Rod Quantock

Video from Comedy Walking Tours 2013

Some videos from the 2013 Walkies - thanks to Matt and Mitch ...

Rod's wedding event - the reaction

“Over the years with my Bus shows I have visited weddings all over Australia. Invariably I have been welcomed. I have danced with the bride, the bride's mother and the bridesmaids at one wedding while they wore Groucho masks (provided by me). I have invited a bride and groom to wear the masks while they cut the wedding cake. They did.

The people with me have got into the spirit of the occasion singing, dancing with the guests and wishing the couples well. I think it's fair to say that

I have even had people asking me to their first wedding anniversaries.

The latest wedding fun has erupted into a global scandal - I finally made the New York Post - when a source at the wedding contacted the Herald Sun with a story that I was 'gatecrasher' and that my 5 minute visit had ruined the couple's entire special day. (I guess there's a first time for everything.)

Well dear me, that wasn't the intention. I think the staff understood it wasn't my intention because they didn't ask me to leave. Most of the guests understood that because none of them asked me to leave either.

And when the bride and groom put on the Groucho masks and posed for a photograph I was sure they understood too.

Luckily for me I seemed to have misread all that understanding because now, after more than 40 years as a comedian I have finally cracked a New York tabloid,a Murdoch paper that reprinted the Herald Sun story (login required).

So, to whoever contacted the Herald Sun with their over-reaction and distortions, thank you “

Here’s the report from Chortle.co.uk

Comic's tour gatecrashes wedding

Dismay at Rod Quantock's stunt

Australian comedy veteran Rod Quantock has caused a storm after gatecrashing a swanky wedding as part of his anarchic tour of Melbourne.

The 62-year-old led a group of about 60 uninvited guests into the reception, where he commented on the newlyweds’ future by singing Another One Bites The Dust.

Wedding photographer Shannon McDonald wrote on Twitter: ‘To @RodQuantock and the 50+ people that crashed the wedding I shot yesterday, supposedly for the comedy fest, what an utter disgrace.’

She added:’A lot of time and care went into planning this lovely couple's wedding, and for Rod Quantock and his followers to disrupt it for their own amusement wasn't funny or cool. It wasn't his moment, it was theirs.’

Another Melburnian tweeted: ‘A friend was at a wedding yesterday ruined by Rod Quantock for the sake of “comedy” - wot an arse!’

Hours after Saturday’s stunt, Quantock won the Melbourne International Comedy Festival directors' choice award for his long-running tours of the festival, which he leads by brandishing a rubber chicken on a stick and addressing his group througha megaphone

The comic told the Herald Sun newspaper: ‘I thought most people enjoyed it and those who didn't -- well, I couldn't care less about them.’

"It was just a little bit of silliness that invaded their world for a few minutes."

Putting a smile on climate

Rod Quantock and Patrick Cook are on Radio National's Science Show, talking about climate change.

Science Show 20 August 2011 including a transcript.

Listen Now

Download Audio

Symbols of Australia public forum with Rod Quantock

Hear Rod Quantock, historians and other writers for an entertaining, provocative and controversial look at Australia’s best-loved symbols – from the quirky to the official, and those with the power to make a nation.

The entire presentation at the National Museum of Canberra is now available as a free download from the museum web site

http://www.nma.gov.au/audio/detail/symbols-of-australia-public-forum-with-rod-quantock

The Wonderful World of Climate Change

Rod Quantock's

The Wonderful World of Climate Change

Download Rod's 20 page guide to climate change - click here.

Sunday Age review: Bugger the Polar Bears, this is serious

Review by John Bailey in the Sunday Age, 9 August 2009:

Bugger The Polar Bears, This Is Serious

More than 40 years in the biz and Rod Quantock's latest outing sees him as fresh and energetic as any newcomer to the stage– just a lot wiser and less inclined to take himself seriously.

Who else would dare make a joke about the sinister implications of carbon's molecular makeup or, for that matter, manage to pull it off?

Less overtly political than usual, Bugger the Polar Bears takes us on a complete history of the universe using multimedia mashups, giant chalk-covered blackboards and Quantock's own manic riffs on the absurd situation we've created for the world..

Most of the audience are likely already climate converts but, as he points out, even green-friendly fans optimistic about non-oil energy sources will be howling when our petroleum-based toilet seats are gone, leaving us with the prospect of a cold, ceramic rim on a winter's morn.

It's a fine vision for the show itself – despite the grand scale of an escalating global crisis it's the tiny details that are the funniest and most grimly disheartening at the same time.

It sounds like doom and gloom, but the urgent need for solutions under-riding the show keeps it bustling along for a two-hour running time.

Plus there's the carbon joke.

Rod Quantock's guide to climate change

"Veteran Australian comedian Rod Quantock wants us to get serious on climate change, in a funny kind of way.

His new show, Bugger the Polar bears this is serious opens in Melbourne next week.

He joined us in the Sydney studio to talk about why he felt compelled to tackle climate change."

Go to the ABC web site to listen or download the show.

Bugger The Polar Bears ... a review

From AustralianStage.com.au, by Danu Poyner.

Rod Quantock has achieved something quite extraordinary with his latest show - he's outsourced his job, or at least the stand-up part of it, to the audience.

To understand what this means and why it's so extraordinary, you have to understand Rod Quantock. This is the man responsible for the famous performance Bus, for which he would take a group of people who don’t know where they’re going, to visit people who don’t know they're coming. A simple enough idea, but it took him a a long time to work out the reason, which was to introduce unsuspecting people to the idea that the world’s not such a frightening place and you can have fun with strangers.

Rod's latest show is called Bugger The Polar Bears - This Is Serious. "If climate change doesn't scare you shitless," he says, "then you just don't get the science." Explaining the science in his idiosyncratic way, Rod takes pains to demonstrate that today and in the coming days, the world really is a frightening place, but it's also a beautiful place. Rod opens his show (which is really more of a conversation than a show), with a stunning selection of images from space. He observes that just at the point where our tiny, embryonic species has evolved to the point of being able to behold the universe in all its splendour, we've also created the capacity to destroy our place in it. "It's a comic juxtaposition of possibility and disaster," he says.

It's easy to see how Bus delivered a comic juxtaposition of possibility and disaster, too. This juxtaposition is the place from which Rod draws his energy and his comedy, and he's bloody good at it. He wants to make us uncomfortable. The science of climate-change, for all its inherent existential dread, just isn't enough to make people uncomfortable. To make someone truly squirm, all you have to do is ask for avolunteer. And Rod asks for so many volunteers that virtually no-one in the audience is left unscathed.

