Radio Ha Ha

Just briefly…

This is the page that is going to feature transcripts and additional information regarding episodes of the show Radio Ha Ha, as heard on the Macquarie Radio Network’s digital station. It’s hosted by comedy nerd Dom Romeo who, for the first thirty-three episodes, was joined by stand-up comic and actor Tammy Tantschev; since Episode 34, various guest co-hosts have been featured.

As this blog was started some months after the show began, it may take some time to play catch-up.

Meanwhile, all episodes are available for download. Or why not subscribe? It’s free.

And if you like the idea of free podcasts, the Macquarie Radio Network offers heaps of other other podcasts for your enjoyment!

Episode 46: Pam Ayres, Shirley Friend and Hannah Gadsby

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PREAMBLE

There is a contention that an accent makes a funny joke funnier; the Chaser Gang’s Andrew Hansen has turned this idea into an excellent song, which can be heard in both an episode of The Chaser’s War on Everything (one of the first thirteen episodes, available on the DVD release) and in Episode 38 of Radio Ha Ha.

I would maintain that part of Pam Ayres’s appeal, particularly in Australia, is her accent. As a kid, I naturally assumed it was cockney - having, I guess, only Dick Van Dyke’s character in Mary Poppins to go by (see the relevant chapter in Ben Elton’s Stark for a full dissertation on why Van Dyke’s “Guv-nuh” embodies seventeen different shades of shit acting) until I was aware of Eric Idle’s ‘Arthur Name’ (“‘Name’ by name, not by nature; I always say that, don’t I”) or ‘Arthur Nudge’ (“Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more!”). Turns out most of Australia thought it was a cockney accent, according to Pam’s between-poem patter on her recent DVD Pam Ayres In Her Own Words.

Part of the reason is possibly because Pam’s frequent Australian tours tended to include, in addition to heaps of performances, advertisements that utilised her distinctive voice. There was a time around the late 70s when I could immitate a certain fruit juice ad flawlessly:

If you were a li[tt]le frui[t] juice
And you lived on a li[tt]le shalf,
Think how tired and lonely you’d feel,
In the dark, all by yoursalf.

Bu’ if you were a li[tt]le frui[t] juice
And you lived in a li[tt]le bo[tt]le,

something about your goodness and greatness being compared favourably to the Australian “wa[tt]le”.

Turns out that a friend of mine who is a good five years younger than me has a similar routine, involving instead of the frui[t] juice, an ad for Te[t]ley tea.

It would be a pity if Pam Ayres were only remembered for and by the advertising campaigns that utilised her talents. Thankfully, there’s a massive body of work that Pam has been sharing with Aussie fans for nearly all of the thirty years that she has been performing professionally – she started visiting Australia regularly after being discovered in the UK on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1975.

Of course, Pam Ayres was brought to mind again earlier this year when Raw Comedy winner Hannah Gadsby invoked her as part of her routine in April this year, as broadcast on the ABC (and as featured in Episode 33 of Radio Ha Ha). Some of Hannah’s winning routine is replayed in this episode in order to gauge Pam’s response and, I guess, to give her an opportunity to reply. For the record, as stated in either that episode or, more likely, in Episode 39, a BBC poll recently voted ‘I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth’ into the top ten of funniest poems.

Having Pam Ayres in the studio, happy to read her work, and talk about it, as well as to discuss the work of other people, was a real treat – or, should I say, this episode is “a real doozy!”

Enjoy.



OPENING THEME

Frank Zappa (?): The way I see it, Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

This line is sampled from ‘Lumpy Gravy Pt 1’, from the Frank Zappa album Lumpy Gravy, and plays over the wow and flutter of bad radio reception sampled from ‘Reception’, from the Paul McCartney & wings album Back to the Egg. It is followed by the static and noise of a radio tuner being spun through various stations, and then gives way to ‘Holiday for Strings’ by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, until:

Deep ‘Announcer’ Voice: And now it’s time for Radio Ha Ha with Dom Romeo.

LAUGHTER

Soundbite: The audience of The Classic, Silbury Hill, (a cinema) laugh at the first visual gag, as featured on the track ‘Introduction (Part 2)’ from (newly re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks) The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. [1]



INTRODUCTION

Dom Romeo: Welcome to this episode of Radio ha Ha. I’m very happy to say that my co-host for this episode is a poet, a comedian, a star in her own country and in Australia: Pam Ayres, who’s celebrating her thirtieth anniversary of being a performer.

Pam, welcome.

Pam Ayres: Thank you very much, Dom, it’s very nice to be here.

Dom Romeo: It’s a real pleasure to have you here, and I’ve got to say that in this episode, in addition to talking to you at length about your work and listening to your hilarious poetry, we’re also going to listen to a bit of an up-and-coming Australian comic called Hannah Gadsby, who you have in fact inspired, and another humorous poet called Shirley Friend.

In fact, we’ll kick off with Shirley. This is a poem about Shirley going for a mammogram on one of those mobile health buses. [2]



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Shirley Friend delivers her poem ‘Mammogram’ to a live audience, as released on the Shoestring CD The Naked Poets 2: Newdirections [3]

Station ID: You won’t die laughing, but you might mess your pants. Radio Ha Ha!

Dom Romeo: That was Shirley Friend, talking about the time she went for a mammogram on one of those mobile health units that operate out of a bus, and it’s taken from an album called Newdirections - The Naked Poets Series Volume 2.

What did you think of that?

Pam Ayres: I liked it very much. I liked it because she’s being herself, she’s got her own voice, it’s a good subject, she’s come at it in a clever way, and I liked it. And it’s got a good ‘out’. That’s another thing you need, a good ‘out’, and that thing about ‘touching her’, whether they’re playing or not, I think it’s a very, very good piece and I like Shirley Friend.

Dom Romeo: The reason I chose to open this episode of Radio Ha ha with some humorous poetry is, of course, because my co-host for this episode is humorous poet Pam Ayres, who has recently released a DVD called Pam Ayres In Her Own Words, which we’ll talk about later. More recently, she’s also released a book called Surgically Enhanced, which we’ll talk about now. Pam, tell me about Surgically Enhanced.

Pam Ayres: Well, this is my first book for nine years and it’s all material that I wrote for my solo show. So it’s all my new poems, all my new stories and three sketches which I wrote that I was particularly please with.

Dom Romeo: I notice that there are a lot of stories accompanying the poems, and in my memory, you were always a poet rather than a raconteur as well…

Pam Ayres: Yeah, I’m not really; I’m more of a stand-up really, because I’m on stage for two hours and it just wouldn’t work for me or the audience if I just declaimed one poem, and then another poem and then another poem for two hours. It would drive us all nuts! So I gradually started to tell people why I wrote them, and I found, honestly, that people laughed just as much at the stories as they did at the poems. I haven’t put them in as some sort of filler, I’ve put them in because they are, in my opinion, of equal value. They’ve had as much work on them, and they make the audience laugh just as much.

Dom Romeo: Well I think we should hear an example of one. The piece ‘Growing Up’ appears both in the book Surgically Enhanced, and on the DVD Pam Ayres in Her Own Words, which was released in Australia by Roadshow a few months ago. Here is ‘Growing Up’.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: An excerpt from the monologue ‘Growing Up’, as delivered by Pam Ayresand featured on the Roadshow DVD Pam Ayres In Her Own Words.

Station ID: It’s the most fun you can have with your pants on – Radio Ha Ha!

Dom Romeo: And that was ‘Growing Up’, recited by the author, poet and comic Pam Ayres, from her DVD Pam Ayres in Her Own Words - available now through RoadShow.

Pam, that’s a very funny story.

Pam Ayres: It’s true, too. That’s what people like. Especially older people, because my childhood is typical of a fairly low-income, big family of a baby-boomer, which is what I am. So when I talk about the things we did, so many other people identify with it.

Dom Romeo: Now you were saying that the stories between the poems sort of ‘grew’ over time, and are as entertaining; am I right in remembering that you used to sing songs as well?

Pam Ayres: I did used to sing, but I don’t anymore. I used to wish that I had a lovely, strong voice. I’ve got a feeble little ‘pure’ voice but it’s … I don’t know, it just wasn’t good enough, I didn’t think. I used to sing a few folky songs when I first came on the scene because that was where I’d come from: I’d come from the folk clubs, which were like the comedy clubs of the day, but I don’t do it anymore because my voice isn’t good enough. I’d like a real good, strong voice, you know, like some people have got, which could pin people to the wall. A really powerful, good voice. That’s what I’d like. But I wasn’t given one of those so I don’t inflict my voice on anybody anymore. And me warbling away with a guitar is not very exciting, really.

Dom Romeo: Okay, well look, I’d like to give examples and play some, but I don’t actually have some with me…

Pam Ayres: Thank goodness for that!

