John Clarke - A Pleasure to Be Here: The Best of Clarke and Dawe

A hilarious collection of interviews discussing the highs and lows in the public and political life of Australia over the past three decades. Drawn from John Clarkes and Bryan Dawes weekly broadcasts, these timelessly funny scripts will delight readers as they revisit the scandals and stuff-ups of our lifetimes. Politics was never so preposterous. All the old favourites are here: Bob Hawke, Margaret Thatcher, Bob Collins (the front fell off), Paul Keating, Alan Bond, John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Clarke Esq. and I met during 1987 when I had just been appointed the first head of the ABC Radio Comedy Unit in Melbourne.

In addition to writing and producing my own work, my role entailed garnering writers and performers to create comedy. My first instinct was to approach John Clarke, who had been unceremoniously booted off ABC Radio by a far-sighted genius from the ABC Talent Eradication Unit (NSW division) a number of years earlier, for being too political. I had never met John but loved his Fred Dagg monologues and thought his writing and performances for The Gillies Report, particularly his Farnarkeling segment, were sheer satirical geniusnot a joke within cooee and delivered with a straight-faced seriousness that perfectly mirrored the most earnest of sports commentators. Asked what I expected him to do, I advised John he had free rein. We recorded some Fred Dagg pieces and then, at the end of the third week, he suggested recording one of several interviews he had recently written for a newspaper. The first interview we did together was John as Prince Charles.

His Royal Highness (as John insisted he be called) explained that he was in Australia to deliver a replica of the barge that transported food out to Captain Cooks Endeavour in Portsmouth. It ran for five and a half minutes and included HRH admitting that he adored the Goons and could imitate Eccless voice for hours at a time in the bath. We had been doing the interviews on ABC radio for a year or so when John rang one morning and asked, Want to try these interviews for television? Sure, I said, assuming it was something we would discuss in detail some time in the future. What are you doing this afternoon? he said. Nothing much, I replied. Ill pick you up at one.

Channel Nine wanted John to do a Fred Dagg monologue at the end of A Current Affair each Friday, but Mr Clarke had other ideas and talked them into letting us record three interviews. So with the words, Lets go and stick some ferrets down some trousers, we duly headed off to Channel Nine. I think you can over-prepare for a thirty-year career collaborating on radio and television. John got the Dagg monologues out the way and then we hopped into the interviews. The tapes were sent up to Sydney that same afternoon. that evening, the first television segment of what would become Clarke & Dawe went to air. that evening, the first television segment of what would become Clarke & Dawe went to air.

Jana left ACA in 1992, but we enjoyed a seven-year run, until in 1996 we were advised that our satirical services on the program were no longer required. So, a short break and back to Auntie we went, this time to television. Two fundamentals of any collaboration, if it is to survive, are trust and respect. John and I had that for each other, in spades. Johns visceral loathing of pomposity, and his talent for distilling hours of political bluster into a two-and-a-half-minute kernel of truth, ensured that being handed a script by him each week and invited to address it was like becoming a kid shredding Christmas gift paper. In the early, pre-internet days, John would fax drafts of the weekly scripts to me, wed run them through over the phone, and then the diamond polisher would go back to work.

The term final draft was an oxymoron. A shared love of ad-libbing meant the script was never finished until wed recorded, and it had been edited for broadcast. After a while, we rarely bothered with rehearsal. Wed meet at the ABC studios around 2.30 p.m., John with three or four different scripts in hand, wed frock up, run through the scripts, then the hem would be shortened or lengthened and the style of the frock adjusted, if necessary, during a take. We always tried to record more than one script, keeping the reserve tank topped up lest one of us tripped over the furniture or couldnt play the next week. We never missed a segment of Clarke & Dawe during the entire journey.

Possibly the most frequent question asked of me over the years was How do you keep a straight face during the interviews? The secret was to never look at Johns eyes, but to focus instead on his forehead. To look into Johns mischievous eyes as he deadpanned responses was to invite paroxysms of laughter. No one could make me laugh like John Clarke could. No one ever will again. John and I were both blessed and honoured to have had a loyal audience who allowed the creature Clarke & Dawe to keep breathing for thirty years. For that, we thank you.

It remained, to its end, as much fun to perform each week together as is allowable under the Geneva Convention. In a sense it was easy. As the great American satirist Will Rogers observed, Theres no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. It was a very long innings and John Clarke carried his bat. 11 March 1983 20 December 1991 Mr Hawke, is it true that interest rates will go up to seventeen per cent? I was unfaithful to my wife, yes. Mr Hawke, why did you spend last week on national television talking about your penis? Talking about my penis? Yes, your penis. I didnt talk about my penis last week on national television. Mr Hawke, why did you spend last week on national television talking about your penis? Talking about my penis? Yes, your penis. I didnt talk about my penis last week on national television.

What are you talking about? Why do you get so emotional about Australia? I love Australia. I think its far and away the best Look, I was having a wee the other night, and I just happened to look down, and I thought, What a marvellous, fantastic country this is. The Hon. Paul Keating Treasurer of Australia Its entirely my fault.Mr Keating, thanks for your time. A pleasure. Have some brie. Can I ask if youve seen the recent figures? The cost of living figures? Yes. Yes, theyre very distressing, arent they? Youre not happy with them? Its beginning to look as if weve made some very big mistakes.

Weve taken policy positions on interest rates, deregulation of the currency market and so on and, as I say, it looks as if we were wrong. Are you saying its not working? Its a complete cock-up. How did the government misread things so badly? It wasnt the government; it was me. I had a pretty good run for a while there but the wheels have come off. Shes cactus. What went wrong? Im probably not the person to ask.

I havent known too much about whats been going on since the middle of 1985. Perhaps I should have said so earlier, but when youre the treasurer you cant go about the place telling people to abandon ship. Its been a hell of a thing to live with. If I can say this without appearing insensitive, thats probably not the issue. No, youre right. Ive got to stop thinking about myself all the time. It must have been bloody terrible for a lot of people out there.

How theyve coped, Ill never know. It says a great deal about ordinary Australians, you know, this whole business. You feel helplessall that trust and not a bloody clue about what youre doing. If I could take you back now over some of the things the government has done