It's while you watch a bunch of strangers shuffle uncomfortably onto the stage to re-enact the history of the universe, one playing a rather shy big bang, one dancing with forced enthusiasm to symbolise the hedonistic pop culture of today, one an introverted, serious-looking artist doing an impression of a velociraptor... that you realiseRod's true purpose. By demanding participation from the audience and inviting unscripted on-stage disaster, Rodunlocks the possibility in us all. A comic juxtaposition indeed.

As this realisation of sheer possibility dawns, Rod leaves us with an imploration to DO SOMETHING. Nobody has a right to do nothing anymore, he says, and he's right.

To reveal much more would spoil the material and steal the thunder from some of Rod's best lines, but rest assured there is plenty to laugh at here, and even more to take away. You'll learn some great tips for rebuttal when it comes to the deniers and the do-nothings polluting the climate change debate too. After being forced to watch an interview with Steve Fielding on Lateline (a moment which certainly did fill me with existential dread), Rod sums up Fielding and his followers' position well - "he's not an evil, scheming bastard, he's a simpleton!"

Rod says everything you want to say. Everything you want to scream. He's right, but Bugger The Polar Bears - This Is Serious is more than just catharsis for greenies. Much more.

In fact, Rod also has the ultimate solution for dealing with climate change, but you'll have to see the show to find out what that is. Please do.

Rod at the National Museum of Australia

The National Museum of Australia has plenty of interesting snippets from our past and not all of it is serious. For example in March 2009 there was an amazingly well preserved FJ Holden.

Near the ‘FJ’ is a stand with small speakers and a set of buttons so you can hear examples of Australian language – past and present. Santo Cilauro is one of the speakers, another is Rod Quantock.

If you visit the museum, make sure you hear Rod Quantock’s plea for the return of a word from his childhood.

Near the audio presentations are other language exhibits, explaining Aussie phrases past and present.

In the store there are nifty cartoons explaining some Aussie terms like Bludger, Bung, Dag, Pom, Snag and, surprisingly, Economic rationalism!

National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Entry to the main exhibits is free and parking is free too. Great views over Lake Burley-Griffin and useful place to start a lakeside walk.

First Man Standing - Herald Sun review by Kate Herbert

FOUR stars

WHEN I see Rod Quantock I Iaugh a lot and I think a lot about our lot.

This 40th anniversary ofhis first comedy appearanceis no disappointment. He is a lone social political commentator in the live comedy scene and neither side of the political game escapes his scathing opinions.

He dumps on Howard and Garrett, Brumby and Kernett with equal vehemence and remembers Kennett cheerfully for the comic material he provided.

He started comedy in 1968 in the Melbourne Uni Architecture Revue and three audience members assist him in recreatingthat first goofr sight gag.

In thic show he uses technology, not just a whiteboard and marker.

We are treated to data projection websites, flow charts and even our own houses appear on Google Eartb- His montage of the major events of 1968 is accompanied by a rapid-fire and hilarious commentary on assassinations, wars, bombs and mini-skirts.

Rod's reminiscences about his infamous bus tours when he invaded weddings, homes and even a police graduation are funny enough to make an entire show and his endless pennutations ofthe singing fsh joke are a riot.

What is fascinating is how he can makeus laugh at things that are deadly serious: climate change, oil depletiort weapons, war and a lack of water.

Yes, I am still a card-carrying Quantockfan .

Chortle review: Rod Quantock: 2050AD The Musical

From Chortle.co.uk:

‘For the past 12 years, this man’s written all my jokes for me,’ veteran comic Rod Quantock says wistfully as a picture of the hated John Howard fills the screen. Now what’s this merrily uncompromising left-winger going to talk about in the first Melbourne Comedy Festival since 1995 under a Labor administration?

Oh, just the complete meltdown of civilisation, that’s all; as he cheerily pulls up how long the oil will last (if we don’t overheat the planet first), and lists all the petrochemical products we’ll lose, from movies to pills, let alone the energy. Then there’s the water supply, which can barely sustain the current seven billion people, let alone the nine billion expected by 2050. It’s miserably depressing stuff, if ever you stop to think about it for a moment, but Quantock romps through it all with a casual, fatalistic air. If we’re going down, we might as well go down laughing.

For the bleakness of humanity’s prospects, Quantock, who turns 60 this year, has suddenly become excited by technology. Which is generous of him, considering it was technology that got us into this mess in the first place.

Now he’s got a camcorder, laptops, wireless communications and a projector to illustrate this show, taking the leap from the whiteboards he’s traditionally used and embracing the gadgetry with the zeal of any late convert. We find my London home on Google Earth, with Quantock disappointed it’s only a flat, then pull up the doomsday clock monitoring the swelling population and dwindling reserves.

All this is covered with great, avuncular playfulness, with the collapse of life as we know it being treated with the same amusement as his mechanical toys. Younger comics might get angry at the state of the world, but Quantock, who should be preserved as an official Australian national treasure, has been around long enough to laugh off the stupidity of mankind. And, after all, he can afford to be glib – he won’t be around to see this horrible future.

He’s built his audience – and stuck to his principles – over decades on stage, and Quantock’s modest but loyal fans are given exactly what they expect. But a straw poll of the audience finds some late converts, too – which is just as it should be: you can’t say you’ve been to the Melbourne Comedy Festival if you haven’t seen Rod Quantock’s show.

Never mind the oil and the water, a world without Quantock is hard to imagine.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

Hinze cartoons

Hinze (aka David Pope) is one of our best and little seen in Melbourne except in book form, all of which I have...

Check out his work at http://www.scratch.com.au/

Coming Clean Review

Original Review at Aussietheatre.net

Melbourne Fringe 2006: Coming Clean
Old Melbourne Gaol, Melbourne; Rod Quantock, Fiona Scott-Norman & The Melbourne Justice Museum
Monday, October 2, 2006. General Performance. Review by ANNE-MARIE PEARD.

Plays until October 9. Bookings: (03) 8412 8777.

A tour with Rod Quantock is always worth your time. This time the destination is the Old Melbourne Gaol (when is hanging NOT funny………). Rod leads us to join four local comedians who tackle the theme of Coming Clean.

After a quick trial in the Magistrates Court we end up in the exercise yard of the City Watchhouse. I suspect this was the first time in a watchhouse for most of the gathered audience. It’s also the first time that the space has been used as a theatre and Rod Quantock’s first public use of toilet humour.