Dom Romeo: I’m glad you’re relieved, as such.

There’s a poem I would love to play, called ‘Don’t Kiss Me’, that I rather like. What’s the story behind this one?

Pam Ayres: I got the idea for this piece from my brother-in-law, John, who was at a barbecue. He was introduced to a lady that he vaguely knew, but to his surprise, when he was introduced to her she came forward and kissed him on both sides of the face, and he wasn’t expecting it. She went one way and he went the other, and they had a painful collision of noses which made the lady’s eyes run. For some time afterwards, she was walking around with a hanky, dabbing her eyes and he was hideously embarrassed. He said to me afterwards that he just wished people wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t come up and kiss you when you don’t even know them. Why couldn’t they just say, ‘hello’, or shake hands? But to actually come and slobber over each other, he didn’t like it.

It made me feel the same, because I have got various relations who always kiss me, and I don’t know whether it’s going to be once or twice, or which side you’re supposed to do it first, and there’s that moment where I’m looking at them like a rabbit in a headlight and thinking, ‘is there supposed to be another kiss, or was that it?’

That’s why I wrote it: because it fills me with uncomfortable feelings.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: ‘Don’t Kiss Me’, performed live-in-the-studio by Pam Ayres.

Dom Romeo: I’ll remember that!

Pam Ayres: Yeah, I’m deprived of everybody’s kisses now, I’m not sure it’s altogether a good thing.

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha: Not for the faint hearted, but definitely for the young-at-heart.

Dom Romeo: Now, I was saying earlier, Pam, that you inspired an Australian comic. Earlier this year, a woman called Hannah Gadsby won a competition called Raw Comedy, and part of her routine was kind of inspired by that poem ‘I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth’. I’ll play it for you.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: An excerpt of Hannah Gadsby’s Raw Comedy routine, but as performed – and recorded – at Comedy on the Rox, at the Roxbury Hotel, Glebe. [4]

Dom Romeo: Pam, what did you think of that?

Pam Ayres: Well… I don’t know. I don’t know whether I’m flattered [or not…] Well, I’m not sort of ‘flattered’, I don’t suppose, but… what I think about that poem: although she mentions me, which is fine; it’s nice that her mum remembered me, but… listening to the actual couplet, it’s a cheap laugh. My husband and I have got this expression, ‘if all else fails, drop your trousers’: you know, it’s a cheap laugh. It’s not particularly funny, it’s just the use of a foul word and I don’t think it’s… Anybody can do it. That’s what I think.

Dom Romeo: Fair enough. But I think the best thing to do at this point is to hear the actual poem that she’s referencing. It is a doozy, and it’s one that sticks in the mind very well.

Pam Ayres: What’s a ‘doozy’? [5]

Dom Romeo: [laughing a little uncomfortably] It don’t know if it’s…

Pam Ayres: I’ve never heard that word before. What’s a ‘doozy’?

Dom Romeo: I don’t know if it’s specifically Australian slang, it’s my way of saying, ‘It’s a very good poem. It’s quite funny.’

Pam Ayres: Oh, right.

Dom Romeo: It’s a good thing.

Pam Ayres: I’ll put that in the notebook: “A ‘doozy’”.

Dom Romeo: Now, what do you reckon? Can you give us a bit of…

Pam Ayres: ‘I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth’? Yeah, sure. It’s a real old piece, this is. I wrote it in about 1971 or 1972.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: ‘I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth’, performed live-in-the-studio by Pam Ayres.

Dom Romeo: I say it’s a ‘doozy’! It’s still funny because we can imagine ourselves in that position. I think the point at which you’re gazing up the dentist’s nostrils, I think we realise we’ve all been there.

Pam Ayres: Yeah. It’s old, but it’s a doozy!

Dom Romeo: Now, the interesting thing about poems like that is, on the one and, they seem to appeal to children as a cautionary tale, but at the same time, they appeal so much to adults because it’s so meaningful to someone who has been through that. Now I do wish I’d looked after my teeth!

Pam Ayres: Yes. It’s a very simple structure, it’s a very simple little verse, isn’t it. But it depends what you say within the structure, whether it appeals to adults or not.

Dom Romeo: Do you find that you’re talking to a different audience now, or do your poems and your stories appeal across-the-board?

Pam Ayres: It’s fairly across-the-board, Dom. When I look out at the audience, there’s a lot of older people who remember me from the 70s, when I first started, but then there are a lot of women who are my sort of age who come along because they think I’m going to talk about things that they will recognise and identify with, and there are lots of younger people who have had the poems read to them as children, or have done them at school for a speech and drama competition, so there’s that sort of thing. So it’s a great mixture.

Dom Romeo: You’ve been coming to Australia a lot over the years. What’s the attraction? I mean, we clearly love you…

Pam Ayres: Oh, thanks, Dom. ‘What’s the attraction?’ Well, it’s on all sorts of levels,really. I am a working woman, this is my job. I write pieces and I proclaim them to an audience and I hope the audience will laugh. That’s my job, and I like it. So this is another area where I can work, because the audiences like me, and I like your audiences. So that’s one level. It’s another area where I can work, and where I like to work.

Over and above that, I just like the country for all sorts of reasons. I love it because it’s spacious, and the country I live in is uncomfortably congested everywhere. Here there is space, and fresh air, and the sea and beaches and great open areas which are very good for the soul.

And I like the contrast in Australia: I like the fact that you can go down to Hobart and be perished in the frost, or you can go up to Queensland and stand in a dripping rainforest and see wonderful creatures and look in the sea like I did in Cairns, and there’s all these amazing sort of frilled fish scrambling around in the reeds and things I’ve never seen in my life. They’re the most amazing flora and fauna.

And I’ve got good friends here now that I’ve had many years; and the food…! I mean, where do you want me to stop?

Dom Romeo: I want to jump in and say, have we inspired any of your poems?

Pam Ayres: Yes, over the years I’ve written a lot of things about Australia, things which I… when I first started coming here in the 70s, everybody called it ‘Ayres Rock’ and climbed up it. I mean, the thing is all changed now and now it’s called Ulluru and it’s treated with much more respect and affection, but I wrote a piece about ‘Ayres Rock’, as it then was, which I don’t use anymore, of course. I wrote a piece called ‘The Ex-Odd Gum’ and all sorts of pieces that were topical at the time.

The one that has lasted the longest is the one about how God built the duck-billed platypus. I don’t know if you know that, but it’s a piece about the platypus, and I wrote that as soon as I came here in ’78.

Dom Romeo: Is that something you can give us a taste of now?

Pam Ayres: I can do a little piece of, yeah. I went to the Hillsville Sanctuary and saw this platypus swimming up and down in what looked like a small, glass coffin, and it seemed such an unlikely blend of things.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: ‘The Duck-Billed Platypus’, performed live-in-the-studio by Pam Ayres.

Dom Romeo: Thank you very much.

Now Pam, I’m ashamed to say we’ve run out of time. I have to say goodbye. I’m not going to kiss you; all I can say is au revoir and auf weiedersehen. Thank you so much for coming in.

Pam Ayres: It’s a pleasure! It’s a pleasure. I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been really nice to talk to you, and thank you very much for being interested.

Dom Romeo: Thank you.

FOOTNOTES

1. Yes, that really is the full title to the album that constitutes the soundtrack of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Almost all the Python albums have been re-mastered and re-issued with bonus tracks and new, deluxe artwork. Which only sucks if, as in the case of this album, the actual back cover artwork and the jokes printed thereon have been reproduced at almost one ninth the original size, since the original twelve inch by twelve inch record cover has been reduced to a five inch by five inch CD cove. Oh well, the third time you get around to buying the CD versions is when they might actually get it totally right, rather than almost right.

2. The episode originally opened with the Hannah Gadsby bit. When you get to it, join Dom in wondering what the hell he could possibly have been thinking. Pam was gorgeous, of course, and the Hannah bit could still have opened the episode, but it would have been a bit awkward. However, if you had no idea that this happened, and can’t hear that stuff has been shifted, and additional bits, recorded and dropped in, Dom’s done an excellent job. Bot nearly as good a job as he’d have done if stuff hadn’t needed to be shifted, nor other bits, re-recorded and dropped, though, but he knows that this was an important lesson to learn, even if it did have to be learnt the hard way!

3. It’s worth noting that this CD also contains the work of Aussie bard and reciter of funny stories that rhyme, Murray Hartin, who co-hosted Episode 38 of Radio Ha Ha.

4. Yeah, I know; it’s a whole footnote later, and I still can’t believe I tried to lead with this bit, either!

5. Dom’ll swear that the word ‘doozy’ worked perfectly in this context and didn’t sound nearly as ridiculous, until Pam asked “what’s a ‘doozy’?” The real answer is, it’s a word Dom’ll never be able to say or hear ever again without feeling acute embarrassment. And, some may argue, deservedly so!

