May 21, 2023 • 23 mins
Shaun Micallef reveals how he found his love of comedy, what Terry Jones from Monty Python once said to him and the nostalgia of childhood belongings.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
There are many reasons why we have stuff stuff in
our lives. We use things to make our lives easier,
we buy things to make us feel good, and we
keep things so that we can remember. I believe that
our belongings can take us back to the past. Sometimes
are about the now and also the future all at once.
There can be some sort of key to take us
(00:22):
time traveling to forgotten moments. And that's what this show
is all about. I'm Christian O'Connell and welcome to the
Stuff of Legends. Every episode I ask interesting people to
tell us about the three most treasured items objects in
their lives. And what you get are these amazing stories,
stories that you don't normally get when you hear people
(00:42):
being interviewed. Let me tell you about today's guest. Been
excited about getting this guy on. He's been making Australia
laugh since the eighties, became a household name in Australia
on a show called Full Frontal, and has created, hosted
and starred in countless shows since mad as Hell, talking
about your generation and brain Estefed, just to name a few.
(01:03):
Very smart, funny man. Love this guy A Yes, Hello everybody,
I'm Sean mcarloff. Do I have to say what I
do or how have you described it? Well, he's a writer.
He's a writer first, and everything else spiders out like
legs from that. Is that really it's yourself primarily as
a writer who then does other bets and appears on TV.
(01:23):
I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think everything I do comes from that. Even when
I'm employed as an actor to be on somebody else's
I tend to approach it from the script first and
then build out and try and serve the text. Also,
I'm slightly embarrassed in by filling out a form and
that occupation. If I wrote comedian, it puts too much
pressure on me. Actor sounds too pretentious. Writer sound And
I can do it with a small lower case W
(01:45):
as well. It feels appropriate and I write things down.
That's exactly what I do. It describes what I do perfectly.
I am halfway through your book, which is brilliant. Can
I ask you have you read it from the beginning
to halfway.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Or to start halfway? I just thought, yeah, like a
Quentin Tarantia movie, I'm going to cut up the storytelling
the narrative. Yeah it makes sense. Yeah, No, I am
you are you're a great writer.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, thank you, that's very kind of you. Then I
should I'll continue writing writer on my film.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Carry all right, So Sean mccarliff, what is the first
item we have today?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, I think the photographs. Okay, yes, my mother. There's
a picture in the book actually, and it really spoke
to me. She's on a swing, smiling. She's about I
should put out, she's not her present age eighty four,
she's about four. This is up in locke Eel, which
is in the sort of top of South Australia. Not
(02:45):
quite the top, but halfway there. It's a bleak, dystopian landscape.
There's a shattered tennis racket nearby. Nothing else can be
seen apart from her on the swing. She's not being pushed.
The little piece of what she's sitting on is a skew,
but she's happy. And I find that I don't know
why I feel. I feel sad and happy that it's
(03:09):
in the past at the same time. So that's kind
of taken pride of place for me. And I've only
got a photo of the photo. I happen to have
to have my phone with me when I was going
through a box of photos when I was visiting my
mother and father who are still in South Australia, and
I'm in Melbourne's so I just snapped that one and
I won't take the original because I feel like it's
one of those instamatic maybe a box Brownie picture.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I'm taken back in the year probably the slightly late
maybe maybe nineteen forty nine, is certainly before the nineteen fifties,
so it's got a real and also I didn't take
it very well, so it's quite blurry, so it has
a sort of other worldly quality to it.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, but older photographs do have the other worldliness to them.
It's the lack of the vivid four K photos we
get now on our phonees, of which we have too
many of nothing. Yes, the lack of what we have
that sort of bones, all this color and stuff like that. Now,
the lack of it somehow makes it almost spooky at times,
aren't they They've got a different quality. It has a
dreamlike quality to it. Let's go back to the photo
(04:11):
and that sort of happy, sad, bittersweet feeling. Is that
what it sort of evokes in you? Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And I haven't thought it, and I like the fact
that I don't have to think about it. I just feel,
and I do spend a lot of my life in
workaday situations thinking through things, seeing whether it makes sense,
making sure it's got three acts and it has a
punchline or at least some sort of satisfying ending or
ellipsis that leads us into something else. And so occasionally
it is nice just to plug into something that doesn't
(04:40):
lend itself to being thought about. And as I talk
about it with you, of course I am thinking about
it and ruining it.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I'm so sorry. How dare you? It's like dissecting a frog,
isn't it? You know we won't better put it back together.
You're now going to not enjoy the photo.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, indeed, the book is the book's all about comedy.
I originally wrote it about comedy because I love it
so much. And there is a bit of that in there,
a fear that I'm actually dissecting the comedy frog or
we've got.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Left You're not there's still mystery that did frog?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well, that's great. Yeah, I did come to the conclusion.
I thought, well, of course it's it is very scientific,
and I am a technician of it up to a point.
But there's a whole bunch of stuff that just happens
that you don't know. Some of its instinct, but also
some of it's happenstance. And I used to say this
about Jim Owen, who I work with very early when
when I started it was the first TV show I did.