Here we were in the same room that Chopper Reid, Squizzy Taylor, Ned Kelly and many other less famous criminals have been. It’s actually quite nice when there’s a bar, friends to chat with and an illuminated EXIT sign on the open caged doors.

Judith Lucy opened by admitting that she is such a “goody good suck” that she didn’t have any great police or arrest stories to tell – apart from being stripped searched in New Zealand after a trace of marijuana was found in her tobacco. So she came clean with the most embarrassing of stories – she got detention in school for rehearsing liturgical dance at lunchtime. To recover from the shame, she told us about the night she paid for sex. I didn’t used to like Judith– but she’s winning me over.

Fiona Scott-Noman shared her wicked life as a schoolgirl shoplifter, with some neat tips about how to hide a single down your pants. I guess it’s the 70/80s equivalent of illegally downloading an mp3. She also found herself in a police station after heading to a shop roof to snog with her boyfriend. Apparently the constabulary don’t share our sophisticated sense of humour. What do you call the device that police travel between floors on? A copulator. Boom boom. The pun led to Fiona being stripped searched and arrested for trespass.

Lawrence Leung taught us about the art of grifting, swindling and lying. After seeing his confident, comfortable and very funny performance, I want to see his full Fringe show (The Marvellous Misadventures of Puzzle Boy).

It’s all well and good to laugh along with the jolly naughtiness of the urban, middle class comedians, with their witty, political left-wing humour. We don’t usually go to see comedians like Dave Grant (he’s a bogan…..).

Dave Grant was the highlight of the evening. This was a brilliant set about his experiences with violence and arrest. He has been in rooms like this before, but with far less empathetic company. Petty law breaking really doesn’t compare to blood pissing out the face of the man you’ve hit or waking up in a cell after being beaten unconscious by the police. He is also a bloody good left wing political comedian.

Next Monday there is a different line up of comedians joining Rod and Coming Clean. I’m tempted to go back.

Mannix - review

The life story of Melbourne's controversial Archbishop Daniel Mannix.

From 'The Age' 13 June 2006

Catholic archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix was a turbulent priest. He opposed conscription in World War I, worked tirelessly to help victims of the Depression, and played a role in the Labor Split that kept the ALP out of power for decades.

Mannix died in 1963 at the age of 99 years and 9 months. Rod Quantock's script suggests he died to emulate Bradman's batting average or, more likely, to avoid a telegram from the Queen.

They're jokes Mannix would have appreciated. In an interview not long before his death, he said, "They say only the good die young - I'm not sure where that leaves me."

No one can doubt Mannix was a good man. He lived through radical social and technological changes, but his moral convictions never wavered, even though his willingness to speak out against injustice made him many enemies, and caused him to be demonised in parliament and the media.

Quantock's play is a well-written and affectionate portrait of the towering orator who almost single-handedly brought down Billy Hughes' conscription referendum, as well as the more private man, with his sense of personal charity and fondness for practical jokes.

From a dramatic viewpoint, however, Mannix is a bit shapeless. It could have done with fewer Irish ballads and more on the later stages of the archbishop's ministry.

With one notable exception, actor Terence Donovan captured Mannix's magnetic combination of fierce moral intensity and gentle humour. The exception? At one point Donovan forgot his lines, and paced around stroking his chin and muttering under his breath for a nightmarish two minutes - an unusual problem for a veteran actor, and one made worse by the fact that Mannix could never be accused of being at a loss for words.

Notwithstanding this, Mannix is vivid historical theatre, lent immediacy by the use of archival photography and footage.

Keeper at the barricades

Awhile back I had the pleasure of watching two five star films within a few hours of each other: the French film, "Amelie" in the theatre, and later that night a Swedish film, "Show Me Love" ("Fucking Åmål") on World Movies. I'm no film reviewer, but I wrote about both (See: Hark's Rippers & Wankers.) Each was an affirmation of life, a celebration of the human spirit and its potential to overcome fear and limitation.

Over the past weekend I was treated to a similar confluence of excellence, again occurring within a few hours. Once again a celebration of the human spirit, this time the events pertained to courage and the ability to comprehend the difference between right and wrong, no longer as clear as it once was.

The first event was the 1999 film "Cradle Will Rock," an inspired portrayal of the courage anyone who reads this newsletter needs in the endless battle with the conservative establishment, its ethics-free worship of Mammon, and its attempt to thwart human evolution since the beginning of time. You will be cheering at the end.

The second was "Boredom Protection Policy," the one man show of the indefatigable Rod Quantock. One of Australia's living icons, Quantock held forth at the unfashionable Trades Hall Theatre, where he has been performing his political monologues since 1977. It was a full house, and although most in the audience were a good half century old and no doubt converted since birth, there were at least a dozen non-MBA-grasping young people. Too bad the ratio wasn't reversed. But then, the role models for youth these days are oinking in the trough.

Quantock covered the recent travesties of our appalling government, and in particular, the born yesterday ruminations of Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt. He read from a recent column in which Bolt was cheerleading the pinch-faced Protestant Work Ethic and the dour rigours of its philistine, bottom-line devotion to keeping the mass of human beings in harness. Bolt contrasted business as the sole reason for existence with his disdain for the ribald humaneness of Catholics, who, it seemed, were incapable of producing anything but art and babies.

Throughout the hour and a half show, Quantock interspersed his political comments with anecdotes from his life, quaint little stories that served to show just what a wonderful place Australia was, and what a shallow, fearful place it has become.

One of Quantock's talents is to ramble on with an idea that is calculated to cause listeners to gradually rise from their seats with revolutionary outrage (or to crumple with despair), and then relieve them with a hilarious interjection just before the punch line; which then rekindles the emotion. Quite a feat. He does this while skipping jovially around the stage as well as mixing with the audience.

And yet, accompanying the hi jinx is what appears to be an extreme weariness, as if he were carrying a burden.

I wonder what he might be doing if Kennett and then Howard hadn't come along.

It seems that his mission, to remind us through humour of the reactionary devastation wrought by the Illiberal Party (and Labor, lest we forget), has become a duty. And with duty comes weariness. For Quantock is not just a comedian, not just an entertainer, not just a political satirist. Nor is he a radical. His function is to keep the flame of outrage from going out. And he does it as if from the boot of his car. Only he's not selling items of clothing, but gently exhorting anyone who will listen not to let their freedoms slip away. It would seem that he has no choice. And that is perhaps what lends the weariness to his act.

Maybe I'm just projecting. Because that's exactly how I feel.

