John Clarke

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.

Clarke was born on 29 July 1948 in Palmerston North, New Zealand, the son of Ted Clarke and Neva Clarke-McKenna.

He moved to Wellington and attended Scots College before studying at Victoria University of Wellington between 1967 and 1970.

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".

Clarke also recorded a series of records and cassettes and published several books as Dagg.

In 1972, he made his first film appearance in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, a film about an expatriate Australian in London.

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".

In 1974 he wrote and appeared (as Ken) in Buck House, a New Zealand comedy TV series set in a student flat.

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.

He relocated to Australia in 1976.

An LP of some 2JJ sketches, The Fred Dagg Tapes, was released in 1979.

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.

Towards the end of the 1980s, he featured in a number of other films, and began to be known for his political satire.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Clarke featured in several films, including Never Say Die, alongside New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison, Death in Brunswick, alongside another New Zealand actor, Sam Neill, and Blood Oath (released in some countries as Prisoners of the Sun).

In 1982, he was nominated for an AFI award for co-writing the acclaimed Paul Cox film Lonely Hearts.

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.

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).

He also co-wrote the mini-series Anzacs and provided the voice of Wal Footrot in the feature-length animated film, Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale (1986), based on the comic strips by Murray Ball.

In 1987 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.

These are described by Robert Phiddian & Jessica Milner as John Clarke's "most sustained comic attack on public mendacity."

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.

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.

Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century won the ARIA Award for Best Australian Comedy Album in 1991.

The Annual Report won the same award in 1992 and Secret Men's Business was nominated in 1997.

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.

In 1998, together with others, Clark developed the TV series The Games, a satirical series depicting the preparations for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games''.

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Clarke had a commercial success in 1998, when he co-wrote (with Ross Stevenson) and starred (with Dawe and Gina Riley) in The Games, a mockumentary about the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG).

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.

The interviews have been compiled into books and CD releases.

In 2001, Billy Connolly starred in a film based on Clarke's screenplay The Man Who Sued God (re-written by Don Watson).

In 2002 Clarke appeared in a villainous role in the movie Crackerjack and as a comedy club owner in the award-winning telemovie Roy Hollsdotter Live.

After a quiet period, he re-emerged in 2004, adapting Melbourne author Shane Maloney's Murray Whelan series for film.

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.