Was his here in Australia. Might not be even aware
(05:28):
that he did a TV show in Australia, Yeah, I was. Yeah,
But you know, we'd follow him around and Jim had
try stuff out at the Athenaeum, and I'd read what
he or you know, I heard what he was going
to do and I'm going to do it thing where
I do this and I can say that and that's
not funny, that's not going to work. He'd write it
down and be awful and then he'd sat up in
the audience and it just it.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Would just because he's just got that something special, isn't he.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, there's the art in it. There's the thing that
you can't control. I think that's what's appealing about for
me for comedy anyway, is the thing that drives me
to it. Probably not such a difficult conclusion to come to,
is that's that tension between not knowing whether something's going
to work and then having at work. You know, otherwise
you wouldn't bother performing it, would you. I mean you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
You wouldn't go on radio Christian yourself and say anything.
The fear needs to be there. And it's also that
thing like when you're with friends and you can see
the delight somebody has when they tell a story and
they're telling it for the first time and everyone's laughing,
and somehow words are coming through them. They haven't thought
about it, not performing it, and suddenly a certain word
or phrase or the way it's said is funny and
(06:33):
we don't know why. It just is. When my youngest
daughter was younger, if I said a joke around the
dinner table, she'd repeat it like three or four times.
The phrase we could tell she was trying to like
weigh it. Oh that's interesting, you know, trying to work
out to worry. Yes, oh yeah. Oh. She's already eclipsed
me in terms of her talent. She's been watching me
for the last fifteen years. Now she's going to undercut
me to my boss.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, that is I have that fear with my own
children growing und they're now in their twenties and mercifully
show knows some lines of wanting.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
The validation of strangers. I know, we want a better
road for them. I wasn't worried.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, I wasn't worried about them obliterating me, sort of
Oedipus Rex style. But I thought I thought at some
point they would kind of feel the need to go
and get that validation.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Maybe they've seen from us how miserably we can be
something which is joyous. They also see sometimes when we're
it's like the graft it takes and the toilet takes
on you. Sometimes maybe you might be giving them too
much credit. I think what they do is they look
at their parents and say, well, nothing they do is
going to be worthwhile, So why should I put that
on the sheet of vapor things to tick off?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
They are kind of that. They are funny. I mean,
I love I love that about and you probably love
that about your daughter. They're funny, and it's the sheer
joy of it that makes it worthwhile, and you know,
really that should be enough for every human being. I
would have thought, But I think that's the reason I
was attracted to it, probably because of the of the puzzle,
just the infinite delight of the puzzle.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah. I was lucky enough to interview, and I know
you've done a couple of things. When John Cleese years
ago and I was asking him how long it would
take to write an episode of forty Towers, which are
these perfectly it's a faberget egg, he said, sometimes you'd
be staring at one sentence knowing, yeah, it's funny enough,
but there's a word that needs to go in there,
and everyone else would be like tearing their hair, going John,
(08:19):
it's funny, it works, No, And then three days later
you go, ah, yeah, the ands in the wrong place
where you're right. There's that sudden bit where the words
aren't as important as like his physical performance, in terms
of where the word just one word on emphasis is everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that I find fascinating. He's striking.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
He strikes a little bit like Steve Martin that regard.
I read as you would have probably born standing in
very tight, very tight book. A lot of editing suggested
in reading.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Lean and muscular. It's like yours. It is. It is
as like a thoroughbred of a book, is it. I'm
pleased to hear it flexes when you well, you're hanging.
You're halfway through, so you know, oh, is it going
to get a bit flabby seventy five you'll be.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Getting the screens out and the shotgun Bavy the Great
East and steeple Chase style.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
But I love the finessing that goes on, and that's
the craft of it. But as you said, the original
point there about something coming out fully formed from your mouth,
and it's the shape it is because it's the shape
it needed to be, because that's the order in which
you thought the words would come out, and they might
not quite be right. But there is something that's the
beauty of theater and maybe even live stand up is
that it is different every night. It is slightly different
(09:30):
for the audience, and the audience gives you permission, as
you say, when you're telling a dinner party story, the
laughter in there gives you a permission to, oh, I'll
just fiddle around with this lot bit, I'll play with this,
and it's a dance really between you and the audience.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's always interesting when you are doing live and you
would have experienced this and you make up a joke
on the spot, it gets always the biggest laugh shows
me nuts because you're like maybe a year and a
half developing an hour stand up and you see something
just off the cuff and the audience just explodes because they,
I know, always like a magician. I guess you've just
made up a magic trick on the spot. They can
(10:04):
feel that. Yeah, And I always just won't be to
do that to her because that guy, the baker won't
be in the front row. And yeah, I always find
that interesting. How it's the being funny in the moment.
That's always the stuff where people go, oh my god,
how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, it was bespoke, you know, it's just for them
that the audience feels it just for them. And I
mean the real sign of a wonderful comedian is to
be able to make those moments deliberate every night and
make it seem like you're in the moment.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Was there a moment right where you got bitten by
the comedy bug? Did you see something on TV or
read something and you're like, oh, what what is that
making in me right now? Why am I so excited
by it?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It wasn't television because we didn't have a television until
I was probably six or seven. I think, and radio
was certainly there, and I was often directed to that
by my parents. By my mother particularly said, oh you
should listen to this. You know it was Round the Horn, yes,
Kenneth Horn, Yes, And later I realized, oh, Madie film's written,
you know, the archaeology you do as you get further
(11:02):
into or the goon show. So it wasn't that. I
think my grandfather was particularly fond of jokes and you
would know he's going to tell you a joke, and
you think, oh, you'd sort of get ready for the joke,
and you'd want to please him by laughing at the
joke because he was giving you a kind of gift.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So I was as an audience, I suppose, and Mum
is pretty funny. So and we're not in a particularly
demonstrative family in terms of hugs and kisses and that
sort of thing, not on that side of the family.