Sourced From

Andrew Bolt

Andrew Bolt is a columnist for Melbourne Herald-Sun and source of anger or unintended amusment among readers.

Official Site at the Herald-Sun

Wikipedia

BoltWatch - a site devoted to the writings of AB

Brendan Nelsons' Nine Moral Values

Brendan Nelson, then Minister for Education, decided to 'enhance values education' in schools with the usual lure of money; extra funding to schools who toe the line.

See the departmental web site or the PDF poster

Politicians down a hole

If things get really bad, all our leaders will jump into a big hole, sorry, command bunker.

See this article from Brendan Nicholson in The Age.

Fred

Frederik André Henrik Christian, Crown Prince of Denmark, naval commander, lieutenant colonel (twice), Knight of the Order of the Elephant, Grand Commander of the Order of Dannebrog, Silver Cross of the Order of Dannebrog, The Silver Jubilee Medal of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II, Order of the Seraphim, Order of the White Rose, Order of the Chrysanthemum, Order of St. Olav, Grand Cross of the Order of Honourable Service and so on.

Descendant of Queen Victoria of England, in the order of succession for the British throne but more likely to become King of Denmark.

He's properly addressed as 'Your Royal Highness' then he married Mary from Australia and he's known as Fred.

Wikipedia

Fred's official site

'New' 'Idea'

http://www.newidea.com.au/

Drawing Pins

Drawing Pin

A tack for attaching papers to a noticeboard, bulletin board or drawing board.

In olden times it was an all-metal essential in any office:

In these enlightened times, bulletin boards live on the Internet. Notices are sent by email and drawing boards have been replaced by Adobe products.

Drawing Pins still exist but now are covered in multi-colored plastic:

A Good Treason

A good treason

Fleet named most seditious comic

Greg Fleet has won the inaugural Golden Guy Fawkes Award for the most seditious routine at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

His prize as ‘the comedian most likely to blow up Parliament’ comprised a sack of fertiliser for bomb-making and the plans to Parliament House in Canberra.

The award was set up in response to new government legislation against activities seen as un-Australian, including attacks on the constitution and the government.

Most of the comics who performed at the awards show last night quoted sections of the Act, before deliberately flouting them. They were then judged on how much jail time they might expect to serve for their subversion.

Fleet was the runaway winner, with a potential 45-year term, for his routine vowing to personally kill Prime Minister John Howard.

Three acts were given special mentions for sets that could have earned them each 28 years, including Joe Dolce - of Shaddupya Face fame – for a bizarre routine in which he took a chainsaw to a pile of beer cans while dressed as an Arab.

Gerald McCulloch and Andrew Horbin were also commended; and the bill also included Wil Anderson, Duff, Corinne Grant, Eddie Perfect, Kieran Butler and Wendy Little.

The event, hosted by veteran political comedian Rod Quantock, was held in the 1850s-built Melbourne Gaol, beneath the scaffold from which infamous bush outlaw Ned Kelly was hanged.

It was the first time the historic National Trust building, based on London’s Pentonville Jail, has been used to host a comedy event.

Australia! review from Chortle.co.uk

Rod Quantock's Australia!

Review: Melbourne Comedy Festival 2006

Rod Quantock is an Australian institution, a veteran political troublemaker and the only comic to have performed at every one of the 20 Melbourne festivals.

With age comes maturity. He’s no angry young man railing furiously at the iniquities and hypocrisies of government. Instead, he can calmly and forensically examine exactly what the lying, cheating bastards in Canberra are up to.

His shows are almost like lectures, an impression strengthened by the fact he conducts them in front of a white board showing a map of the country, onto which he scribbles all manner of topical outrages he wants to discuss: labour law reforms, wheat-for-weapons scandal, immigration and so forth. It’s his only nod to presentation -well , that and a cuddly toy bear dressed as Captain Cook which, when pressed, says: ‘Refugees walk the plank.’ At least it’s toeing the government line.

Each subject is thoroughly examined with Quantock’s aridly dry wit. This is not a show about gags, but about telling people how the country is, the ridiculous facts of each story being bleakly funny in themselves when presented in the right way. You have to laugh at the state we’re in or else you cry.

His point of view is uniquely Australian (or possibly unAustralian, as his detractors would have it), but it’s also universal, even to a foreigner like me. Some of the particular references might be specific, but there’s no one in the corrupt West who wouldn’t understand his message.

Everyone at his show in the Swiss Club knows what to expect of a Quantock gig. The audience has matured with him, and presumably shares his views. His fans are certainly intelligent – ‘mutual obligations’ is one typical heckle when Quantock overlooks a reference – and want their left-leaning views confirmed, not challenged. They are suitably appreciative when it happens.

In all honesty, there are funnier shows at the festival – though this is not without its hilarious moments. But there is none more important.

Steve Bennett
Melbourne Comedy Festival
May 2006

Chortle.co.uk

Australia! reviewed in The Age

From The Age 26 April 2006

by Andrew Murfett

Australian apathy gets a night in the hot seat.

IN A year littered with political scandal, the country associated with a military quagmire, and some recent extraordinary policy adjustments from Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone, bleeding-heart comic Rod Quantock once more has an overwhelming amount of material on which to draw.

Yet to call Australia! "just another Quantock show" understates the quality of this festival contribution, which catches him as angry and vital as ever.

Quantock is so over endowed with material that his sworn enemy, the conservative newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt, was hardly mentioned through the show. There were clearly weightier issues.

As always, a large board was the centrepiece and Quantock's customary collection of newspaper clippings assisted him in emphasising his points.

Quantock was predictably exasperated by the AWB scandal, and focused early on former AWB chairman and "senior Australian representative" in postwar Iraq, Trevor Flugge.

Quantock was also eager to appraise this paper's coverage of John Howard's appearance at the Cole commission in Sydney and inspected the front-page headline from last week, "Howard's day in the hot seat", with disgust.

"Hot seat?" Quantock asked, before decrying the fact that Howard was hit with something close to a wet lettuce rather than undergoing the rigorous examination the situation demanded.

The Australian public's seeming apathy about the AWB scandal was also examined and an amusing conclusion reached.

Public indifference was a recurring theme for Australia!, and audience members in the bar before the show found Quantock, in character and in fine form, offering to sell raffle tickets. When Quantock told one oblivious patron of the dubious "charity" for which he was raising money, the man simply shrugged.

Quantock also delivered an amusing take on John Howard's 10th anniversary, which he again related to our passive nature.

There's certainly plenty to like about this Australia!