Episode 37: Shane Dundas, Kent Valentine, The Umbilical Brothers, Paul Livingston

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PREAMBLE

This episode may appear a tad indulgent — perhaps conversation with both Shane Dundas and Paul Livingstone should have been curtailed, particularly towards the end, in favour for more, really funny, stand-up, but the fact is nobody’s really had the opportunity to draw either of them out at length about their work. So this is a real treat for comedy nerds, although casual punters might find it a bit heavy going. There is of course some excellent stand-up from Kent Valentine.

This episode was uploaded on Friday 10th August.



OPENING THEME

Frank Zappa (?): The way I see it, Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

This line is sampled from ‘Lumpy Gravy Pt 1’, from the Frank Zappa album Lumpy Gravy, and plays over the wow and flutter of bad radio reception sampled from ‘Reception’, from the Paul McCartney & wings album Back to the Egg. It is followed by the static and noise of a radio tuner being spun through various stations, and then gives way to ‘Holiday for Strings’ by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, until:

Deep ‘Announcer’ Voice: And now it’s time for Radio Ha Ha with Dom Romeo.

LAUGHTER

Soundbite: Richard Richard (Rik Mayall) laughs briefly, followed by the live studio audience, from an episode of Bottom. [1]

INTRODUCTION

Dom Romeo: Well, welcome to this episode of Radio Ha Ha. I’m happy to say that I’m joined in the studio by co-host Shane Dundas. He’s the guy without the wavy hair, from the Umbilical Brothers.

Shane Dundas: [in flombouyant, theatrical voice] Why, thank you!

[in normal voice] It’s great to see you, Dom! [2]

Dom Romeo: Same here!

Shane Dundas: It’s great to see you…? Or it’s great to see me?

Dom Romeo: Well, I’m not looking at me, it’s great…

Shane Dundas: Right, you’re looking at [me]… oh, yeah, right.

Dom Romeo: It’s great to see you!

Shane Dundas: It’s good to see you, too. I’ve already said that…

Dom Romeo: And it’s… it’s good to be working with you, so to speak.

Shane Dundas: Yeah, after all these years…

Listeners, Dom actually knows comedy; he understands comedy, which is why I’ve agreed to do this by myself, without Dave.

Dom Romeo: Thank you!

Well, we’ve got a very full episode. We’ll be talking at length, Shane, about your work: how the Umbilical Brothers came to be, we’ll talk about that great show, Speedmouse — because there’s a great DVD for the poor people who missed out on Speedmouse — and of course we’ve got to talk about the great new show, The Rehearsal.

Shane Dundas: Yeah, real excited about that because it’s so different from our other shows!

Dom Romeo: Fantastic! And somewhere in all of this, I’ve got to slip in a Flacco interview…

Shane Dundas: All right.

Dom Romeo: And I hope we can segue well to that…

Shane Dundas: Sure!

Dom Romeo: I’m not particularly strong on the segues away from the talent in the studio, to the talent not in the studio!

Shane Dundas: I’m intrigued as to how you can interview Flacco, you know, because he exists in another universe altogether.

Dom Romeo: Indeed.

Shane Dundas: It’s a cross-universe interview.

Dom Romeo: Before we move into that, though…

Shane Dundas: Yep.

Dom Romeo: … here’s a bit of comedy that was recorded recently, [3] by Kent Valentine!

LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Kent Valentine talks about recent shark attacks, as an entré into doing some fantastic material about the ‘mysterious way’ in which God works…

Station ID: Someone call an ambulance, I’ve just split my sides! Radio Ha Ha.

Dom Romeo: And that was Kent Valentine, talking about God, recorded live at the Mic in Hand [4], the room he co-runs with Sam Bowring, at the Friend in Hand Hotel in Glebe.

Shane Dundas: I was there just the other night, for the first time, actually. It’s a great little room, you should check it out. It’s intimate, very supportive and the Harold Park Hotel in Sydney used to have that vibe before they kind of… demolished it. So it’s really good that there is somewhere like that.

Dom Romeo: In fact, the great thing about those sorts of comedy clubs all over Australia is, you’re there at the coal face.

Shane Dundas: Yeah.

Dom Romeo: I mean, to get to the point where you can put a show like The Rehearsal on in a big theatre, you’ve got to start somewhere. There’s got to be those gigs that aren’t the official show.

Shane Dundas: And those are the gigs – the places, the pubs that we’re talking about. They start there. We started at the Harold Park Hotel in Sydney, when it was operating, and it was open mic night. Which is what these nights often are, you know. You get a chance to show that you’ve got something different to offer.

Dom Romeo: What got you to the point, Shane, because you and Dave met in acting school. You’ve never said which acting school; it’s always, ‘we met in acting school, we played up and were a bit silly together…’ so first things first: where were you training?

Shane Dundas: It was at the University of Western Sydney, Theatre Nepean, the course was. It was a three-year, full time acting course. So it was your garden variety acting course. You've got your acting classes, movement, voice, singing… all that stuff. And we really clicked. We understood each other very early on. And we started making fun of the mime classes, because, you know, it's a very traditional art. Anything that’s super traditional and super-respected, we kind of feel an urge to twist, and demonstrate that there shouldn’t be that much respect: don’t take it as seriously as a lot of people do. There are some groups in Europe that we’ve come across that are really serious about their comedy, and, I don’t know — it just seems to close doors, to me. So we made fun of the mime classes, and it started as a joke, really.

Soundbite: excerpt from the DVD of Speedmouse in which Shane and David, in serious Germanic accents, undertake serious mime [5]

Shane: Velcome to ze hilarious vorld of European vizual komedy. My name is Hans, and zis is my assistant, Klaus.

David: Hello! I…

Shane: Klaus does not speak!

Und so ze first piece zat Klaus vill perform for you tonight: ze traditional European Valkink Against Ze Vind…

Dom Romeo: What I find interesting is, I’ve described what you do as coming from a mime tradition, and you guys kind of backed off a bit at that point, because you don’t want to be known as ‘mime’. I would go further, though. It’s not just mime. There’s a little bit of ventriloquism happening — you’re each other’s ventriloquist’s dummy, and there’s that misdirection that goes on, because it’s your lips that are moving, but it’s David’s sounds, or the microphone’s being held against David’s head, but you’re doing all the different radio voices that he’s somehow channelling in his brain…

Soundbite: excerpt from the DVD of Speedmouse in which the microphone David moves around the surface of his head picks up various radio frequencies, until it lands upon the following conversation, spoken offstage by Shane —

Voice 1: Okay. I want a status report right away. What’s going on out there?

Voice 2: Well, Sir, according to our instruments, he just seems to be standing there with a microphone to his head.

Voice 1: A microphone to his head?

Voice 2: That’s right, Sir.

Voice 1: Okay. Everybody just… just stay calm.

Voice 2: What’s the problem, Sir?

Voice 1: Shut up! I think he’s listening to this conversation. Grab the plans, we’re getting out of here.

Voice 2: What about the hand lotion?

Voice 1: Forget the hand lotion!

Voice 3: consists of monkey chattering

Voice 1: And for Christ’s sake, leave the damn monkey. Come on!

sound effect (created by Shane with his mouth) of running footsteps and car door opening

Shane Dundas: Yeah, we’re mucking around with what you’re perceiving, what you think you’re perceiving, what you think you should be perceiving, and we’re mucking around with the very process of performing. So it’s not just a story that you’re watching, it’s us doing a story, and that, generally, becomes the story: us trying to achieve the show, is the story of the show. So it’s like a narrative that’s on the outside of the show. It’s very weird. And I don’t know how that evolved, but I think it happened because we just don’t take these things seriously. So we’re always looking at it from the outside, you know? “This is just a big joke!” “All right, let’s make that big joke into the story.” I don’t know, it just evolved that way. Well, it actually came from a broken nose!

Dom Romeo: We were going to get onto that!

Shane Dundas: You were going to mention the broken nose?

Dom Romeo: I’ve got to ask about the broken nose — it’s even in your bio on your website!

Shane Dundas: Yeah… yeah.

Dom Romeo: Now, as I understand it, it was a dance class…

Shane Dundas: Yep!

Dom Romeo: And you choreographed some Jackie Chan moves in…

Shane Dundas: Yeah. We used to go down to China Town on the weekends and check out the Jackie Chan movies. These are the old ones, where he really seriously injured himself in great fight scenes. We used to muck around and just create our own fight scenes. We’d videotape them — there are some very embarrassing videotapes out there that, I don’t know, if we get enough guts up, we’ll put ’em as a DVD extra maybe on the next DVD… but this dance class was [singing] “Baby, you can Dom Romeo:ive my car… beep, beep, beep, beep, yeah!” We’re doing this dance routine to it, and the teacher said, “just choreograph your own moves” in the middle section of the song. So we put this flying kick in. David spun — a beautiful spinning kick in the air — and just smaaaaacked directly — [does sound effect of ‘splattering flesh’-type carnage] — into my nose. My nose went to the other side of my face. It was delicious. The sound effect was delicious. I can appreciate a good sound effect.