So making each other laugh or laughing with each other
was probably. Maybe that's the explanation why I like it now.
It's quite warming, it's quite you feel like people like you.
(11:38):
So it's not like I didn't have that growing up,
Like I was a lonely child who didn't have anybody
to love him or anything. I just have an insatiable
need for it, and I don't get it as much
of it as I can.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
You need wheelbarrows of laugh I do you do an affirmation?
All right? So the photo is yet it's one of
the objects. What's another one.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, it's a bunch of things, and they're in the
shed because the children are now growing up. But it's
a massive tubs of lego.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
It's a currency now because obviously of Amish's TV show
legos like now he's ruined it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Those you're in the emotionals, the emotional panasa that it is.
So all the toys basically are in there.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
You've kept a lot of their toys. I haven't run anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Wow, I'm talking about you know, cars and small hippopotomi
and animals.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Great use of the plural. I'm not gonna well, I'm
not going to come on this program. So Stephen Bright
materialized in front of me. It's a pot, tom My,
h's a pot of eye.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well that's it's a little Egyptian, isn't it. The tiny
ruler They killed him and occasionally and no one knows
this except for you now and those listening. I will
go into the shed and I'll just kind of open
it up and look at one of the toys, and
it'll in a priustian way, it will take me back
to when we travel bought it for the first sad
(13:06):
because we've got some of the things and they've got
My daughters are sixteen eighteen, and.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Sometimes I get incredibly it's not sad, is it nostalgia?
It's the yearning for that. Yeah, there's a.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Moment when you have children where the innocence turns into
you know, self awareness and knowledge, and there's sort of
things that happen when you you would want to happen
to your children that they suddenly become a little older
and wiser and understand how things work. Otherwise you end
up being naive if you don't have that, if you're
a the eternal child, it's quite annoying. Beyond the age
(13:40):
of eight, you know, you just become irritated. Yes, we've
all met people like we have yes.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Run by, so you don't want that that future now.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Nonetheless, I have more into the passing of that moment
happens quite slowly. It happened at different ages with the kids,
and also certain things when you know when Batman need
wasn't quite as important in there.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
In their world.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
So again with a slight melancholy again, and I guess
I'm plugging into this sort of happy, sad sort of feeling,
whatever that is. And so that's there, and I form
myself into thinking, you know, my wife suggests quite sensibly
that maybe we should purge some of the items that
we have there, as there's no room for the lawnmar It.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Feels a very aggressive word, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
She wants to burn it, burn it, a huge pire,
flaming Lego waking funeral.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I think it's a little harsh. It's melting plastic of
memories of the Lego bricks live them in the tub.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And they're the real ones too, that none of this
sort of you've got to build it like this, you
know lids that you have on you think you've got
to be.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Harry the original Lego mud bricks. It's not going to
be Harry Potter. Do Harry Potter.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I'm going to mix the taj Mahal with the Harry
Potter and the service station. I'm going to stride a
bit of dueplow in there as well, just to really
irritate people that shouldn't be in there. Fits crammed that together. So, yes,
children's toys, and I never kept any of my own.
My father would my father, this is a terrible admission
to make, would use the incinerator to burn my old books.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You say earlier on you were trying to airbrush your childhood.
Got his dad with an incinerator.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, he's got a pitchfork with their books on it,
and he's throwing fancy books.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Sure, and I've told you about this. We don't need
that there. But the bear. Oh, it's an instrument and
a devil in this.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yes, earlier flaming roupe at the bear. Wow, you know
books that you know Mary Tortles books. I talked to
the original one. So this is in the nineteen forties. Man,
they could burn.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
My person to burn the books in the forties was hit. Yes,
I'm not drawing a line from it to your dad. No, no, dad,
my dad, My dad was.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I should point out my dad was not a Nazi.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
He was the opposite of a Nazi. I'd hate the
herold Son to get hold of this. I'll get it.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
They'll tell the story, they'll listen to this they'll troll
through this podcast and fine, Nazi, he's trying to draw
nasty links to you.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yes, it's fair. Any publicity is good published. Yes, your question,
it helps the book, so.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
There he goes, So yes again, then maybe it's linked
to morning, my own lost childhood and my missing books,
which I have struggled to try and replace. I must
go online so sometimes and pay far too much maybe
for a replacement.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
But what currency there goes out. I was buying some
old Asterix books the other day because as a kid
I used to love the old Asterix books, and they
I thought they'd been next to another. They aren't really expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well they know you.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You know, they know that people like you and I
are out there wanting to kind of fill in the
gaps in our shattered childhoods.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
The algorithm they here, they come.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's like some people with Star Wars. I don't care
about Star Wars. That's endless. But there's only a limited
number of Asterix books, the original first editions. I assume
that they want. That's right, you know, I want any
of them. Repeats and magazines. I'm buying up a lot
of old Mad magazines. Is it really I loved Mad magazine.
