Mark said he only earned $2,000 from the movie, adding: “But it’s okay, I earned my start as a film star.”
After playing mostly gangster roles in Jack’s films, which left him “bored”, he finally received a “good” role in director Ong Kuo Sin’s drag-queen comedy film Number 1 and earned his first Golden Horse nomination for best leading actor in 2020.
Although he didn’t win the award, he chose his scripts carefully after returning to Singapore, appearing in films including Geylang (2023) and Wonderland (2023), for which he won Best Actor at the Ho Chi Minh International Film Festival.
Mark was also awarded the Special Achievement Award at Star Awards 2024 for his expansive and illustrious career.
As the audience applauded his successes, Mark vowed to continue to be a good actor.
‘I love to make people happy’
“What is a good actor? A good actor is being able to act like a fool when they intend it to be, whereas a bad actor will look like a fool no matter what they act as,” he said.
He added humbly: “For young actors, receiving an award could be a goal and recognition. But for actors my age, receiving an award is a form of reminder and motivation.
“So if you ask me, am I tired after 37 years in showbiz? Yes, I am tired. And if you ask me, will I continue to run on in showbiz? I will reply, yes, I will! Because I love my job. I love to serve the audience, I love to make people happy. So I hope everyone here tonight can continue to run with me. Life goals are endless; as long as we continue to work hard towards it, it’s the best form of explanation to ourselves.”
As the night came to an end, Mark sang his Hokkien song My Journey, which was released during his birthday last October, and he shed tears of gratitude and joy as everyone cheered for him.
He said: “I only had 25 days to prepare for this show. I was worried I couldn’t do it; I was worried that nobody would turn up for my show. So, no matter whether you received free tickets or purchased them, I am really touched.
“This really hasn’t been easy for me. I’m the first person to hold a Mandarin standup comedy show at Marina Bay Sands, so I can only succeed this time and there’s no room for failure. My successes are thanks to you. Thank you everyone. I love you… Because of you, I broke another personal record in showbiz.”
Finally, Mark’s mother, who was seated in the audience, gave him a hug and an ang bao.
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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com
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