Genre Comedy
Location Swiss Club
Address 89 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Date 13 April 2006 to 7 May 2006
Tickets $27.90/$25.90 (concession)
Phone Bookings 1300 660 013
Online Bookings www.comedyfestival.com.au
Details Tue-Sat 8.30pm; Sun 7.30pm
"

Group giggles groovy again

Rod reflects on 20 years of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in his article for the Melbourne Age published on 15 April 2006.

Quantock's 'maiden' speech

Double Disillusion
Written and performed by Rod Quantock

Recently, comedian Rod Quantock was interviewed for the Australian newspaper. At the end of the interview, he made an off-the-cuff comment that he intended to run against Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett as an independent in the next election. The comment was included in the article, and Quantock's phone began ringing off the hook.

The callers weren't just reporters wanting to know what Quantock's policies were (his response was that none of the other candidates had them, so why should he be expected to?). They included hundreds of ordinary people volunteering to help with his campaign.

This response will not surprise anyone involved in left politics or community campaigns in Victoria. Quantock, a veteran of the comedy scene, is a long-time supporter of progressive causes, a familiar sight at rallies, public meetings and fundraisers, to which he has donated his time and talent, and an outspoken critic of the economic rationalist policies of both major parties.

Double Disillusion continues the examination of power, politics and corruption that Quantock began in his 1997 show Sunrise Boulevard. While that show and its successors (the Christmas extravaganza Happy Birthday Je$u$ and the Comedy Festival show Crown of Thorns) concentrated largely on the Victorian political scene, Double Disillusion broadens the focus to national politics.

Those who saw Crown of Thorns will find much of the material familiar; in fact, this show is largely a recycling of the last one, with the addition of one hour's worth of new material and an interval.

In contrast with the highly structured and polished performance of recent visitor Jerry Seinfeld, Quantock's style is deceptively loose (some would say a shambles) and unpretentious -- it's not often you go to a show to find the star standing at the door collecting tickets.

The show takes the form of a “mono-media presentation” involving Quantock, a blackboard and a collection of coloured chalks with which he scribbles notes and observations on the board as he talks, until the board resembles an abstract painting.

After chiding a few unfortunate latecomers, he launches into a rambling monologue that includes everything from barbs at his favourite targets -- Jeff Kennett, John Howard, Murdoch, Packer and the Crown Casino -- to laments at the deterioration in the quality of Teddy Bear biscuits since the takeover by a US corporation.

He claims that his decision to stand against Kennett was sparked by the recent sacking of tram conductors: “There's no fun in cheating a machine”. He also launches a few barbs at Pauline Hanson: “Her education ended when they stopped wrapping fish and chips in newspapers”.

Amongst the jokes, Quantock makes some telling points about Australian politics. A highlight is his examination of the privatisation of electricity in Victoria, in which he exposes the inherent absurdity of different companies competing to sell their electricity -- “Are they going to say that theirs has an extra amp?”.

He exposes the influence of right-wing think-tanks (“spot the contradiction”) on the Victorian government and demonstrates that the supposed benefits of the privatisation of Telstra would be far exceeded by simply making the wealthy pay the tax that they're supposed to.

It's unfortunate that Quantock is unlikely to win the seat of Burwood in the next state election, as parliament would certainly be a much more interesting place if he did. However, it is worth catching his show (the season may be extended if it's popular enough) just to imagine that this is his “maiden” speech.

Review by Bronwen Beechey at Green Left Weekly

Comedy of Terrors

He may be a grumpy old man, but Rod Quantock still wants to bring people together to laugh.

For a man paid to make people laugh, Rod Quantock paints a bleak picture of the world.

He talks of the arrogance of humanity and his fears for our increasingly consumer-driven society. He seems genuinely perplexed by a world that values musical toilet rolls ahead of basic human rights.

The Melbourne comedian admits, with more than a hint of self-parody, his global reflections may be the ramblings of a "grumpy, cynical old man", but he can't help thinking the world's on a fast-track to destruction.

Quantock's left-leaning political comedy has been a thorn in the side of the Melbourne establishment for more than 30 years. His war of words with the Kennett government was seen by many as a factor in the Victorian premier's political demise. He's taken on the policies of John Howard and George Bush, and been abused by right-wing columnists and shock jocks.

Some comedians may be tempted to head for the sanctuary of uncontroversial retirement, but, for Quantock, who believes we're engaged in a "cultural war", while there's an audience he'll take to the stage.

"For the people who come and see me, many of them are actually very active in the world," he says. "They're fighting for refugees and fighting against the war and fighting for the environment. In a way, I've always thought of myself as Vera Lynn or Bob Hope. My job is to entertain the troops in those little quiet moments that they have and get them back on the streets.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to say what I say on television, but what I do is I get 200 people together in one room, who, for an hour or two, sit around and laugh at the same things. They look around themselves and see they're not alone.

"You can sit getting angry about government policy, and your husband or your wife or your kids may share your opinions, but your neighbours don't. So bringing people together I think is just as important as any thought that I may have that I'll change the world."

I get 200 people together in one room, who sit around and laugh at the same things."

After the events of September 11, politics began to play a greater role in Australian comedy. Quantock cites John Clarke and Max Gillies as performers who deftly use political satire to convey a deeper message.

"Comedians are seeing that you don't have to just read Who Weekly to engage with your audience. You can have a broader perspective," says Quantock. "There are a lot more people doing political comedy now, just because politics is so absurd. There's an earthquake - or perhaps tsunami's a better word for it - going through our society, and people respond to that. I think comedians are realising there are things they can say and things they should say."

Getting issues close to his heart on the public agenda is important to Quantock, who last year won the coveted Sidney Myer Performing Arts individual award.

His knowledge of global and local issues is staggering, the product of a voracious reading habit that has him seeking material from all over the world.

His latest show, DeMOCKracy, will, among other things, examine the growing role of China in the world, and, closer to home, the proposed channel deepening in Port Phillip Bay.

Although he confesses he doesn't "quite know how it's going to go yet", he'll attempt to link global issues with Melbourne concerns.

"I've been thinking that I might start with the bay and move out and encompass the whole world - you've got to start somewhere.

"China will be the biggest economy in the world in 50 years. America's debt is going to be four trillion dollars - I don't know what that means. But I'm working out how high a pile of dollar coins will be if there's four trillion of them. It's more than enough to fill Port Phillip Bay and Sydney Harbour and still have some coins over."

