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	Shaun Micallef Interview The Idiot Box Radio Show As Transcribed and posted to usenet group: aus.tv by Winston Tan September 1999 Okay kids, here's the interview I did with Shaun Micallef earlier this week. A little bit of editing has been done so it reads a little better, but apart from that this is the whole original thing. Any feedback welcome. Enjoy… Thanks, Winston Tan ******************************* Winston Tan: On 3MU's 'Idiot Box' we have a man who has worked on shows such as Jimeoin, Full Frontal and The Glynn Nicholas Show. He is now the main attraction on 'The Micallef Programme' which is currently screening on the ABC on Friday nights. His name is Shaun Micallef. Shaun Micallef: Oh thank you very much. It is very nice of you to say that I'm the main attraction, I see myself as one feature of the programme. WT: Oh I think when you've got your name in the title I think you are the main attraction. SM: I'll wear that then. WT: For those listeners who have been living under a rock and don't know who you are, how did you get your start in comedy? SM: Well I started off at university doing university revues and that's where I got my first taste of it. In fact the chap (Gary McCaffrie) who writes with me and in fact co-produces the show introduced it to me when I was in university back in 1980. WT: So you actually studied law at university. Was it because you weren't enjoying law you decided to do comedy full time? SM: No, I practiced law for ten years after I graduated and I quite enjoyed it. It is just that I had always been writing on the side and doing little shows and things after I left university. I just wanted to see if I could make a living out of it. WT: So what was your first break into comedy? SM: I think it was writing for The Big Gig. But before that I did theatresports. You might not remember, Winston, but there was a show on the ABC based on theatresports when it first became popular in Australia. So I was on that show with people like Andrew Denton, George Kapanaris and Ross Williams. WT: You open your show each week with a different pronunciation of your name. Has that been a common occurrence when you meet new people? SM: Yeah that's why we do it because no one pronounces it properly, so we wanted to get into the act. WT: And for the record how do you pronounce your name? SM: Well I pronounce it Mi-ca-lief. My mother pronounced it Mi-ca-lief. And my father who has an accent pronounces it Mee-ca-leff. So it's probably in between those two. WT: Is there any chance of one of your better known characters Milo making an appearance in the near future? And if not, why not? SM: No, well in fact Milo doesn't appear in this series at all. But if you look very closely at the opening title sequence he is dressed as a James Dean biker boy and he is hitting a mallet on the ground and then a deer runs up the wall. He's on screen for about a second and a half. So that's his only appearance. And the reason was that we thought we had done as much with him as we can. The ABC are actually going to repeat the first series after the current one and I think there is one appearance of Milo in that. I'd done him for a couple of years and I thought that was enough. WT: How much of what you say during your monologues is scripted? SM: It's written as an improvised thing, and then we write that improvised thing down. I don't usually stick to the script that much. In fact, this series we have been a lot keener on ad libbing that we were on the first series and we left a lot of it in. In the last few shows we do get a little bit off the rails. I think it makes the interviews a lot more interesting, and they seem more real. The monologue openings are usually half written and half ad libbed. WT: One of the people you interviewed recently was Tim Rogers who you called the You am I guy. Was it difficult for him to take in good humour you comparing him to Air Supply? SM: Oh, he was great about it. He had seen the first series and had really liked it. We wrote the thing for him rather than write it, then approach him. We knew he was interested in appearing. He came into the studio, ad libbed a bit and got it right first go. WT: This year's series of The Micallef Programme was pretty much finished before it went to air. Would you rather have feedback as the series goes on, or sit back happy knowing the job is done? SM: Well I think for a first series, it is pretty important to get feedback, while your making it. But once you know what the show is, it is actually a lot easier to make the show first and then edit it together. I think you can tell with the second series, that a bit more time has been spent on it. We spent about two days editing each episode. In the first series we only had half a day. WT: Do you openly seek feedback for the programme? Do you get it from people you know, fans on the internet or Ross Warneake (TV critic for The Age Green Guide)? SM: I don't think that Ross has commented it this time round. I tend not to seek too many opinions from people in the industry because it is going to be flavoured with prejudice and might get a bit personal. I tend to rely on my own instincts, and anyone who pops up to me on the street. And the internet is not too bad. Occasionally I will read the newsgroups and see what they are saying because that is an instant reaction of about ten people who talk about the show and you get a pretty honest reaction. Most of it is pretty intelligently expressed, so you're getting a well reasoned thought. WT: We saw The Mick Molloy Show get panned quite a bit. Is it particularly hard with comedy with what critics say? SM: I don't tend to take too much notice of critics. When I did University Revues for four years I don't think we got one positive review. You tend to develop a pretty thick hide about that kind of stuff. It is only upsetting when they are saying something which is true because you see that they are right. It hasn't really bothered me if they something negative and you occasionally get the bad review. You are leading with your chin when you put a show on television, you expect you are going to be talked about. WT: How much drafting and redrafting was done for sketches in this series? SM: Given there is really only two of us writing (Shaun, and Gary McCaffrie) occasionally we'll get material from Dave O'Neil or Michael Ward. But mainly its Gary and I. We spent six months writing, throwing away about half. Each script would go through about two or three redrafts. Then on the performance day we might change it a little bit as well. So overall, it might go through about four or five drafts. There is no point overwriting it. You've got to keep it loose in performance or else it would seem too much like you're reading off an autocue. WT: How different was the writing process on you're show now, when