John Morrison Clarke (29 July 1948 – 9 April 2017) was a New Zealand comedian, writer and satirist who lived and worked in Australia from the late 1970s. He was a highly regarded actor and writer whose work appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in both radio and television and also in print. He is principally known for his character Fred Dagg and his long-running collaboration with fellow satirist Bryan Dawe, which lasted from 1989 to his death in 2017, as well as for his success as a comic actor in Australian and New Zealand film and television.
Clarke first became known during the mid to late 1970s for portraying a laconic farmer called Fred Dagg on stage, film and television. Gumboot and singlet-clad, Dagg had seven sons all named "Trev".[4] Clarke also recorded a series of records and cassettes and published several books as Dagg. Over forty years after its release, the first Fred Dagg album, Fred Dagg's Greatest Hits (1976), remains one of New Zealand's biggest selling records. Some of his earliest appearances as Fred Dagg in the Australian media were on the ABC's The Science Show and Dagg later made regular radio appearances on 2JJ until the station moved to FM and was renamed 2JJJ in 1980. An LP of some 2JJ sketches, The Fred Dagg Tapes, was released in 1979.[5] He relocated to Australia in 1976.[6]
In 1984 Clarke was part of the Australian ABC TV series The Gillies Report, starring Max Gillies. Among the highlights of this satire were Clarke's straight-faced reports on the fictional sport of "farnarkeling" and the exploits of Australia's farnarkeling champion, Dave Sorenson.[7]
In 1998, together with others, Clark developed the TV series The Games, a satirical series depicting the preparations for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.[8]
Films
In 1972, he made his first film appearance in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, a film about an expatriate Australian in London.[9] Although Clarke was only an extra, the film's makers, Bruce Beresford and Barry Humphries, instantly recognised his talent; "he was terribly funny and terribly real".[10] In 1974 he wrote and appeared (as Ken) in Buck House, a New Zealand comedy TV series set in a student flat.[5]
In 1987[6] or 1989 Clarke and collaborator Bryan Dawe introduced weekly satirical mock interviews to television, and these short pieces became a regular and popular segment of the Nine Network current affairs programme A Current Affair.[1] These are described by Robert Phiddian & Jessica Milner as John Clarke's "most sustained comic attack on public mendacity."[6]
Each segment addressed a topical issue, with Dawe acting as the interviewer, while Clarke assumed the persona of a politician or other figure, who typically tries to avoid directly answering any of Dawe's questions. Unusually for the genre, Clarke never attempted to directly mimic the voice, manner or appearance of his subject. This feature set the segments apart from the typical approach to this form of satire, including Clarke's earlier series The Gillies Report (1985–86).[9]
The pair continued to do mock interviews for A Current Affair until 1997, satirising a range of figures including Paul Keating, Alexander Downer, George Bush, and Alan Bond. After a break, the pair reappeared on ABC TV's The 7.30 Report in a similar format.[1] In 2013 the mock interviews became an eponymous program, Clarke and Dawe, which screened on ABC TV. The interviews were broadcast weekly on ABCTV and were made available online on both the ABC and on YouTube and for retail sale.[15][16] This format of mock interviews was continued by John Bird and John Fortune on the British TV show Bremner, Bird and Fortune from 1999 onwards.
Clarke was the author of several books, notably two mock compilations of Australian poetry, and The Tournament, a book describing a fictional tennis tournament involving many philosophical and literary figures of the twentieth century.[24]
During the 1980s, Clarke was an influential Board member of Film Victoria.[25]
In 2004 he was the recipient of the Byron Kennedy Award, "for his works of sustained excellence and for the inspiration he presents to all of us in his roles as poet, playwright, actor, author, director and producer."[26]
On April 9, 2017, Clarke died of a heart attack while on a bushwalk up Mount Abrupt[31] in the Grampians National Park, Victoria.[32][33][9] Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the opposition Bill Shorten, and New Zealand prime minister Bill English paid tribute to his role as a political satirist; Turnbull saying that "His satire served a noble purpose. It spoke truth to power. It made our democracy richer and stronger. It kept politicians on their toes."[32]
Long-time collaborator Bryan Dawe said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, "He'd never forget what was going on in your life", and paid tribute to their partnership; "The trick with John was he had these sparkling eyes. He was a mischief maker and his eyes went looking for mischief. You could see it and it would set you off. Neither of us could look at each other when we were doing the show." He added, "It was always about the audience. And now he's gone." Episodes of Clarke & Dawe were re-released online and interviews with the pair were repeated on ABC Radio in the wake of Clarke's death.[16][34][35][36]
Clarke's work was presented on ABC radio and television over a period of nearly 30 years. In tribute to him and his work, the ABC repeated many pieces after his death, including his guest presentation for ABC Classic FM from October 2016 and the three-part documentary Sporting Nation, repeated on ABC television. ABC television also screened a program containing tributes from Dawe and other friends, politicians, colleagues and comedians entitled John Clarke: Thanks for Your Time.[37] Comedian and fellow New Zealander Tony Martin delivered a tribute to Clarke at the 2017 Logie Awards.[38]
Clarke and his works are the subject of an academic study in the journal Comedy Studies. The study was written and compiled by New Zealand film producer and writer Paul Horan in collaboration with film researcher and archivist Mark Hutchings.[39][40]
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. John Clarke has won three awards from four nominations.
^Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 81. ISBN0-646-11917-6.Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (pdf ed.). Mt. Martha, VIC, Australia: Moonlight Publishing.