Quantock's stance on issues such as the environment and refugees has seen him consigned to the "loony left" basket by right-wing columnists. He sees this as an example of a cultural war waged by those in a position of power.

"The culture wars are in the main from the right. Great literature stands against everything that Howard and Bush stand for. Great literature's about humanity. It's a warning. People like Andrew Bolt who can't really compete at that level become name-callers. It's enough to call you 'the loony left'. It's pouring that stuff out and there's an inordinate imbalance between voices.

"It's a war of ideologies. Where we should be debating the morals of wars and how we treat refugees and how we treat homeless people and people with mental illness. We're debating personal morality around homosexuality and abortion. While we argue about that, there are greater immoralities happening on enormous scales.

"The challenge for me is to make all of that funny."

The Political Satire of Rod Quantock...

Lyn Gallacher: If the comedy of forgiveness is laughing with, and the comedy of correction is laughing at, then you'd expect political satire to fall into the category of laughing at. But does it? Welcome to Lingua Franca.

The comedy of correction laughs at human folly with the intention of making the world a better place and, as such, Rod Quantock could be described as the patron saint of this form, except that in the modern world, satire doesn't always work out the way you'd expect. While it's clear that, as a comedian, Rod Quantock doesn't forgive those who don't deserve it, his corrections are unreliable and based on an exaggerated, hysterical realism that leads his audience into laughing at—then sidetracks them into laughing with.

In Rod Quantock's wild anecdotes, there is a kind of grammar in which the conventions of a realistic story are overworked, exhausted and broken. The telling of the tale allows his audience (also overworked, and possibly exhausted) to briefly escape despair, but only for the duration of the story. And the trick almost seems to work for the teller of the tale as well. But before Rod gives you his version of the comedic tools in his kit, here he is at the recent Melbourne comedy festival with the Persian Herald.

Rod Quantock: I've got the Persian Herald, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Persian Herald, it's published in Australia, and it reflects the views of the broad Muslim community, and it can only hope John Howard doesn't read Arabic. And it's interesting, because you see, you would think this is the front page. Okay? But they don't, they're backwards, they write backwards, no wonder we're having a lot of trouble with them. And so they start from this. So they put their sport on the front, which is an idea the Herald-Sun borrowed from the Persian Herald, and it's not difficult, you know.

How do you do? I'm Rod, and you're—Barry. Barry, never give your name to a comedian, I think that's always a big mistake, Barry. Now, Barry, my friend Barry, do you speak Arabic, read Arabic? No. So you're not talking to—I'll show you how easy it is to read. Look, just try—it's not a big word, but see that one there, that beautiful scrolling Arabic, what's that word?

Barry: Compromise.

Rod Quantock: And you've never—wow, Barry's clever. And what's the word under it, Barry, just that other scrolling, fluid word?

Barry: Consensus.

Rod Quantock: Consensus, that's remarkable isn't it? Never read it before in your entire life? How do you think Barry was able to do that? Because it's written in English. So he's not so clever after all. And it concerns me that there are no Arabic equivalents to compromise and consensus.

Anyway—this newspaper that people on the radio can see quite clearly, well this is a newspaper I picked up in Parramatta in Sydney, I was up working at a festival there, and in the middle of this extraordinary ocean of Arabic language, completely incomprehensible to me, there were two English words. The one is 'compromise' and the other is 'consensus', and I found it very deeply disturbing to think that in the Arabic language there are no equivalent words for 'compromise' and 'consensus', and it started me thinking about what sort of world we live in.

Lyn Gallacher: The compromise and consensus might be words that aren't translatable into Arabic.

Rod Quantock: And they don't seem to have any other words to cover them, either, like 'giving-in' or 'making-up' or something, I've got no idea what it means but it's disturbing. And interestingly, I don't know what the article's about. So it could be about poultry farming for all I know.

Lyn Gallacher: Now how did you make this the basis of your show for the recent Comedy Festival?

Rod Quantock: It wasn't the basis, it was the beginning of the show. I began the show by reading the Arabic, sitting on stage, looking like I was reading the Arabic newspaper, and people were fairly impressed, I've got to tell you, when you sit there and read an Arabic paper, people assume you can read Arabic.

Lyn Gallacher: And you don't actually know if that's true. You didn't go to the Arabic dictionary and check?

Rod Quantock: No, I didn't. No. I mean it could very simply say that in English the word 'compromise' is written this way, and in English the word 'consensus' is written this way, I don't know what it says.

Lyn Gallacher: But you don't actually need to have the truth in order to do comedy.

Rod Quantock: No, no, the truth often gets in the way with comedy, yes. Although sometimes the truth can help as well. But in this circumstance, I didn't think research was particularly relevant.

Lyn Gallacher: So what you're actually doing when you perform something like that, is a conversation?

Rod Quantock: Oh, I think all performing's a conversation. Comedy live performing is a conversation. I think you have to give the impression that you're talking to everybody individually in the room. I find that as a performer, that when you do turn it into a conversation, it works much better. I mean that's not to say you want the audience to be the second half of the conversation, their part of it all is to laugh and pay attention.

Lyn Gallacher: And if they don't, do you change the conversation? Are you sort of in tune with their responses as you perform?

Rod Quantock: Oh yes, you're very much in tune with that, and look, what I do is not set in stone. On opening night it's, I don't know, it's like a bucket of mush, and it solidifies over a period of four or five nights. But each audience is different, it's a vast mass of unrelated people who are brought together quite artificially by Ticketek, really, and the credit card system. As a performer you get a sense very early on what mood they're in, what volume they are, what they're going to laugh at, and so you edit it as you go, and you put emphasis on things that you may well respond to more quickly than other things.

Lyn Gallacher: Now just getting back to the notion of truth for a minute, it seems to me one of the reasons why that might be irrelevant in a certain way, is because part of what you do is exaggeration.

Rod Quantock: I guess it's a bit like caricature with a cartoonist, that you exaggerate those things that give character to what you're trying to draw, so in the show I did, 'A Brief History of the End of the World', and it was going to be about ecology and no polar bears in 50 years time, but the thing that really indicated the world was coming to an end was that interest rates went up and the Prime Minister said they wouldn't. And I think that was the end of the world for a lot of people when that happened. So I looked into the reasons for the interest rate rise, and significantly one of them was the deficit, when then tied into the question of infrastructure, which dribbled down to the idea of skills. They were the three reasons interest rates went up. So I put all of those together; with our capacity to produce immense amounts of coal, we actually don't have a pier big enough for any boats to pick up the coal, and the problem there is that we haven't built a pier for over 80 years, so there's nobody left who knows how to build them. There's one man left, he's 93, he's in an old people's home in Western Australia and he's got emphysema, and we're going to have to turn his bedroom into a TAFE college so he can train young pier-builders to build a new pier for our coal. But by the time we've trained them and built the pier, China won't need the coal any more, and we'll have to take the pier down because boats will keep bumping into it, it's so very big. But by then we won't have anybody with the skills of pier pulling-down. Are you following this? It's very exaggerated and complicated.

