Micallef is funny – few would dispute that – but he doesn’t like being called a comedian. He’s played dramatic characters, but don’t call him an actor. Now he’s published his first book, Smithereens. Author? No, no, no. So what is he comfortable with? The man who has worn so many hats that he’s made some metaphorical milliner very wealthy calls himself a writer. 

He’s become a household name through his performances on shows such as Full Frontal; three series of his outstanding sketch comedy show, variously titled The Micallef Program, Programme or Pogram (the second series has just been released on DVD); a star turn hosting the 2001 Logies; a role in the sitcom Welcher & Welcher; a fling with Sigrid Thornton in Seachange and most recently Micallef Tonight, his ill-fated talk show that many believe Channel 9 axed prematurely. 

Behind the scenes, he’s written and produced many of the shows he’s been on – most with long time collaborator Gary McCaffrie – and some more than he hasn’t, but on his tax return he simply puts ‘writer’. “Writer sounds more noble,” he tells me the day before his book reading. It also takes some of the pressure off. “If you say you’re a comedian there’s an instant expectation that you’re going to be funny, and I don’t like that. I never used to like being introduced, even when I was doing stand up, as a comedian. Don’t build me up too high!” He chuckles at the obvious contradiction. (Although best known as a sketch performer, Micallef did try his hand at stand-up not long after he had relocated from Adelaide to Melbourne) 

The same principle applies socially, he reasons. “If someone says ‘what do you do?’ and you say you’re a comedian, there’s an instant ‘Oh yeah…’,” he says, imitating the suddenly sceptical tone that would follow with the phrase, ‘well say something funny then’. “They suddenly take on the role of audience or critic – usually critic – but with writing you need another step. They don’t expect you to sit down and write a couple of pages of whatever. They might say, ‘what have you written? Anything I would have read?’ and you say ‘no’.” 

He pauses briefly, remembering he’s doing publicity for his new book. “Well, now I can’t say that, can I? Now I have to go through the embarrassment of saying ‘Smithereens’ and they go ‘what’s that?’ ‘Oh, just a book’, and then you have to explain it,” he says.

 It is well documented that Micallef was once a lawyer, although that fact is usually presented as if he made a radical career shift: the lawyer turned comedian, like it came upon him in some spontaneous fit. But comedy has always been a big part of Micallef’s make-up. As a kid, while his three sisters took their ballet lessons, he stayed in the car to read his comic books. He reels off a long list of inspirations. He’s a big fan of humorists SJ Pearlman, James Thurber and, his hero, Spike Milligan, taking special delight in sharing alphabetical proximity with Milligan on the bookshelf. 

The young Micallef had a seemingly insatiable appetite for comedy, also keenly following radio and television. “All the English stuff was on radio and all the American stuff was on television,” he says, before adding Charlie Chaplin, Jerry Lewis and Peter Sellers to his list of comedy heroes. “I really liked Laurel and Hardy, too. They used to be on in the days when you could turn on the television and see these things instead of having to sign up for Foxtel. Kids turn on free-to-air now and just watch sport. No wonder the future is so bleak.” 

Micallef is a father to three young boys, and says these he laughs more with them than with anybody else “It’s got nothing to do with comedy,” he says. “It’s not that sort of laughter; it’s the stupidity of being a kid.” And he’s not the stereotypical crying clown with a tortured soul and tormented past. “I had a very comfortable, middle-class upbringing. In terms of affection, I don’t think I went wanting for anything. I was encouraged to do anything I wanted.” So he’s taking a similar approach with his own parenting. “I think I’ve always been very conscious of praising the kids if they’ve done something – make sure they get enough applause so they don’t feel the need to get on stage later in life,” he chuckles. However, that’s not to say they are showing any signs of being performers themselves. 

Those experiencing withdrawal since Channel 9 cut their supply of Micallef can take comfort: he’ll be back on our screens again soon and has several projects on the go. As well as being, tantalisingly, in “development for something with the ABC”, he will appear in the upcoming Channel 7 miniseries Through My Eyes, a re-telling of the Michael Chamberlain story, and has a role in comedian Jimeoin’s new feature, The Extra. He’s also been busy writing drama, including another instalment of the telemovie BlackJack, and a miniseries for SBS and Japan TV. 

In the meantime, you can get your fix with Smithereens, the collection of prose, plays and poetry he was touting at the beginning of our story. There’s also a diary entry detailing the last days of Micallef Tonight. But don’t go looking for fact; it’s pure fiction, complete with Micallef’s trademark absurd twist. “Wednesday, AM” he writes in the diary. “Awake to find all my teeth removed and my head shaved. Strapped to a gurney in an asylum I run through the monologue for next week, working on my delivery. A large American Indian fellow attempts to smother me with a pillow and I drift off.” 

“I think most of the things have some early genesis in truth” reflects Micallef on his prose. “Often I’ll write about an experience but it will be so layered with fiction, you know, if you wanted to do some analysis of it you’d have to dig pretty deep to find any reason in it.” 

He says this book came about by accident. “I didn’t sit down and write a novel or a real book; I didn’t spend six years in the drawer being honed and polished. It was born of writing columns on a monthly basis for the Age, which is a lovely way to end up having written a lot of material.” Deciding that “it’s a shame to have thrown it away the day after it was read – or maybe during,” Micallef called Bob Sessions at Penguin, the publisher of his friend and television colleague Doug McLeod. “McLeod recommended me to Bob, said that I wasn’t insane – lied, obviously – and Bob read a few of the pieces and said: ‘Oh yes, we’d like that. Sixty thousand words by May 2002, thank you’ which I duly didn’t get done by.” 

After Micallef Tonight finished last year, he sat down and wrote a whole lot of new material, which he estimates accounts for about 60 to 70 per cent of the book. “So It’s called Smithereens because it’s a collection of small pieces, but there are some longer pieces than others. I don’t even know if I’d class myself as an author. I always think of myself as a writer and in this case I just so happened to written a book. I think an author has to have written a novel, don’t you?”

Special thanks to MO for the Transcription!!