It was there was a news agent that the Australian No, No,
the original, the American one. It was so funny and
(17:03):
the jokes were so clever, and sometimes you'd be looking
at a page and an hour later you'd see just
a little site gag at the bottom and you got
it and I was like, God, someone's like to spend
ages putting that together. There's so much going on, that's right,
I think. And then the Python books for me took
over from Man Magazine. Was definitely currency at our school.
And then someone brought in the Monty Python paper box
(17:25):
and we just thought it was it was you could
hear the heavenly quiet sounding. I thought, wow, it was
so busy. There's so much going on, crammed, and I
think if you love comedy, you like a number of
things happening at the same time. It helps for repeat
viewings or repeat readings. And also it's just fun to
to chase the jokes without stepping on the other.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Lot of your work. Has that care about it?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, well, I think you're I feel obliged to do
as much as possible, you know, more than is necessary.
Bare minimum isn't what's the point of that you may
as turn it on. That's why I think I like
love Peter Cook as a comedian because it seemed like
a tap, a valve, a fire hose. In fact, you
just turn it on and you couldn't control how much
(18:12):
of it came out.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I love that about it. I love the generosity of that. Yeah,
isn't that lovely word? That's what creativity is that. I think,
in its best expression, it's the generosity. I've made something.
I hope you like it? Yeah, And there is that
instant vulnerability two of going is this anything? I hope
you like it? I hope you hope you love me?
Would you love me? By you laughing at this thing?
(18:35):
It's perfect, especially when you put a book out because
people know, oh, you spent eges on that. Yeah you
have you wasted six months on this tripe? Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, and off the cuff comment to edit all of this,
I've got better stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The books are really big because they know you've spent
a lot of time on it.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Well, particularly one that you if you have the audacity
to start talking about your life. Yes, and indeed, I
think the first line of my book is I'm just
not sure about this, it's a it's a great intro though. Yeah,
well I've kind of I'm kind of bearing my neck
a little bit because there is an inherent in writing
an autobiography or even a memoir. Is this terrible arrogance
(19:14):
that you think people are going to be interesting? So
you know, the motivation was to share what comedy. So
any comedy nerds out there, anybody vaguely thinking of a
career in the.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Thing the teenage may would have loved that book. It
would have let me up even more about how joyce
it is to try and make people laugh and tell stories. Yeah,
and I love and did.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
My bookshelves are groaning with biographies and autobiographies and memoirs
of comedian and so just their route to whatever it
is they thought was worthwhile, it is fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
And now we lead on to our final item. What
is the third thing you chosen for your stuff of legends?
My last time is it's a book. It's a book
of Grimm's fairy tales. I put it slightly ahead of
I've got quite a lot of s. J Perlman. Now
you might not know Joe Pullman, but he's a wonderful writer.
(20:13):
I love really really funny.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I love the way that I love the way he
folds in sort of Jewish American slang with high brow things.
But again, here I'm now plugging into Grim's fairy tales.
And it's got the original Arthur Rackman illustrations in there.
It's not a first edition, so second edition is worth
quite a lot of money. But again, I seem to
have mentioned three things that plug into melancholy slash nostalgia
(20:38):
slash sad happy about childhood. Now that's not my childhood
at all, But I kind of love the invitation to
examine the archaeology of what it is that prompted these
stories to be told in the first place. I mean
those stories are kind of cautionary.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Tales about yeah, they are about life. Yeah, and you know,
particularly not trusting strange we need to dig too deep
as an inherent fear of absolutely anything new, basically, Yeah,
I mean, it's probably no, it's probably no surprise that
these come from Germany. It's and they're wanted you to
follow orders and parents. It's the work of a fascist.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Absolutely father my father ship probably did burn that one.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Maybe that's why it's important to be But the beautiful
books they are, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And I think I'm not a bladed I don't. I
haven't read too many books on kindle or anything like that,
but I have listened to a few. But there is
something about holding a book, and there's something about the
artifact of the.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Book, magicals and the smell of a book. Yeah, in
ages and yeah, all of that.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, And I think again, you are taken back, not
just because of the story, but because of the the
act of reading. And the act of reading to me
was a real window well as a door. It was
a whole bunch of things to get into another world.
And I think unless you love reading, you can never
really write properly because you won't learn how to stick
(22:04):
those words together in the sentences that make it pleasing
to the eye. Slightly different thing when you're performing it,
And I often think, no, no, if you're going to
read that out on a radio show or something, you'll
have to change it because the voice is different. The
voice is a different instrument to the brain. But there's
something very intimate about reading. There's something Terry Jones from
(22:25):
Monty Python said to me once. He said, it's like
sitting on the shoulder and whispering into the ear. Oh,
I love that beautiful way to describe the audience, and
radio is very close to that in a little and
almost literal way. But I think I like that book
because it reminds me of when I kind of got
it about language and my love of reading.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Lovely, Sean, this has been a wonderful chat. Thank you
very much, Christian. We should do it again without the mics. Yes, no,
they have to come with me. Fair enough, I've enjoyed
today's chat, Sean macarliffe. Our belongings, as he showed us then,
are not just lifeless items like little portals that take
(23:06):
us to different times, happier times, sadder times. They have importance,
and Sean is a minded of that today. That and
the power of words. I love that thing, he said.
It's like sitting on the shoulder and whispering into the
ear of the audience. I've actually made a note on
my phone. You can follow Stuff of Legends on the
iHeartRadio app to find out next episodes and listen to
(23:28):
the great ones we've already done in the first season.