Dom Romeo: Did you fall to the ground?

Shane Dundas: Aah, no. I just kind of looked in one direction — that is, the direction that my nose just went. And Dave said, “My teacher told me you’ve got to straighten your nose up immediately, when you get a broken nose.” I went into the changeroom and I straightened my nose up — [does sound effect of moving ‘splattered flesh’-type carnage back into place] — immediately on my face, because it was seriously pointing in another direction, and blood just gushed. It was like it was releasing a tap — [does sound effect of tap gushing] — I looked down into the sink and it was like the shower scene from Psycho. It was all disappearing down there. And apparently it was David’s Maths teacher that told him that; he didn’t give me that extra detail. And we just went to the hospital and, yes, it was broken, and then we went back to class and we did the assessment — it was a dance assessment — and we passed. I think they were being generous.

Dom Romeo: Did you get into trouble? Did you get separated? Did you…

Shane Dundas: Yep. They tried to keep us apart after that. They put us in different groups: different movement groups, different acting groups. But we started just mucking around, filming these videos, inventing routines. The mime classes were boring: they weren’t loud enough, for a start. Mime is simply not loud enough, and I think that’s most people’s problem with it. So we started creeping back into the lecture theatres after each lecture, and mucking around with the PA system. And these two things — making fun of the mime classes and mucking around with the PA, just fused, and we created this sort of ‘cartoon’ — it’s like a human cartoon. [6]

Soundbite: The Umbilical Brothers’ single Don’t Dance To This.

Station ID: You won’t die laughing, but you might mess your pants. Radio Ha Ha.

Dom Romeo: That was, of course, your single, Don’t Dance To This.

Shane Dundas: Yeah, I think it sold something in the region of… six.

Dom Romeo: Well, I think I bought one of those…

Shane Dundas: That was you! You were one of the buyers… Congratulations, that’s a collector’s item, now.

Dom Romeo: I’ve gotta say, we played this a few weeks ago when you were nominated for a Helpmann Award… [7]

Shane Dundas: Oh yeah.

Dom Romeo: … and listening back, without the visuals, without the film clip which also came on the CD single, I actually like listening to what you do more. The ‘cartoon’ stuff is great when I get to put my own images to it, to a certain extent.

Shane Dundas: Thanks for that, that’s a good point. And it really was created just on its own terms, as a sound project. We had to create some kind of video for it, so we shot this thing, and it’s a pretty dodgy video, so it belongs squarely on the DVD… we whacked it on the DVD because the Speedmouse DVD, part of the joke is, how much rubbish can you put on a DVD to make people buy it? That was just part of the instrinsic joke. So it’s like the unnecessary video clip. But I appreciate that you enjoy it purely on ‘sound’ terms, because it is just all our voices cut up and sampled and moved around and stuff.

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha — It’s so funny, it should be against the law!



Dom Romeo: Now, Shane, I warned you early on: I’m not gonna have a good segue. I’ve got an interview with Flacco that I want us to play. He’s doing his show, Releasing the Imbecile Within in Melbourne. It’s already had a Sydney run, it’s done the Adelaide Cabaret Festival… here I’m talking to his alter ego, Paul Livingston, who discusses the difficulties of being Flacco’s alter ego, and the fact that Flacco tends to take over.

Shane Dundas: I can’t wait to hear this, ’cause I’ve talked to him about the same thing.

Dom Romeo Cool!



INTERVIEW WITH PAUL LIVINGSTON (FLACCO)





Soundbite: some of Flacco’s stand-up from the video The Doug Anthony Allstars Live at the National Theatre New York

Dom Romeo: Paul, where does the Flacco character come from?

Paul Livingston: That’s a good question, isn’t it. I don’t know if he discovered me or I discovered him. It’s been twenty years now since I actually started him. I was an animator before that for eight years, so he kind of came off the page. I was going to turn him into a cartoon character, but I sort of decided that I’d do him myself. He constructs his own world; he has that frame around his world and he’s quite confident within that. I mean, Flacco is one of the most confident people I’ve ever met. He’s quite the opposite of me, really. Within his world, it is very self-contained, and everything seems to make sense to him. Which is interesting, because nothing makes sense to me.

Dom Romeo: It is interesting, because Flacco amazingly says dumb things in a very intelligent way that actually betray genius. I can give you some examples off the top of my head — and I’m sorry, I’m dragging them from way back…

Paul Livingston: Oh, he’s been around for a long time!

Dom Romeo: Well, when I first discovered him, when he used to hang around the Doug Anthony Allstars…

Paul Livingston: Yep.

Dom Romeo: … so I remember episodes of Daas Kapital [8] when he’d say things like “I could have been a container”. That’s a dumb mis-remembering of “I coulda been a contender” from On the Waterfront, but because it’s from On the Waterfront a ‘container’ makes perfect sense.

Paul Livingston: I know, and it’s one of my favourite quotes, actually. I’m glad you liked that one.

Soundbite: from Season I Episode 2, Avarice, of DAAS Kapital, in a scene in which Flacco is writing to his mum…

Flacco: So, Mama, I don’t know when I’ll see you again. It’s hard to know when to apply for parole when you’re cast out for eternity… but Mama, I could have been somebody… I could have been somebody... I could have been a container... But what do I end up with? A one way ticket to Pallookaville... But what can I do? I cough up, I come clean, I spill the bean... and the first thing you know... Old Jed’s a millionaire!

Paul Livingston: Flacco does have the appearance of knowledge. He seems to know something, but at the same time, appear completely dumb.
That is something that I picked up off the Doug Anthony Allstars, too, because they do their shows and they’d be throwing in names like Nietzche and stuff like that and people would suddenly think they’re intelligent because you’ve mentioned certain people and a lot of it is just playing at it, a lot of it is just that ‘trickster’ character who’s pretending to be something that they’re not. In Flacco’s case, one second he’s pretending he’s really intelligent, and in the next, he’s pretending he’s really dumb. He’s probably really both of those things.

Dom Romeo: Now, does Flacco come a tradition of clowning? I’d swear that I’ve seen images that look like Flacco that come from late 18th Century or 19th Century or maybe even early 20th Century illustrations.

Paul Livingston: It’s pretty hard to get away from the ‘clown’ image when you’ve got a bald head with just hair on the sides. When he first started he had those strands of hair stringing out around his head which is very clown, and also wearing the make-up. I never intended to look like a clown because I don’t really like clowning. The idea of the make-up and stuff was pretty much from the animation side of things, it was an outline. It was more like a ‘Daffy Duck’ kind of thing. I wanted to give the character more of an outline and take him outside of the real world, rather than clowning. I really don’t like clowns at all; they scared me as a kid and they scare me now. But a lot of that old imagery of the 19th Century is certainly where Flacco comes from. One of my favourite illustrators or artists is Edward Gorey. He was actually working in the 50s, but he was drawing in that style. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his work, but it is that creepy Victorian world, that strangely Gothic kind of look.

Soundbite: excerpt of the solo Flacco stand-up sections — illustrating his clever stupidity — taken from the album Flacco and the Sandman Live in the Corridor of Uncertainty, predominantly a live recording of a split show by Flacco and the Sandman

Dom Romeo: Your work as an author – I notice that sometimes you publish as Paul Livingston, and sometimes as Flacco. I see that The Dirt Bath is under your name, but Burnt Offerings is Flacco’s book.

Paul Livingston: Yeah. All it is is attempts to escape from Flacco, but it never really works. I’ve been trying to retire Flacco every year for twenty years, but he just keeps bouncing back and he’s always been much more successful than I am.
The Dirt Bath was a novel and I thought, “I’m not going to let Flacco take the credit for that; I’m gonna do it myself.” And the last book, Releasing the Imbecile Within, was written as Paul Livingston, and Flacco’s taken over that as well. So as much as I try to get away from him, he just keeps coming back. We can’t split up, unfortunately.

Soundbite: excerpt of one of the linking passages by Flacco and the Sandman taken from the album Flacco and the Sandman Live in the Corridor of Uncertainty

Dom Romeo: Flacco has worked a lot with the Doug Anthony Allstars, Flacco has appeared on shows that [Andrew] Denton has hosted, and Flacco also had a long partnership with the Sandman.

