The Indifference Engine

An unfillable void… … a cliché, but nothing I can find adequately expresses what the death of John Clarke means. The man himself, with his mastery of the language and unmatchable wit, would have put it better - and added a sly chuckle - but of course he is in no position to do that. I didn’t know John well, but working with him on The Games was an absolute high point of my comedy career. I have been around a few productions, and no set was as happy a place as The Games . It was almost as though everyone there would have gladly worked 24 hours non-stop for nothing, knowing who they were doing it with. Read any of the many tributes to John and they will mention his kindness and generosity, and with good reason. I had recorded a voice-over for an episode of The Games , and John rang me at home, from his car, just to tell me how nicely it had gone in editing. Above and beyond simple politeness. My feet didn’t touch the ground for the rest of the day. John’s unmistak...

“April”, according to T.S Eliot, “is the cruelest month”, and I’m inclined to agree with him. Shortly after that cracker of an opening line, “The Waste Land” mentions the mixing of memory and desire: that’s the thing that makes April cruel to me, but not in ways Eliot imagined. In the northern hemisphere, April breeds “lilacs out of the dead land”, but here it is the time of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Once upon a time, MICF was the highlight of my year. I have lived a few lives, and in one of them, I was a stand-up comic. I never expected to make a living out of it, because I knew fairly early on that my material lacked the broader appeal that could give you an income. I played well to the back of the room, but I did it well enough to get paid, to collect a couple of industry awards, and to be involved with other people’s award-winning shows. I took it overseas a couple of times. I had some troughs, but a good few lofty peaks. Comedy used to be my world. In...