I'm Christian O'Connell. I hope you join us again here
on Stuff of Legends.
There are many reasons why we have stuff stuff in
our lives. We use things to make our lives easier,
we buy things to make us feel good, and we
keep things so that we can remember. I believe that
our belongings can take us back to the past. Sometimes
are about the now and also the future all at once.
There can be some sort of key to take us
(00:22):
time traveling to forgotten moments. And that's what this show
is all about. I'm Christian O'Connell and welcome to the
Stuff of Legends. Every episode I ask interesting people to
tell us about the three most treasured items objects in
their lives. And what you get are these amazing stories,
stories that you don't normally get when you hear people
(00:42):
being interviewed. Let me tell you about today's guest. Been
excited about getting this guy on. He's been making Australia
laugh since the eighties, became a household name in Australia
on a show called Full Frontal, and has created, hosted
and starred in countless shows since mad as Hell, talking
about your generation and brain Estefed, just to name a few.
(01:03):
Very smart, funny man. Love this guy A Yes, Hello everybody,
I'm Sean mcarloff. Do I have to say what I
do or how have you described it? Well, he's a writer.
He's a writer first, and everything else spiders out like
legs from that. Is that really it's yourself primarily as
a writer who then does other bets and appears on TV.
(01:23):
I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think everything I do comes from that. Even when
I'm employed as an actor to be on somebody else's
I tend to approach it from the script first and
then build out and try and serve the text. Also,
I'm slightly embarrassed in by filling out a form and
that occupation. If I wrote comedian, it puts too much
pressure on me. Actor sounds too pretentious. Writer sound And
I can do it with a small lower case W
(01:45):
as well. It feels appropriate and I write things down.
That's exactly what I do. It describes what I do perfectly.
I am halfway through your book, which is brilliant. Can
I ask you have you read it from the beginning
to halfway.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Or to start halfway? I just thought, yeah, like a
Quentin Tarantia movie, I'm going to cut up the storytelling
the narrative. Yeah it makes sense. Yeah, No, I am
you are you're a great writer.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well, thank you, that's very kind of you. Then I
should I'll continue writing writer on my film.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Carry all right, So Sean mccarliff, what is the first
item we have today?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, I think the photographs. Okay, yes, my mother. There's
a picture in the book actually, and it really spoke
to me. She's on a swing, smiling. She's about I
should put out, she's not her present age eighty four,
she's about four. This is up in locke Eel, which
is in the sort of top of South Australia. Not
(02:45):
quite the top, but halfway there. It's a bleak, dystopian landscape.
There's a shattered tennis racket nearby. Nothing else can be
seen apart from her on the swing. She's not being pushed.
The little piece of what she's sitting on is a skew,
but she's happy. And I find that I don't know
why I feel. I feel sad and happy that it's
(03:09):
in the past at the same time. So that's kind
of taken pride of place for me. And I've only
got a photo of the photo. I happen to have
to have my phone with me when I was going
through a box of photos when I was visiting my
mother and father who are still in South Australia, and
I'm in Melbourne's so I just snapped that one and
I won't take the original because I feel like it's
one of those instamatic maybe a box Brownie picture.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I'm taken back in the year probably the slightly late
maybe maybe nineteen forty nine, is certainly before the nineteen fifties,
so it's got a real and also I didn't take
it very well, so it's quite blurry, so it has
a sort of other worldly quality to it.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, but older photographs do have the other worldliness to them.
It's the lack of the vivid four K photos we
get now on our phonees, of which we have too
many of nothing. Yes, the lack of what we have
that sort of bones, all this color and stuff like that. Now,
the lack of it somehow makes it almost spooky at times,
aren't they They've got a different quality. It has a
dreamlike quality to it. Let's go back to the photo
(04:11):
and that sort of happy, sad, bittersweet feeling. Is that
what it sort of evokes in you? Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And I haven't thought it, and I like the fact
that I don't have to think about it. I just feel,
and I do spend a lot of my life in
workaday situations thinking through things, seeing whether it makes sense,
making sure it's got three acts and it has a
punchline or at least some sort of satisfying ending or
ellipsis that leads us into something else. And so occasionally
it is nice just to plug into something that doesn't
(04:40):
lend itself to being thought about. And as I talk
about it with you, of course I am thinking about
it and ruining it.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I'm so sorry. How dare you? It's like dissecting a frog,
isn't it? You know we won't better put it back together.
You're now going to not enjoy the photo.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, indeed, the book is the book's all about comedy.
I originally wrote it about comedy because I love it
so much. And there is a bit of that in there,
a fear that I'm actually dissecting the comedy frog or
we've got.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Left You're not there's still mystery that did frog?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well, that's great. Yeah, I did come to the conclusion.
I thought, well, of course it's it is very scientific,
and I am a technician of it up to a point.
But there's a whole bunch of stuff that just happens
that you don't know. Some of its instinct, but also
some of it's happenstance. And I used to say this
about Jim Owen, who I work with very early when
when I started it was the first TV show I did.