Paul Livingston: Flacco’s always been a solo character. When I worked with the Dougs, it was more-or-less I held my own little sections in their show and in the live shows as well, rather than interact too much with them. But with the Sandman it was amazing, because we are two completely different characters and we never thought that it would work together. But there was something: once we started working together on the radio, there was some sort of Abbott and Costello template to it all, where he just abuses me and can’t stand me, but needs me for some apparent reason, and I’m just that little puppy, nipping at his heals and quite innocent of what he’s saying to me. Something about the two characters worked, and it was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the sandman for that reason. After doing solo stuff for so long — for ten years — it was great to actually have someone on stage with you. I haven’t done a solo show – this is my first solo show for ten years so it’s kind of back to all that stress and tension again.

Dom Romeo: I hope it’s exciting stress and tension.

Paul Livingston: We’ll see, I don’t know yet.

Dom Romeo: Now, Paul, there are fifteen stages to releasing the imbecile within –

Paul Livingston: There are. It’s a self-help guide for over-achievers, so it’s a guide for dumming down into ignorant bliss, basically. What I do is I start off with an unintelligence test, just to see how stupid the audience is before I start so we know how long we’re going to be in the room for and then we get stuck into dumbing people down. My theory is that the belt is the plimsoll line of comedy, and above the belt is ‘highbrow’ and below the belt is ‘lowbrow’, and we’re gonna try and get it from the highbrow right down to the lowbrow by the end of the evening. That’s the aim of the exercise, basically, from Flacco’s point of view.

Dom Romeo: Paul, thank you very much for your time.

Paul Livingston: Thanks Dom, it's really good to talk to you.

Station ID: Just for laffs… Identify yourself, please. Radio Ha Ha!

Dom Romeo: And that was Paul Livingston, discussing Releasing the Imbecile Within
Shane Dundas: That’s right!

Sation ID: Just for laughs — “Identify yourself, please…” — This is Radio Ha Ha!

Dom Romeo: And that was Paul Livingston discussing Releasing the Imbecile Within.

Shane Dundas: Something we‘d all like to do, I reckon! I mean, it’s a really lucky job that we have, don’t you reckon?

Dom Romeo: I reckon!

Shane Dundas: You know — we are releasing the imbecile within; most people have to keep it contained; straight-jacketed. Not us! We’re free. The imbecile is free!

Dom Romeo: That should have been the segue — good on ya! Now, you were saying that, with the Speedmouse DVD, you wanted to cram as much as you could on it, to give people excuses to buy it, and I think that that’s almost a sacreligious thing to say. I think anyone who saw the show would want to own a copy, particularly for the encore which, again, came from the show Thwack, that lovely piece that I believe is called ‘The Flat’?

Shane Dundas: Yes, that’s right.

Dom Romeo: And, look, we can’t even… there’s no point even talking about it because we can’t play it because it’s so visual.

Shane Dundas: No. You’d just be getting some classical music with some very weird little… [mimmicks slapstick sound effects culminating in an explosion…] noises at the end.

Dom Romeo: That’s right, but what I do want to say about it is that the extra stuff you did for the menus — there’s a whole lot of perception gags…

Shane Dundas: Yep.

Dom Romeo: … like, you know, one of you is sitting down on a very small chair and the chair’s pulled away but it turns out that you’re not sitting down on a very small chair, you’re sitting in the position of ‘sitting’, very close to the camera, and the chair is very far away, which is why it looks so small…

Shane Dundas: Yeeeeeeeaaaaaah. That was so much fun. We just had so much fun working on the menus in a white cyc… [9] That was some of our favourite stuff. You can just put the DVD in and not actually watch anything — just let the menus run.

Dom Romeo: And what is there? Ninety minutes’ worth of…

Shane Dundas: Ninety minutes? No, I think there’s fifteen minutes of us mucking around… in the menu…[10] which kind of rotates… it’ll go back to the beginning. But you’ve got three different menus.

Dom Romeo: Right.

Shane Dundas: You’ve got the ‘Main Menu’, the ‘Extras Menu’, and the ‘Extra Extras Menu’…

Dom Romeo: Mm-hm.

Shane Dundas: Which is us, kind of admitting that we don’t have a third menu. The ‘Extra Extras Menu’ is just us sitting in the studio going, “well, we… ah… can’t believe you’re still watching this. Yeah, if you wanna check out the Extra Extras, sure, here’s a list of them, but we don’t have any more to give you”. It’s just us riffing and shooting the breeze. [11]

Dom Romeo: Now I would argue that the riffing, the shooting the breeze, the mucking around for the menus, because of all the perception gags that involve camera placed here, props placed there, bodies placed there — that seems to me to have inspired The Rehearsal.

Shane Dundas: You’re right. It all comes from mucking around. All of our stuff comes from mucking around, in one form or another. So that mucking around on the menu was kind of practice for ‘the practice’ that we’re doing on stage now, and the menu stuff itself, with the puppets, came from mucking around on tour. We were touring America, we took a video camera with us and we were just mucking around with the camera. It was just ‘too much time on our hands’ between venues. And that’s the thing: it’s ‘jamming’. And that led to the menus, led to the crystalisation of that idea in The Rehearsal. So it’s all… [in mock ‘serious aesthete’ voice] It’s a circle of life, Dom!

Dom Romeo: So if we want to know what the next show will be about, we’ll have to buy the DVD of The Rehearsal when it gets released.

Shane Dundas: Oh yeah. But the next DVD is gonna be Thwack. I think we’ll shoot Thwack; it’s our show prior to Speedmouse, and while we’re still physically able to do that stuff — because it’s the most violent and action=packed of our shows — while we’re able to do that, we want to get it on film.

Dom Romeo: Is it fair to say that Thwack was the show that broke you internationally?

Shane Dundas: Yeah. Well, it’s really our old stuff, with some extra stuff added for the Americans, so essentially, it’s the show that we took to New York — we did it in New York for a year. But it’s also the core material we took to Edinburgh the first time and it’s really the Edinburgh Fringe that led to our international stuff. [12]

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha: just for laughs!

Dom Romeo: I’m really sorry, Shane, I think we’re running out of time.

Shane Dundas: Oh, gosh. Yes. I’ve got to get back to my hole.

Dom Romeo: What can I say?

Shane Dundas: My alternative universe…

Ah, one thing I think I want to say is what we do is not really… we don’t see it as mime. We kind of see it as stand-up…

Dom Romeo: I told you you had issues about mime! It’s not mime, it’s not stand-up, it’s not pure slapstick, it’s not street theatre…

Shane Dundas: It‘s… it’s…

Dom Romeo: But it’s a gorgeous combination of so much.

Shane Dundas: Yeah, what we try to do is create something that really doesn’t fit into any category, but then you’ve got the problem of, you come on a show like this, how do you describe it? We’ve created this inherent problem in making something that can’t be categorised. But I’d call it ‘stand-up slapstick’. Possibly.

Dom Romeo: Okay. I like to refer to it as clowning, because even stand-up is a branch of clowning…

Shane Dundas: Well there’s a certain cynical attitude within the stand-up attitude to material, that we have to slapstick. So I think that’s why I call it ‘stand-up slapstick’. It’s ‘slapstick’ or ‘clowning’, with a ‘stand-up’ attitude.

Dom Romeo: It does have the stand-up attitude. Listen, before I let us go, there’s a moment in Speedmouse where a child is given a balloon…

Shane Dundas: Yeah…

Dom Romeo: … and the balloon is helium-filled and very big, and the child starts to rise…

Soundbite: the sound of one of the Umbilical Brothers, backstage, speaking as the child that the audience is imagining rising in the air before them (this is aided by the presence of the ‘Roadie’, whose head tilts upward to watch the child’s ascent, and the rising pitch, volume and excitement in the child’s voice as it speaks)

Child: Wow, that’s a beautiful balloon.

Thank you mister. Thank you very much for the balloon.

It’s a really pretty balloon, mister.

Thank you very much for the balloon.

I really like the ballooooon, mistaaaaah.

Hey, mistaaaah, it’s a bit bloody high up here…

Do you tink I could come down now?

sound of Roadie blowing dart and exploding balloon, followed by child’s screaming plummet into the arms of Umbilical Brother David Collins

Dom Romeo: There is no balloon; there is no child; and yet, I have been in the audience and with the whole audience, watched the rising of the child in the air…

Shane Dundas: Yeah, isn’t that cool!

Dom Romeo: And then… it’s just amazing. We believe you. You convince us.

Shane Dundas: Well, you’re willing to come along for the ride, and that’s the thing. It’s not just us on a stage. It’s us on an empty stage; you people in the audience are creating whatever it is on stage. Your imaginations are making this appear, with a little help from our sound effects. But what else are we doing? There’s nothing there. It’s your imaginations and we’re working together. It’s like it’s a game that we’re all playing. That’s the most fantastic thing about it, the goodwill that we get from the audience. They go with us on this.

Dom Romeo: Fantastic. Shane, thanks once again for coming in.