compared to the time you were working on Full Frontal? SM: Well Full Frontal had about 15 staff writers. While I tended to write by myself or with Gary, it was a different process. We had to put our scripts in, they would go to the script editor who makes a decision on whether or not they go in. He might make some changes or cut something out. If I was lucky enough to be performing I might put those cut out things back in. But basically the difference was not so much what I was doing, but what was ending up on the screen. I had less control over editing, the sets and the actors who were going to be in it. WT: Do you find it easier to perform something you have written? SM: Very much so. I'm just more certain about it. I enjoy performing other people's stuff, but unless its specifically written to avoid my weaknesses, I'm not as comfortable with it. WT: Where do you think the second series of The Micallef Programme has improved over the first? Is it basically just that you've had more time? SM: I think that's right. It's more polished and we learnt from the first series what the strong points were. We've tended to try and avoid the characters in the first series which were common to Full Frontal. So, I think it is a lot more certain of what it is and, whether that is good or bad, it is a bit more focused. WT: Your comedy is probably a little bit different to what we have seen before. For example the English language sketch, the flute sketch and the erect nipples sketch. Where do ideas for such sketches come from? SM: Well we try to mine areas which haven't been mined on television before. I think someone said that we got the erect nipples idea from one of the newsgroups, but we had come up with that in November last year. It was really a question of coming up with something which was embarrassing but wouldn't be obvious when you were watching. It was a deliberate comic ploy. In other words, we could have gone for cleavage, underpants or something like that. But cleavage is a bit cliched, underpants you wouldn't have as wider shot. We wanted the audience at home to think, "Oh that's a bit embarrassing but let's listen to what's being said because that can't be the joke." We wanted people to see it but forget about it. So, that when its referred to, that's when you get the laugh. So, I think that worked pretty well. WT: In an upcoming sketch which I saw recorded, you do an interview with an ethnic comedian who looks like he has worked on Wog-O-Rama or a similar programme. Is it any different when you send up a comedian as opposed to a politician. SM: Actually that sketch we are not putting to air. But yes I think so. I think there is some honor amongst thieves when it comes to other comics, which may well have impacted on that sketch not going to air. But politicians we think are fair go, I must admit we don't do that very well in Australia. We tend to be a bit all over the place, and I would include myself in that. I'm not a political comedian or satirist in that regard. I think politics is fair game, with other comedians you have to be very confident about yourself to spend too much time bagging over comedians. WT: Would there be a touch of arrogance if you had a go at other comics? SM: I think so, but I think I'm not quite that arrogant. WT: With politicians, do you think Australian comedy has mainly resorted to attacking politicians in regards to John Howard's height and that kind of thing, rather than what they actually say? SM: I think that's right. When you look at programmes which do tend to dwell on the size of Kim Beasley's stomach or John Howard's lack of height and speech impediments, it tends to take away from the point you are trying to make, if you are trying to make one. That's why people like John Clarke do such a wonderful job because they avoid that kind of thing deliberately., then you've got nothing to concentrate on accept what is being said - and that is where the joke is. WT: So do you see maybe a change in the style of comedy we see. A shift from doing stuff such as sending up The Footy Show which you might see on Full Frontal, to the more quirky sort of stuff you do? SM: I don't know. What I'm doing on the ABC now is probably what I enjoy a little more, that's just my particular sense of humour. I don't know if that's shared. I would like to think that there is room for that kind of approach as well as the Full Frontal kind of approach. I don't know which way it is going from the perspective from here I am at the moment. It will be interesting to see Rove McManus's new show. See I'm 37, and it would be interesting to see where a 25 or 26 year old would be coming from. WT: Do you find it harder to write a longer sketch such as the flag burning one we saw in the first episode, or a shorter sketch which might only last a few seconds? SM: I think I prefer writing longer ones because they allow for more character development and stretch myself as a performer. The shorter stuff is more reliant on the joke. There is a lot more shorter stuff in this series. Eventually, I hope to run more longer form material which may run over half a hour instead of sketches. WT: One of the shorter sketches you do is the claymation series 'Attentione Il Est Myron'. How did that come about? SM: I was watching some ABC early in the morning shows like Pingu. And I remember from my youth The Red & The Blue which I think was an Italian claymation series. So Gary and I go a tiny set built on a desk and we did the claymation ourselves using a digital hand camera which was very easy to do - not like we were doing anything terribly earth shattering. But it was great fun to do. WT: Were you happy with the Friday night timeslot? Or would you have preferred the Monday night timeslot currently occupied by Dog's Head Bay? SM: Well we did Monday nights for the first series which went well. I think it's been harder this year. So in retrospect I think it would have been better on Monday night. However there are a worst timeslots. On paper though, putting Dog's Head Bay on a Monday night would have made sense. WT: And could we possibly see another series of The Micallef Programme in the near future? SM: I would like to do some other stuff, but I don't want to put this show away because I think there are a few more things I could do with it. So if the ABC is happy enough with this series, and they seem to be making noises that they are happy…they don't actually tell you they are happy they just make noises. WT: And finally, someone wrote to me and asked if it was possible for me to shove you in a sack and send you over to their place? SM: Oh I'd be delighted. Yeah sure, bring the sack over and I'll be happy to hop in. WT: Shaun Micallef, thanks for joining us. SM. Thank you. The Idiot Box Radio Show: Discussing TV & Media Issues  3MU 95.7 FM (Melb.) *Our opinions can't be bought - they are already sold*