Was his here in Australia. Might not be even aware
(05:28):
that he did a TV show in Australia, Yeah, I was. Yeah,
But you know, we'd follow him around and Jim had
try stuff out at the Athenaeum, and I'd read what
he or you know, I heard what he was going
to do and I'm going to do it thing where
I do this and I can say that and that's
not funny, that's not going to work. He'd write it
down and be awful and then he'd sat up in
the audience and it just it.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Would just because he's just got that something special, isn't he.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, there's the art in it. There's the thing that
you can't control. I think that's what's appealing about for
me for comedy anyway, is the thing that drives me
to it. Probably not such a difficult conclusion to come to,
is that's that tension between not knowing whether something's going
to work and then having at work. You know, otherwise
you wouldn't bother performing it, would you. I mean you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
You wouldn't go on radio Christian yourself and say anything.
The fear needs to be there. And it's also that
thing like when you're with friends and you can see
the delight somebody has when they tell a story and
they're telling it for the first time and everyone's laughing,
and somehow words are coming through them. They haven't thought
about it, not performing it, and suddenly a certain word
or phrase or the way it's said is funny and
(06:33):
we don't know why. It just is. When my youngest
daughter was younger, if I said a joke around the
dinner table, she'd repeat it like three or four times.
The phrase we could tell she was trying to like
weigh it. Oh that's interesting, you know, trying to work
out to worry. Yes, oh yeah. Oh. She's already eclipsed
me in terms of her talent. She's been watching me
for the last fifteen years. Now she's going to undercut
me to my boss.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, that is I have that fear with my own
children growing und they're now in their twenties and mercifully
show knows some lines of wanting.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
The validation of strangers. I know, we want a better
road for them. I wasn't worried.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, I wasn't worried about them obliterating me, sort of
Oedipus Rex style. But I thought I thought at some
point they would kind of feel the need to go
and get that validation.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Maybe they've seen from us how miserably we can be
something which is joyous. They also see sometimes when we're
it's like the graft it takes and the toilet takes
on you. Sometimes maybe you might be giving them too
much credit. I think what they do is they look
at their parents and say, well, nothing they do is
going to be worthwhile, So why should I put that
on the sheet of vapor things to tick off?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
They are kind of that. They are funny. I mean,
I love I love that about and you probably love
that about your daughter. They're funny, and it's the sheer
joy of it that makes it worthwhile, and you know,
really that should be enough for every human being. I
would have thought, But I think that's the reason I
was attracted to it, probably because of the of the puzzle,
just the infinite delight of the puzzle.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Yeah. I was lucky enough to interview, and I know
you've done a couple of things. When John Cleese years
ago and I was asking him how long it would
take to write an episode of forty Towers, which are
these perfectly it's a faberget egg, he said, sometimes you'd
be staring at one sentence knowing, yeah, it's funny enough,
but there's a word that needs to go in there,
and everyone else would be like tearing their hair, going John,
(08:19):
it's funny, it works, No, And then three days later
you go, ah, yeah, the ands in the wrong place
where you're right. There's that sudden bit where the words
aren't as important as like his physical performance, in terms
of where the word just one word on emphasis is everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that I find fascinating. He's striking.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
He strikes a little bit like Steve Martin that regard.
I read as you would have probably born standing in
very tight, very tight book. A lot of editing suggested
in reading.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Lean and muscular. It's like yours. It is. It is
as like a thoroughbred of a book, is it. I'm
pleased to hear it flexes when you well, you're hanging.
You're halfway through, so you know, oh, is it going
to get a bit flabby seventy five you'll be.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Getting the screens out and the shotgun Bavy the Great
East and steeple Chase style.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
But I love the finessing that goes on, and that's
the craft of it. But as you said, the original
point there about something coming out fully formed from your mouth,
and it's the shape it is because it's the shape
it needed to be, because that's the order in which
you thought the words would come out, and they might
not quite be right. But there is something that's the
beauty of theater and maybe even live stand up is
that it is different every night. It is slightly different
(09:30):
for the audience, and the audience gives you permission, as
you say, when you're telling a dinner party story, the
laughter in there gives you a permission to, oh, I'll
just fiddle around with this lot bit, I'll play with this,
and it's a dance really between you and the audience.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's always interesting when you are doing live and you
would have experienced this and you make up a joke
on the spot, it gets always the biggest laugh shows
me nuts because you're like maybe a year and a
half developing an hour stand up and you see something
just off the cuff and the audience just explodes because they,
I know, always like a magician. I guess you've just
made up a magic trick on the spot. They can
(10:04):
feel that. Yeah, And I always just won't be to
do that to her because that guy, the baker won't
be in the front row. And yeah, I always find
that interesting. How it's the being funny in the moment.
That's always the stuff where people go, oh my god,
how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, it was bespoke, you know, it's just for them
that the audience feels it just for them. And I
mean the real sign of a wonderful comedian is to
be able to make those moments deliberate every night and
make it seem like you're in the moment.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Was there a moment right where you got bitten by
the comedy bug? Did you see something on TV or
read something and you're like, oh, what what is that
making in me right now? Why am I so excited
by it?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It wasn't television because we didn't have a television until
I was probably six or seven. I think, and radio
was certainly there, and I was often directed to that
by my parents. By my mother particularly said, oh you
should listen to this. You know it was Round the Horn, yes,
Kenneth Horn, Yes, And later I realized, oh, Madie film's written,
you know, the archaeology you do as you get further
(11:02):
into or the goon show. So it wasn't that. I
think my grandfather was particularly fond of jokes and you
would know he's going to tell you a joke, and
you think, oh, you'd sort of get ready for the joke,
and you'd want to please him by laughing at the
joke because he was giving you a kind of gift.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
So I was as an audience, I suppose, and Mum
is pretty funny. So and we're not in a particularly
demonstrative family in terms of hugs and kisses and that
sort of thing, not on that side of the family.