Lyn Gallacher: Is this true?

Rod Quantock: No, it's all because there's a pier in Dalrymple Bay which is unable to cope with the number of Chinese coal ships that are coming in and there are photographs of dozens and dozens of Chinese coal ships waiting off Australia for us to build a bigger pier.

So look, I like to think that everything I do is based on a truth, or an observation or a fact, and from that you do have to exaggerate. The truth often isn't funny, it's very depressing. So if you are going to talk about global warming and the extinction of species and so on and make that funny, exaggeration is almost vital, and I think there is some value in exploding ideas, and in exaggerating things I think they have a greater impact on people's response, and I think they understand it a bit better. And look, my first obligation is to make people laugh, and I think most comedians use exaggeration, in fact they exaggerate the use of exaggeration, I think. It's exaggerated exaggeration. And it's a very handy tool.

Lyn Gallacher: So if we're going to nail some of the elements, and some of the tools that you use as a political satirist, and the elements of language that we use all the time; exaggeration, disrespect, conversation—are there any other essential tools? I'm trying to crack your secret code here, Rod.

Rod Quantock: Oh look, I think you need to speak the language that people understand, and you also need, unfortunately, to talk about things that people know. I always run the gauntlet of turning my shows into a lecture. I mean there's stuff I'd love to talk to people about, because I read quite widely and deeply, but I just know that if I start talking about those things, I'm going to have to spend five minutes explaining the background to them all. So in a way you're sort of limited, and I also think it's very important, and it comes back to the idea of a conversation, that it must be a conversation in the language that people understand, and within the bounds of what people understand as well. And I guess it's a bit like a sonnet. You know, there are very strict rules about what you can and can't do.

As I said earlier, my obligation is to make people laugh. It's not to suddenly say, 'Well look, for the next five minutes unfortunately I'm going to have to explain something to you about the derivatives market, and you won't get this joke unless you understand the derivatives market.' Now nobody does understand it, you are going to have to explain it to them, then you make the joke. Well you just can't do a show that way. So some things are immune to satire, because they're just too complicated to understand. I mean, Bruce Petty does a wonderful job in cartooning, and I think visual representations of things are probably much more powerful than the spoken. And live comedy is very ephemeral. I mean, it just whizzes through in an hour and it's over. If you commit it to the page, people can go back and ruminate and cross-reference, and stick it up on their fridge, or whatever—the same with a cartoon. But the spoken word, well we're recording it now, and no doubt it'll go into the National Archives as a piece of treasured history, but if you do it on stage, it's there and it's gone.

So it has those limitations. At the end I guess what you want people to go away with is that they've had fun, that you've relieved the stress that people come to my shows with, and when people are really frustrated about politics in Australia at the moment over a large range of issues, and what they say to me at the end is, 'Thanks for making me laugh about it,' and what I always think is, you've had a great night, you've sat in a room with 200 other people who share your views; because you go out into the world and sometimes you find it very difficult to find people who share your views. And literally, in terms of language, because I don't write it, it comes out as I speak, normally.

Lyn Gallacher: And if they don't, do you change the conversation? Are you sort of in tune with their responses as you perform?

Rod Quantock: It's not the gutter language, but it's the common parlance of ordinary Australians that I use.

Lyn Gallacher: And it does give you an anarchic freedom. I always come out of your shows thinking that the world is a more off-the-wall place.

Rod Quantock: It's pretty crazy. My dream, and I think it's probably been the dream of people for generations, is to be able to stand far enough back from the world to actually see it for the absurd and funny thing that it is. But because you're in there and you're getting bumped, and elbowed and scratched and hurt in so many different ways, it's often very difficult to laugh at it. And I think the further away you can stand from humanity, the funnier it is.

Lyn Gallacher: And if it is slightly out of control, which is what, I guess, a conversation is, it does give you that fluidity. And perhaps in that fluidity there might be a sense of greater freedom?

Rod Quantock: Well look, I think there is some freedom in being anarchic. The other thing that happens in these shows is that because I don't structure them too tightly, I actually have ideas. I'll be talking about one thing, and suddenly it'll dawn on me there's a kernel of truth in that.

Lyn Gallacher: In the performance?

Rod Quantock: Oh yes, yes, yes. You've got to be able to do that. And there is those little serendipitous moments where suddenly it all falls into place for you. You might forget that by the next night, but just for a moment there, you understand everything in the world and you have ultimate power, it's fantastic. Recommend it.

Lyn Gallacher: That's Rod Quantock, on the power of corrective or not-so-corrective political comedy. That's all for Lingua Franca this week.

Courtesy: ABC Radio National

Quantock gets last laugh

In a career spanning four decades of performances on television, theatre stages, buses and trams, Melbourne comedian Rod Quantock acknowledges his acerbic political wit has probably endeared as many people to him as it has alienated.

"...I've paid a reasonable price for being an outspoken public figure," he said. "I've lost work, been abused by Andrew Bolt and Neil Mitchell..."

But last night at the Myer Music Bowl, some of that lost income returned to Quantock - the man synonymous with rubber chickens - when he received $25,000 as winner of the Individual award in the 2004 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards. Quantock, 56, has cast his satirical eye on the Australian socio-political landscape since the early 1970s, but it was with television shows such as the landmark Australia, You're Standing in It series (83-84) and his mobile shows Tram and Bus - performed, as the names suggest, on trams and buses - that established him as a groundbreaking comedian. He was also a founding board member of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Other Sidney Myer Performing Arts awards winners last night were Melbourne Workers Theatre and Tracks Dance Theatre Performance - who each received $17,500 - and Lee-Ann Buckskin, who received a $10,000 Facilitator's Prize.

Sidney Myer Fund chairman Carrillo Gantner said Quantock was "as fresh as today's newspaper headlines".

"When you get depressed about politics, Rod at least lets you laugh and be depressed," he said.

Courtesy of The Age

Maths Week with Rod Quantock

Star of stage, screen and tram, Capt'n Snooze, foe of Jeff Kennett, comedian extraordinaire - and maths lecturer.

