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Full Frontal Shaun
by Joy Dodds
City Weekly
September 30, 2004

 

The dapper lawyer-turned comic has turned scribe – and the result is the side-splitting Smithereens, recently released.

 

He won the 2003 Australian Comedy Award for Most Outstanding Humorous Columnist – but that’s not enough for Shaun Micallef.

 

Nor was practicing as a lawyer, or being part of the writing team for Jimeoin and Full Frontal, “child” of Fast Forward.

 

Nor was having his own comedy spot, firstly on ABC TV’s dual Logie Award-winning Micallef and later on, as he says, “the no-award garnering and eventually axed” Micallef Tonight which aired on the Nine Network.

 

Nor was having an acting stint opposite Sigrid Thornton on Sea Change, and in the movies The Honourable Wally Norman and Bad Eggs.

 

And though he’s often on Network Ten’s The Panel and is soon to be seen in Jineoin’s new film The Extra and the Seven Network mini-series Through My Eyes, oh no, it’s not enough for the incisively minded, rubber-faced former Adelaidian lawyer who in 1994 managed to escape to the laughter of Melbourne.  (“I’d been involved in the usual subversive student politics and the Footlights Club [student drama] before graduating to a job in legal insurance when a uni friend, Gary McCaffrie, suggested I join the Jimeoin scriptwriting team.”)

 

You see, Micallef wants to join the author ranks – none of this small-time columnist jazz, but the big time – a book, Smithereens, his first foray into literature, which comes complete with a preface, glossary, appendix and even his very own non-adhesive stickers.

 

It’s described as “small but beautifully formed pieces of Shaun Micallef”, and offers 300 pages of hilarious James Thurber-style writings and stick-figure illustrations.

 

By his own definition, he is described as “a renaissance man – bad teeth, appalling personal hygiene and a life expectancy of 33” (not bad as he’s made 42 already!).

 

A consummate wordsmith who can always find just the correct term, he admits:  “I love old archaic words that no one uses any more.”

 

In Smithereens, he resurrects words rarely used or written these days such as “conniption”, “chicanery”, “scrimshaw”, “urchins” and “ostler” (which means a stableman at an inn).  Look the others up in your Macquarie Dictionary.

 

Of his hilarious and distinctive writing style, he says:  “I was influenced when I was young by people like Barry Humphries, Frank Muir and others whose use of language reflects the characters they are portraying.  English radio comedy of the late sixties had another impact.

 

“And I loved the subtle lines of film makers like Jacques Tati who allows you to find the point yourself as opposed to being directed to it, as in American comedies.  Perhaps that’s why my lines had a different impact and dimension at ABC-TV and Nine.”

 

His first port of call is always jollity but the colourful characters he brings to life in the book are so real by their phraseology.

 

For example, in his take on fagging at Cambridge University he writes:  “Ursa Minor [the fag] and I got on famously.  He would lay out my things every morning and I would drive over him in my car.  It may seem old fashioned, homicidal, even quaint, but such were the unwritten rules of the public school system.  And by crikey they worked.  Look at Lord Lucan.”

 

He continues:  “Every Candlemas I suspended the lad’s duties and sent him, naked and covered in bees to the school chandlery to buy a crumpet fork with his own money, then upon his return I would deny all knowledge of him and let loose the [school hall] goose to savage him.  We kept this up for 12 years and still laugh about it today, he a little more maniacally than I.”

 

Asked to describe his particular writing technique, Micallef says:  “I tap into a memory, a fleeting impression.  There’s plenty of Monty Python and Rene Descartes.

 

“This is a book for those who have read lots,” he admits, adding “and it’s for those who feel that War and Peace went on a bit.”

 

In Smithereens, Micallef buys a call centre in India, rides Peter Hollingworth’s bicycle, gets down and dirty with Arthur Streeton’s wife and manages to capture the sense of ridiculous in countless other situations.

 

We’ll see more of the language-loving irreverent Micallef on the ABC soon where he hopes “people are less suspicious of anyone who uses unusual words.”

 

“After all, the bulk of people warm only to non-threatening types – look at the trouble [former Rhodes Scholar] Kim Beazley got into then he spoke eloquently.  But who wants to dumb down language?”

 

Now he’s produced his first book, he’s calmed down his literary demons – at least for the present.

 

To what does he attribute his innate funniness, I ask.

 

“Comedians are invariably people who did not get enough approval when they were young,” he answers with great authority.  “Comedy is a socially sanctioned and permissible way of misbehaving.”

 

Smithereens:  published by Penguin.  RRP $24.95.

 

(thanks to Cyn for the transcription)