So making each other laugh or laughing with each other
was probably. Maybe that's the explanation why I like it now.
It's quite warming, it's quite you feel like people like you.
(11:38):
So it's not like I didn't have that growing up,
Like I was a lonely child who didn't have anybody
to love him or anything. I just have an insatiable
need for it, and I don't get it as much
of it as I can.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
You need wheelbarrows of laugh I do you do an affirmation?
All right? So the photo is yet it's one of
the objects. What's another one.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, it's a bunch of things, and they're in the
shed because the children are now growing up. But it's
a massive tubs of lego.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
It's a currency now because obviously of Amish's TV show
legos like now he's ruined it.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Those you're in the emotionals, the emotional panasa that it is.
So all the toys basically are in there.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
You've kept a lot of their toys. I haven't run anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Wow, I'm talking about you know, cars and small hippopotomi
and animals.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Great use of the plural. I'm not gonna well, I'm
not going to come on this program. So Stephen Bright
materialized in front of me. It's a pot, tom My,
h's a pot of eye.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well that's it's a little Egyptian, isn't it. The tiny
ruler They killed him and occasionally and no one knows
this except for you now and those listening. I will
go into the shed and I'll just kind of open
it up and look at one of the toys, and
it'll in a priustian way, it will take me back
to when we travel bought it for the first sad
(13:06):
because we've got some of the things and they've got
My daughters are sixteen eighteen, and.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Sometimes I get incredibly it's not sad, is it nostalgia?
It's the yearning for that. Yeah, there's a.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Moment when you have children where the innocence turns into
you know, self awareness and knowledge, and there's sort of
things that happen when you you would want to happen
to your children that they suddenly become a little older
and wiser and understand how things work. Otherwise you end
up being naive if you don't have that, if you're
a the eternal child, it's quite annoying. Beyond the age
(13:40):
of eight, you know, you just become irritated. Yes, we've
all met people like we have yes.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Run by, so you don't want that that future now.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Nonetheless, I have more into the passing of that moment
happens quite slowly. It happened at different ages with the kids,
and also certain things when you know when Batman need
wasn't quite as important in there.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
In their world.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
So again with a slight melancholy again, and I guess
I'm plugging into this sort of happy, sad sort of feeling,
whatever that is. And so that's there, and I form
myself into thinking, you know, my wife suggests quite sensibly
that maybe we should purge some of the items that
we have there, as there's no room for the lawnmar It.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Feels a very aggressive word, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
She wants to burn it, burn it, a huge pire,
flaming Lego waking funeral.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I think it's a little harsh. It's melting plastic of
memories of the Lego bricks live them in the tub.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And they're the real ones too, that none of this
sort of you've got to build it like this, you
know lids that you have on you think you've got
to be.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Harry the original Lego mud bricks. It's not going to
be Harry Potter. Do Harry Potter.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I'm going to mix the taj Mahal with the Harry
Potter and the service station. I'm going to stride a
bit of dueplow in there as well, just to really
irritate people that shouldn't be in there. Fits crammed that together. So, yes,
children's toys, and I never kept any of my own.
My father would my father, this is a terrible admission
to make, would use the incinerator to burn my old books.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You say earlier on you were trying to airbrush your childhood.
Got his dad with an incinerator.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, he's got a pitchfork with their books on it,
and he's throwing fancy books.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Sure, and I've told you about this. We don't need
that there. But the bear. Oh, it's an instrument and
a devil in this.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yes, earlier flaming roupe at the bear. Wow, you know
books that you know Mary Tortles books. I talked to
the original one. So this is in the nineteen forties. Man,
they could burn.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
My person to burn the books in the forties was hit. Yes,
I'm not drawing a line from it to your dad. No, no, dad,
my dad, My dad was.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I should point out my dad was not a Nazi.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
He was the opposite of a Nazi. I'd hate the
herold Son to get hold of this. I'll get it.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
They'll tell the story, they'll listen to this they'll troll
through this podcast and fine, Nazi, he's trying to draw
nasty links to you.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yes, it's fair. Any publicity is good published. Yes, your question,
it helps the book, so.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
There he goes, So yes again, then maybe it's linked
to morning, my own lost childhood and my missing books,
which I have struggled to try and replace. I must
go online so sometimes and pay far too much maybe
for a replacement.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
But what currency there goes out. I was buying some
old Asterix books the other day because as a kid
I used to love the old Asterix books, and they
I thought they'd been next to another. They aren't really expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Well they know you.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You know, they know that people like you and I
are out there wanting to kind of fill in the
gaps in our shattered childhoods.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
The algorithm they here, they come.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's like some people with Star Wars. I don't care
about Star Wars. That's endless. But there's only a limited
number of Asterix books, the original first editions. I assume
that they want. That's right, you know, I want any
of them. Repeats and magazines. I'm buying up a lot
of old Mad magazines. Is it really I loved Mad magazine.
It was there was a news agent that the Australian No, No,
the original, the American one. It was so funny and
(17:03):
the jokes were so clever, and sometimes you'd be looking
at a page and an hour later you'd see just
a little site gag at the bottom and you got
it and I was like, God, someone's like to spend
ages putting that together. There's so much going on, that's right,
I think. And then the Python books for me took
over from Man Magazine. Was definitely currency at our school.