Shane Dundas: Pleasure.

CLOSING THEME

Soundbite: Last segment of ‘Holiday for Strings’ by Spike Jones and His City Slickers.



PIMPING THE WEBSITE

Soundbite: If you’d like more free information and entertainment podcasts, log onto www.freedigitalcontent.com. That’s www.freedigitalcontent.com.



TAG

Soundbite: continuation of the excerpt from the DVD of Speedmouse in which the microphone David moves around the surface of his head picks up various radio frequencies and the conversation spoken offstage by Shane —

Voice 1: consists of monkey chattering

Voice 2: I said leave the frickin’ monkey!

FOOTNOTES

1. A Rik Mayall laugh had first been utilised for Episode 32 — that time as Mad Gerald, from a first season episode of Blackadder. After that episode had been uploaded, Rik Mayall fan Katrant suggested a bunch of other sources for great Rik Mayall laughs — all of which occur in the series Bottom. Insufficient attention was paid when grabbing this sample to be able to name the episode, but it is from Season 3 of Bottom.

2. Hang on — did Shane just call Dom ‘Don’?! There’s a very slight awkward pause before Dom carries on as if Shane clearly called Dom ‘Dom’. Which is reminiscent of a story Alan Bennett tells, in Writing Home, of a production of Checkov’s The Seagull he attended in which, after the climactic off-stage gun shot, the actor playing Dorn ends the play by perpetrating this excellent little Freudian slip: “What I wanted to say was, that Constantine has shat himself.” According to Bennett, because the cast maintained poise and character through the awkward pause, the magic of the moment was maintained and the audience decided as one to carry on as if the line had be spoken correctly. Dom being called ‘Don’ is nowhere near as potentially disasterous as Constatine firing a gun and shitting himself, rather than shooting himself, at the end of The Seagull.

3. Actually, no it wasn’t. It was recorded back in May, along with the Kent Valentine material played in Episode 27

4. Actually, no it wasn’t. It was recorded at the Comedy Store. What happened was this: the Thursday before the Tuesday arvo that this episode was recorded, Dom had been at the Mic in Hand for their evening of comedy. As frequently occurs there, fellow comedy nerd Jesse Perez, of Radiowise, was operating the desk and let Dom take a feed out of his equipment, since he was also recording. Kent unveiled some brilliant new God material, that Dom intended to play. Unfortunately, it was only after he’d pre-recorded the episode with Shane Dundas that he realised that the Mic in Hand material hadn’t recorded properly (the channel with the direct feed from the stage mic was blank; the audience mic came through fine, but a lot of the material was smothered by audience laughter; audience laughter is a great thing, but only when you can actually hear what it is they’re laughing at). Jesse was willing to process and e-mail the bit of material in question, but Dom’s inbox — perpetually crammed with the kind of spam that is so interested in the size of his mortgage, bank balance and penis — failed to allow its delivery in time. Thankfully, Dom had some older Kent/God material in the can, recorded at the Comedy Store in May, that could be slotted in.

5. Punters who saw Speedmouse live may well have been disappointed that this section of the show, viz ze serious European mime act of Hans und Klaus, was severely truncated for the DVD release. Turns out that the entire routine comes from the earlier Umbilical Brothers show Thwak!, and will be included in the DVD release of that show, whose future return season in the US will be recorded for posterity. Yay!

6. In an excerpt from an older interview, included in Episode 32, Shane reveals that it is in fact the early Jackie Chan films, in which the entire soundtrack (including dialogue) was added in post-production, in which the true origins of the Umbilical Brothers’ style reside.

7. Way back in Episode 32 !

8. Aah, Daas Kapital; two seasons, directed by Ted Robinson… if only it’d get a DVD release…

9. An attempt was made to google ‘white cyc’ in order to explain and define it here — but to no avail. Feel free to add this info in a comment…

10. So Dom was exaggerating a little… bit… too much…

11. A clever editor would have included the soundbite of the Umbies shooting the breeze in the Extra Extras Menu at this point. An even cleverer one would have included it as the second tag at the end of the episode… oh well. You live and you learn.

12. It’s worth noting that the Umbilical Brothers were in fact nominated for a Perrier Award in 1995 — an award they were never going to take out because a certain other physical comedy duo from Australia took it out in 1994: Lano & Woodley. As Shane points out, since it’s rare enough for an Australian act to win it in the first place, "an Australian, visual, physical duo two years in a row? No way! But just to be nominated is great."

Episode 36: Chuck Boyd, Gavin Baskerville, Lila Tillman and Lano & Woodley

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PREAMBLE

Realising, courtesy of the MOSH! website, that Flacco was performing a Melbourne season of Releasing the Imbecile Within , my initial thought was to dust off an old interview I had conducted with his alter ego, Paul Livingston, for his Sydney run. Alas, it was not to be - I had somehow misplaced (ie lent, and never retrieved) the perfect source for Flacco soundbites: my Doug Anthony Allstars Live at National Theatre video and the bunch of episodes of DAAS Kapital I’d taped off the telly more than a decade-and-a-half now… Thankfully, Flacco’s Melbourne run doesn’t begin for a little while yet, and my comedy buddy Dani has agreed to lend me her collection of DAAS vids. So that interview may be included next week.

However, all of this came to pass after the show had been mostly recorded, with co-host Chuck Boyd. The references the the Flacco interview were easy enough to remove, but inserting a replacement, a little more difficult. But at least there was a fall-back plan: Lano & Woodley took out the inaugural Helpmann Award for Comedy on July 31st (listen to Episode 32 for more details!) and so there was something to put in its place, that would still segue as nicely as Flacco would have. See if you can spot the join!

In addition to Lano & Woodley, and Chuck Boyd, the comedy of Gavin Baskerville and Lila Tillman features!

Episode 36 was uploaded on Thursday 3rd August.



OPENING THEME

Frank Zappa (?): The way I see it, Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

This line is sampled from ‘Lumpy Gravy Pt 1’, from the Frank Zappa album Lumpy Gravy, and plays over the wow and flutter of bad radio reception sampled from ‘Reception’, from the Paul McCartney & wings album Back to the Egg. It is followed by the static and noise of a radio tuner being spun through various stations, and then gives way to ‘Holiday for Strings’ by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, until:

Deep ‘Announcer’ Voice: And now it’s time for Radio Ha Ha with Dom Romeo.

LAUGHTER

Soundbite: Louis the Turkey laughs, as featured in the track ‘They Made Me Eat It’ from the Frank Zappa album Civilization Phase III [1]

INTRODUCTION

Dom Romeo: Hello and welcome to Radio Ha Ha, this is Dom Romeo, and I’m joined this week by a very special guest host, stand-up comic and audio/visual producer, Chuck Boyd.

Chuck Boyd: Thank you very much, Dom. What a title! I can’t fit that on a business card, can I?

Dom Romeo: Big business card…

Chuck Boyd: Yeah.

Dom Romeo: Big title!

Chuck, we’ll talk about your many pursuits, because in addition to doing stand-up, you tend to author stand-up DVDs [2] and CDs [3] and all sorts of lovely things. But that’ll come later — in a show that also includes some stand-up from Lila Tillman…

Chuck Boyd: Aah.

Dom Romeo: But first, some stand-up comedy from Gavin Baskerville, a Melbourne comic, turned Hobart comic, who was recorded while he was up in Sydney, talking about friends and dreams!



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Gavin Baskerville talks about friends and the annoying way they relate the content of their dreams… As this is taken from towards the end of his set, if you listen carefully you get to hear the time-keeper’s bell, telling him that he’s near the end of his time…

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha… It’s so funny it should be against the law! Radio Ha Ha.

Dom Romeo: And that was Gavin Baskerville, recorded live at the Friend in Hand Hotel, on their Mic in Hand comedy night.

Chuck Boyd: That was the Friend in Hand…? I recognise that bell!

Dom Romeo: Now, let’s face it, Chuck, you’ve been that bell-ringer a number of times!

Chuck Boyd: I have been! I’m everything but the humpback…

Dom Romeo: Ha-ha! ’Cause you’ve done sound there…

Chuck Boyd: Yep!

Dom Romeo: …you’ve been the time-keeper and the guy who says ‘time to get off’… [4]

Chuck Boyd: Yep! That was the way I weasled my way in: just help on a comedy night, and they’ll throw you up whenever someone drops out.

Dom Romeo: Is that how you started doing stand-up?

Chuck Boyd: No, but that’s how I first started doing it every week.

Dom Romeo: Because one of the things you’re responsible for is the Sydney Underground Comedy DVD, that we’ve talked about on this show… [5] in fact with you! You were our guest TeeHeeJay in a very early episode…[6]

Chuck Boyd: That’s right.