And then someone brought in the Monty Python paper box
(17:25):
and we just thought it was it was you could
hear the heavenly quiet sounding. I thought, wow, it was
so busy. There's so much going on, crammed, and I
think if you love comedy, you like a number of
things happening at the same time. It helps for repeat
viewings or repeat readings. And also it's just fun to
to chase the jokes without stepping on the other.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Lot of your work. Has that care about it?
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Yeah, well, I think you're I feel obliged to do
as much as possible, you know, more than is necessary.
Bare minimum isn't what's the point of that you may
as turn it on. That's why I think I like
love Peter Cook as a comedian because it seemed like
a tap, a valve, a fire hose. In fact, you
just turn it on and you couldn't control how much
(18:12):
of it came out.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I love that about it. I love the generosity of that. Yeah,
isn't that lovely word? That's what creativity is that. I think,
in its best expression, it's the generosity. I've made something.
I hope you like it? Yeah, And there is that
instant vulnerability two of going is this anything? I hope
you like it? I hope you hope you love me?
Would you love me? By you laughing at this thing?
(18:35):
It's perfect, especially when you put a book out because
people know, oh, you spent eges on that. Yeah you
have you wasted six months on this tripe? Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, and off the cuff comment to edit all of this,
I've got better stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
The books are really big because they know you've spent
a lot of time on it.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Well, particularly one that you if you have the audacity
to start talking about your life. Yes, and indeed, I
think the first line of my book is I'm just
not sure about this, it's a it's a great intro though. Yeah,
well I've kind of I'm kind of bearing my neck
a little bit because there is an inherent in writing
an autobiography or even a memoir. Is this terrible arrogance
(19:14):
that you think people are going to be interesting? So
you know, the motivation was to share what comedy. So
any comedy nerds out there, anybody vaguely thinking of a
career in the.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Thing the teenage may would have loved that book. It
would have let me up even more about how joyce
it is to try and make people laugh and tell stories. Yeah,
and I love and did.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
My bookshelves are groaning with biographies and autobiographies and memoirs
of comedian and so just their route to whatever it
is they thought was worthwhile, it is fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
And now we lead on to our final item. What
is the third thing you chosen for your stuff of legends?
My last time is it's a book. It's a book
of Grimm's fairy tales. I put it slightly ahead of
I've got quite a lot of s. J Perlman. Now
you might not know Joe Pullman, but he's a wonderful writer.
(20:13):
I love really really funny.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I love the way that I love the way he
folds in sort of Jewish American slang with high brow things.
But again, here I'm now plugging into Grim's fairy tales.
And it's got the original Arthur Rackman illustrations in there.
It's not a first edition, so second edition is worth
quite a lot of money. But again, I seem to
have mentioned three things that plug into melancholy slash nostalgia
(20:38):
slash sad happy about childhood. Now that's not my childhood
at all, But I kind of love the invitation to
examine the archaeology of what it is that prompted these
stories to be told in the first place. I mean
those stories are kind of cautionary.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Tales about yeah, they are about life. Yeah, and you know,
particularly not trusting strange we need to dig too deep
as an inherent fear of absolutely anything new, basically, Yeah,
I mean, it's probably no, it's probably no surprise that
these come from Germany. It's and they're wanted you to
follow orders and parents. It's the work of a fascist.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Absolutely father my father ship probably did burn that one.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Maybe that's why it's important to be But the beautiful
books they are, that's right.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And I think I'm not a bladed I don't. I
haven't read too many books on kindle or anything like that,
but I have listened to a few. But there is
something about holding a book, and there's something about the
artifact of the.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Book, magicals and the smell of a book. Yeah, in
ages and yeah, all of that.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, And I think again, you are taken back, not
just because of the story, but because of the the
act of reading. And the act of reading to me
was a real window well as a door. It was
a whole bunch of things to get into another world.
And I think unless you love reading, you can never
really write properly because you won't learn how to stick
(22:04):
those words together in the sentences that make it pleasing
to the eye. Slightly different thing when you're performing it,
And I often think, no, no, if you're going to
read that out on a radio show or something, you'll
have to change it because the voice is different. The
voice is a different instrument to the brain. But there's
something very intimate about reading. There's something Terry Jones from
(22:25):
Monty Python said to me once. He said, it's like
sitting on the shoulder and whispering into the ear. Oh,
I love that beautiful way to describe the audience, and
radio is very close to that in a little and
almost literal way. But I think I like that book
because it reminds me of when I kind of got
it about language and my love of reading.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Lovely, Sean, this has been a wonderful chat. Thank you
very much, Christian. We should do it again without the mics. Yes, no,
they have to come with me. Fair enough, I've enjoyed
today's chat, Sean macarliffe. Our belongings, as he showed us then,
are not just lifeless items like little portals that take
(23:06):
us to different times, happier times, sadder times. They have importance,
and Sean is a minded of that today. That and
the power of words. I love that thing, he said.
It's like sitting on the shoulder and whispering into the
ear of the audience. I've actually made a note on
my phone. You can follow Stuff of Legends on the
iHeartRadio app to find out next episodes and listen to
(23:28):
the great ones we've already done in the first season.
I'm Christian O'Connell. I hope you join us again here
on Stuff of Legends.
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