Dom Romeo: And at the time, you very generously allowed us to give away copies. Let’s talk about that DVD for a moment.

Chuck Boyd: All right.

Dom Romeo: You’re still, if I may be so bold, ‘flogging it’.

Chuck Boyd: Still flogging it!

Dom Romeo: So to speak.

Chuck Boyd: Still flogging the DVD. It’s still funny!

Dom Romeo: Yep.

Chuck Boyd: So that’s why I’m still flogging it. We still have stock.

Dom Romeo: Yeah…

Chuck Boyd: We’re still in the hole… laughs so BUY THE DVD!

Dom Romeo: Well why wouldn’t you buy the DVD? Who’s on it?

Chuck Boyd: It’s two hours — over two hours! Two hours and twenty-two minutes, in fact — twenty-four of Sydney’s newest, best, hottest comics, all compressed into one DVD: Sydney Underground Comedy DVD. Just a who’s who in Sydney underground comedy. Sam Bowring, Kent Valentine, Daniel Townes, all those guys… Dave Jory…

Dom Romeo: Lots of people we’ve heard on this show!

Chuck Boyd: Yep. And people whose star is rising.

Dom Romeo: Now, tell me, Chuck: how did the DVD come about?

Chuck Boyd: Well, let’s see; how did it come about? Well, I moved here to Sydney in 2001 and started doing stand-up, and after speaking to some of the other comics I realised that we were in the middle of a comedy boom: there were more open mic rooms in Sydney than there had ever been. So we thought it was a good time to capture whose who on the Sydney comedy scene during that time. We booked out the Mic in Hand comedy room two nights in a row, packed it full of comics — we still didn’t get all the comics we wanted on there, but hopefully there’ll be a Volume Two one of these days — and we were able to compress all five hours of tape down to about two hours and twenty-two minutes, and we’re quite happy with the end product. Twenty-four of Sydney’s newest, hottest comics on one DVD.

Dom Romeo: Okay. A sceptic might ask, why did it take an American — with respect — to come over here and get this thing happening?

Chuck Boyd: Well, professionally, see, comedy isn’t my only ‘thing’. I mean, as most comics do, I have a day-job. I’m a project manager, I’m an organiser, and I’ve always been that way. So maybe it just took someone with that type of skill and a little bit of cash to risk to be able to do it.

Dom Romeo: Welcome, valued customer!

Chuck Boyd: That’s right!

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha — just for laughs!



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Chuck Boyd, on a news report of a shark attack, and bathroom habits, as recorded at the Mic in Hand…

Station ID: You won’t die laughing, but you might mess your pants. Radio Ha Ha!

Dom Romeo: Now, Chuck, I’ve got to say, I was familiar with you as a stand-up comic long before the Sydney Underground Comedy DVD came out. I judged you a number of times in Raw Comedy heats, and I’ve gotta say, between the first time I saw you, and the last time, when you made it to the national final in Melbourne, you improved amazingly.

Chuck Boyd: Oh, thanks. There was this period of time when I’d just moved here that I sponged off my wife. For six months, all I did was I went out to open mic nights five and six nights a week if I could do it, and signed up. I tried to get up any forum or venue that I could and I just worked my ass off for six months. And I think the very end of that was when Raw started, so I really feel that the way I made it to Melbourne was just to work hard for those six months prior.

Dom Romeo: Okay, so any listeners who are aspiring comics, there’s the secret: sponge off Chuck Boyd’s wife for five or six months…

Chuck Boyd: That’s right!

Dom Romeo: … and get to the Raw final in Melbourne.

Chuck Boyd: She doesn’t have nearly as much money as she used to have, so you may have to bring a packed lunch!

Dom Romeo: In the meantime, here’s a bit of Chuck’s comedy, recorded live at the Mic in Hand. [7]



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Some great material from what was, essentially, Chuck’s Raw Comedy set, as excerpted from the Sydney Underground Comedy DVD…

Sation ID: Just for laughs — “Identify yourself, please…” — This is Radio Ha Ha!

Dom Romeo: And that was Chuck Boyd, recorded at the Mic in Hand, at the Friend in Hand Hotel in Glebe.

Now Chuck, we were just talking about Raw, before we had a listen to your work…

Chuck Boyd: RAW!

Dom Romeo: There’s another competition that’s started up. There’s a competition called ‘Quest for the Best’ that happens at the Roxbury Hotel, on their Wednesday night Comedy on the Rox.

Chuck Boyd: Yep! Great comedy night.

Dom Romeo: Great comedy night, great little venue.

Chuck Boyd: Absolutely.

Dom Romeo: Nice theatre.

Chuck Boyd: Yep.

Dom Romeo: And they’re offering five thousand dollars as the first prize to the winner — whoever the ‘best’ is that they find in their ‘quest’.

Chuck Boyd: Geez, that’s like ten years’ pay for a comedian!

Dom Romeo: It’s massive, isn’t it. I kind of want to enter. But it’d mean having to write material.

Chuck Boyd: Yeah.

Dom Romeo: And being funny. Anyway, I…

Chuck Boyd: You can sponge off my wife!

Dom Romeo: laughing If she can fit me in, ’cause there’s gonna be a lot of comedians rising to the call…

Chuck Boyd: Yeah, that’s okay, she has a palm pilot.

Dom Romeo: All right. Apart from that, the Roxbury is a great room. People should check it out on a Wednesday night.

Chuck Boyd: Yep.

Dom Romeo: I want to play a bit of a comedian I saw there a couple of weeks ago, a woman called Lila Tillman.

Chuck Boyd: Yes, absolutely hilarious…

Dom Romeo: Yeah? You rate her?

Chuck Boyd: Absolutely. Lila’s all good in my book.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Lila Tillman talks about her parents… and children…

Sation ID: Shennanigans, wisecracks, tom-foolery… ha ha ha. Radio Ha Ha! What’s your excuse?

Dom Romeo: And that was Lila Tillman recorded live at Comedy on the Rox, at the Roxbury Hotel in Glebe.

And Chuck, her whole take on children is an interesting one to relate back to you, because it’s one that you don’t share.

Chuck Boyd: Clearly! Well, you’re givin’ out all my secrets, Dom. Yes, that’s right, I’m getting ready to be a father.

Dom Romeo: And you might have mentioned to me that you’re going to let the comedy take a little bit of a back seat?

Chuck Boyd: It’s got to. I mean, we’re getting ready to have the kid around October, so I’m slowly bringing my calendar down to attend to that. But I’m figuring I’ll probably pop back out of it around February with about another thirty minutes of diaper material.

Dom Romeo: Excellent! Something to look forward to.

Chuck Boyd: Yes, absolutely, getting out of the house! I’m really looking forward to that.

Dom Romeo: But until then — wife and baby get to sponge off Dad for a while.

Chuck Boyd: That’s right — in more ways than one, too.

Dom Romeo: Now look, I don’t really have a really easy segue into this, but maybe the child can get us into child-like comedy.

A couple of weeks ago we announced on Radio Ha Ha the fact that the annual Helpmann Awards — named after Sir Robert Helpmann, and recognising excellence in the performing arts — were finally recognising comedy. [8]

Nominees for the inaugural Helpmann Award for Comedy were Akmal Saleh, the Umbilical Brothers, Judith Lucy — who hosted last week’s episode of Radio Ha Ha — and Lano & Woodley, who are currently touring Australia with their farewell show, Goodbye.

Well the winners of the inaugural Helpmann Award for Comedy, were Lano & Woodley, whose stage personas are child-like. Colin Lane’s ‘Lano’ is the more bullying of the two, and Frank Wood’s ‘Woodley’ is the naive, innocent one. So, in recognition of their achievement, I think we should listen to their final song from the show The Island.



LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Lano & Woodley perform the song from the end of their show The Island. [9]

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha: not for the faint-hearted, but definitely for the fun-at-heart. Haw-haw-haw-haw…

Dom Romeo: Hey Chuck…

Chuck Boyd: Hmm?

Dom Romeo: We’re about to go, but I think you have something important to tell me before we do.

Chuck Boyd: Oh, I…

Dom Romeo: Something about…

Chuck Boyd: The baby’s yours?

Dom Romeo: I’m dumb-struck, Chuck!

No, something about the Sydney Underground DVD, copies thereof, you might let me give some more away of…

Chuck Boyd: Oh, would you like to give some copies away to your listeners, there, Dom?

Dom Romeo: What a great idea, Chuck!

Chuck Boyd: All right, what do you want… what hoops should you make them jump through to make them get the DVDs? What do you want? Three of ’em? Give away three DVDs?

Dom Romeo: As many as you want to give away.

Chuck Boyd: Let’s give away three. That’s fair enough.

Dom Romeo: Okay. What do they have to do? They have to write to us via radiohaha@2gb.com and they’ve got to tell us… what?

Chuck Boyd: Aaaah… tell us what you do when you listen to Radio Ha Ha. And make it clean, too! Something we can read on the air.

Dom Romeo: Apart from ‘laugh’, of course. [10]

Chuck Boyd: Absolutely. Make ’em funny, and clean. Nah, don’t make ’em clean.

Dom Romeo: They have to be clean so I can read ’em on the air.

Chuck Boyd: Yeah, that’s right. You want me to say that?

Dom Romeo: No, I said that.

Chuck Boyd: I’m not seeing the edit points in here!

Dom Romeo: There are none, Chuck. I’m just gonna go.

Chuck Boyd: You’re just gonna go?

Dom Romeo: See ya!



CLOSING THEME

Soundbite: Last segment of ‘Holiday for Strings’ by Spike Jones and His City Slickers.



TAG

Chuck Boyd: We’re not gonna keep it like that, are we?

Dom Romeo: It’s kept!



PIMPING THE WEBSITE

Soundbite: If you’d like more free information and entertainment podcasts, log onto www.freedigitalcontent.com. That’s www.freedigitalcontent.com.



ANOTHER TAG

Chuck Boyd: I thought this was a quality show!



FOOTNOTES

1. If this laugh sounds familiar to regular, hardcore listeners, it’s because a very similar laugh — courtesy, once again, of Louis the Turkey, though featured on a track from the Frank Zappa album Lumpy Gravy — opens another episode of Radio Ha Ha. When I get around to working out which one, and transcribing it, there will be a link to that episode here as well.

2. The Sydney Underground ComedyDVD, for example.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. The soon-to-be-issued Sydney underground Comedy - Live In Maroubra CD. More of this anon.

4. Astute listeners would of course be aware of the tautology at play here: the bell-ringer, the time-keeper and the guy who says ‘it’s time to get off’ are in fact all the same person. This wasn’t a clever use of overstatement to undermine Chuck’s role at the Mic in Hand, rather just an instance of Dom waffling because of lack of preparation, no idea where he was going, and a lack of Tammy Tantschev to step in and bail him out…

5. The first time was in our very first episode, in fact…

6. In Episode 3, in fact, when Chuck selected some Groucho Marx for us to play.

7. It is in fact excerpts from his Sydney Underground Comedy set.

8. In Episode 32, to be precise.

9. There’s a visual gag that gets a massive laugh towards the end of this song, that just didn’t work for radio: silence, followed by big laugh. I’ve done a bit of deft editing that nobody seems to have ever noticed, or at least, chosen to comment upon.

10. Well, you hope people laugh when they listen to Radio Ha Ha.

Episode 35: Judith Lucy, Wil Anderson and Mat Kenneally

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PREAMBLE

Judith Lucy co-hosts, Wil Anderson was interviewed, Mat Kenneally featured, and the episode rocked! ’Nuff said.

Oh, actually, I should add that, as this isn’t Smash Hits printing song lyrics, I haven’t transcribed all of my laughter… [1]

And that the episode was uploaded Friday 28th July.



OPENING THEME

Frank Zappa (?): The way I see it, Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

This line is sampled from ‘Lumpy Gravy Pt 1’, from the Frank Zappa album Lumpy Gravy, and plays over the wow and flutter of bad radio reception sampled from ‘Reception’, from the Paul McCartney & wings album Back to the Egg. It is followed by the static and noise of a radio tuner being spun through various stations, and then gives way to ‘Holiday for Strings’ by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, until:

Deep ‘Announcer’ Voice: And now it’s time for Radio Ha Ha with Dom Romeo.

LAUGHTER

Soundbite: Herbet Lom laughs insanely… [2]

INTRODUCTION

Dom Romeo: Hi, this Dom Romeo on another episode of Radio Ha Ha. It’s chockers, this episode: we’ve got some stand-up from Mat Kenneally; we’ve got two of the greatest stand-ups currently working in Australia, Judith Lucy and Wil Anderson, and one of them — Judith — happens to be in the studio with me, co-presenting the show.

Judith, welcome.

Judith Lucy: Hello, Dom, I… well, I’m blushing. Thank you for that lovely introduction.

Dom Romeo: You’re more than welcome. Thanks for coming in.

Judith Lucy: Oh, my absolute pleasure.

Dom Romeo: Now look, we’re going to tuck into the show, talk about what you’re doing with your current show, I Failed!, but before we do, just to set things up, let’s have a bit of a listen to Mat Kenneally. He’s an up-and-coming Melbourne comic that we played a bit of last week; this is him talking about why he doesn’t trust non-drinkers…

Judith Lucy: Aah…

Dom Romeo: … live at the Mic in Hand hotel. [3]

LIVE STAND-UP

Soundbite: Mat Kenneally delivers some clever and funny drinking material, followed by…

Station ID: Radio Ha Ha: just for laughs!

Dom Romeo: That was Mat Kenneally, on Radio Ha Ha, and I’m joined in the studio by guest host Judith Lucy. Judith…

Judith Lucy: HELLO!

Dom Romeo: Thanks once again for coming in.

Judith Lucy: It’s very good to be here. I really need to start saying more than that, but it is very good to be here.

Dom Romeo: Now, look, I played the drinking material up front, deliberately…

Judith Lucy: I don’t know why, Dom…

Dom Romeo: This is about the fourth time I’ve gotten gotten to interview you, and the first time it’s been face-to-face…

Judith Lucy: Isn’t it just so much better ‘in the flesh’?

Dom Romeo: Well it’s also…

Judith Lucy: Don’t you wonder how I get more and more beautiful?

Dom Romeo: You do, actually…

Judith Lucy: I know, I know.

Dom Romeo: And you get funnier and funnier…

Judith Lucy: That’s very kind…

Dom Romeo: I just wanted to say that those first three times were always over the phone, and they always began with you apologising for the sound of your voice because you were, quote: ‘up drinking all night’.

Judith Lucy: Yeah. You don’t know how often I get that. There’s a man called Simon who always interviews me in Sydney — he does a community radio thing — and he said, ‘yeah, it’s been a few years since I’ve interviewed you…’ — because I haven’t done a show for a few years, as we know — and he said, ‘the last time that I interviewed you, you let me interview you in your hotel room, and you were doing it in your bathrobe’. And I thought, ‘gee, that was classy!’ and I was thrilled to be able to do the interview this year fully clothed. And showered. So I feel like my life is slowly coming together.

Dom Romeo: Fantastic! I don’t mind if you don’t bare yourself on this radio show, because I know that you do in your material…

Judith Lucy: Oh well…

Dom Romeo: …on the stage. It seems like whenever bad things happen, you bounce back with a fantastic show. I almost feel bad knowing that you have to go through hell to come up with such… [great material].

Judith Lucy: Dom, I just like to turn my lemons into lemonade! I always say this, but it’s true: I don’t have any imagination, so the only path I have left open to me is exploiting my tragedies for cash, and that is essentially what I’ve been doing for years, as you know. And let’s be honest: getting sacked is a bit of a walk in the park compared to — you know — finding out I was adopted or my parents dying, so this is really easy pickings.

Dom Romeo: Okay, that’s fair enough, so the show’s called I Failed, and it’s about…

Judith Lucy: Excalamation mark!

Dom Romeo: Sorry. The show’s called I FAILED!…

Judith Lucy: That’s right, it’s meant to sound ‘up’ and slightly unhinged, which was how I felt when I was doing breakfast radio!

Dom Romeo: And it’s about losing a job on breakfast radio.

Judith Lucy: Yes.

Dom Romeo: How long did it take you before you went, ‘You know what? This is my next stand-up show’ ?

Judith Lucy: About day two!

Dom Romeo: laughs

Judith Lucy: Seriously! I really thought, ‘Oh my god! I’ve walked into this so naively; this is such a different world from the world I was expecting’. I think I just wasn’t quite prepared for just how high-pressure radio is in Sydney. I mean, I kept being told that I had been offered the ‘jewel in the crown’. Of course, by the time I had finished with it, Dom, it was — I don’t know — a bit of tin foil in a hat made out of egg cartons by a drunk person. In Melbourne, if I had screwed up the radio, it would have been written about in the ‘radio’ section, but it wouldn’t have been in the ‘news’ part of the paper, and it certainly wouldn’t have been in the ‘real estate’ part of the paper. So when things like that started to happen I just thought, ‘this is a disaster!’

I remember saying to Peter Helliar, just after we’d started doing drive, I said, ‘You know, I’ve already worked out what my next show is gonna be… it’s gonna be about that nightmarish year of breakfast radio and I’m gonna call it I Failed!. I just had no idea, at that moment, how much more pertinant that title would become. I didn’t know they were going to sack me at that point.

Dom Romeo: I want to play a bit from the show, but before I do, there was one thing you said there t