On Wednesday August 8th, the school was lucky enough to have Rod Quantock, of Good News Week and Captain Snooze fame, bring along his successful one-man play, "A History of Mathematics".

To celebrate Maths Week, Rod Quantock spoke to our year sevens and grade sixers from neighbouring primary schools (Ormond, Murrumbeena, Valkstone, Gardenvale and Hampton Primary Schools).

The students, as well as a number of staff from all of these schools, chuckled along to Rod's unique style of entertainment.

We all enjoyed hearing about time and space, big and small numbers, as well as famous mathematicians such as Xeno and his sister Xena, Pythagoras and others. Thanks Rod for a fun day and all students and staff for their support. It should stimulate some interesting discussion in class!

Especially the discussion of Xena!

Thanks to McKinnon Secondary College
http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au/events/2001/mathsweek/

The Axis of Stupidity

Though Rod is always worth seeing, has there ever been a time when he is more needed?

Rod explains early in his show why he has moved it from the obvious target of the Town Hall council chambers to “The Bunker” of the Victoria Hotel. So begins the most important show of this year’s festival. A much needed reality check on the invasion of Iraq that has been going on.

The only flaw in this consummate professionals show, is that poor Rod has far too much material than he can possibly fit into 60 minutes.

Using Newspaper banners to move the show along and point out the tragic ridiculiness of the world situation, and needing a blackboard to remind him of material that he promised to cover, this is a show that will be different every night as new atrocities occur.

Demonstrating a knowledge of static’s that is frightening and the ability to look at this emotional situation that puts its incongruity into perspective, this is a show that everyone should see, but as Rod himself admits, the people who go to his shows already share his viewpoint, they are just enjoying being in a room full of people with similar views.

It is interesting to note how much Rods audience has been growing in the last few months though.

The Rod song by Tripod

Gatesy:	This is the Rod song by Tripod.

Scod:	If Rod quit the game,
	How would things be?
	We'd say that Jeff is to blame,
	But we couldn't dream of,
	Taking on the regime,
	The way that Quantock can.

Tripod:	Yeah.
Scod:	Rod is good.
Tripod:	Yeah, yeah.
Scod:	Rod is great.
Tripod:	Yeah, yeah.
Scod:	(Dismissively) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tripod:	What if Rod was one of us?
	Just a sod like one of us?
	Not prepared to make a fuss?
Scod:	What a state we'd all be in.

Tripod:	Australia, you're standing in it,
	Standing in it for Australia.

Scod:	They say the neon lights are bright,
	Down Rod's way...
Yon:	Down Rod's way...
Scod:	They say there's always magic in the air.
Yon and Gatesy:	Down Rod's way.

Gatesy:	But Quantock never bats an eye,
	'Cause he's a pretty cluey guy,
Scod:	To spot the bullshit, he is always there.
Yon and Gatesy:	That's Rod's way.

Gatesy:	Conducting bus tours round the town,
	Is Rod's way...
Yon and Scod:	That's Rod's way...
Scod:	Founding father of Aussie Comedy.
Yon and Gatesy:	That's Rod's way.

Scod:	You know,
Gatesy:	He's a friend of the ABC,
	Supporter of "Choose Cruelty Free",
	And some would say a bit of a lefty.

	I can see, I can see,
	Afternoon telly,
	Just a vision of you,
Tripod:	Captain Snooze.

Gatesy:	If I buy, if I buy,
Tripod:	A queen size,
Gatesy:	I'll maybe get a free doona too,
Tripod:	Captain Snooze.

Scod:	Legs that sold a thousand waterbeds!

Yon:	Are you the actual Captain?

Gatesy:	Now Tripod would like to present something very special.
	For the very first time, biting political satire with impersonations!
	Take it away, Yonny!

Yon:	Have you heard what's going round?
	That Quantock bloke's been putting us down.
	Ohhh, well I never!
	'Cause what a swell party this is.

Scod:	That's awful. Do Jeff Kennett.

Yon:	Mean to me? Why must you be mean to me?
	Come on, Rod,
	It seems to me that you love to hear me crying.
	You're up against me and you're contesting my seat.
	If you'll look like you'll beat me,
	Well, you know what I'll have to do.
	I'll... just have to cheat.

Scod:	That's not Jeff Kennett, that's the eagle from The Muppets!
Yon:	What do you want for your subscription dollar?

Gatesy:	From a distance,
	There's a wee guy,
	With a chook on a stick.
	But he's the...
Tripod:	... voice of hope.
Gatesy:	He's a...
Tripod:	... real nice bloke.

Gatesy:	What do you expect us to say?

Tripod:	'Cause Rod is watching us,
	Rod is watching us,
	Rod is watching us...
Gatesy:	From a distance.

Tripod:	Rod is watching us,
	Rod is watching us,
	Rod is watching us...
Gatesy:	From a distance.

Comedy's established agent provocateur

Rod Quantock could have never called his show Axis Of Stupidity if there weren't so many evil malcontents in power (namely Bush, Blair and Howard), threatening to destroy the world. Could Australian comedy's established agent provocateur be happy about the state of the world?

"I'm constantly writing to George Bush saying, 'Get stuck into it George, pull the trigger.' It's very good for comedy." The irony is, horrible events good are actually good for Quantock's career. Is he pleased to see new international incidents? "You make me sound like a vampire! I suppose one part of me does, I have to be honest about that. When Kennett got thrown out I thought my career was at an end. There's a bit of that about it but history tells us that it's always going to be like that. As a pragmatic person, I just cash in."

So you'd want to hope his comedy could make a difference. "That's very hard to know," he says. "I think I make a contribution." While there are a couple of candidates for revelations at Rod Quantock shows he says, "I'm waiting for the Prime Minister to come up after a show and say, 'I've been wrong all these years and you were right!'"

Rod agrees that often he is preaching to the converted, that those opposed to his political ideology just boycott his show. So are there any surprise opinions in his new show Axis Of Stupidity? Since it's still three weeks until it opens Rod says, "I'm unpinnable-downable, if that's a word, on actually what's in it. I generally take the attitude that everyone else is talking about the war and ten million people have marched so it's pretty much covered, really. I'll have to move on to the other things that lurk beneath the veneer of the war rhetoric. While that's happening they're going to change Medibank, they're going to get away with it at HIH, there's plenty more going on there."

His previous show Border Protection Policy was pretty damn angry, though less angry than Quantock insisted it was before and during the show. "I try not to be too vitriolic although it does spill out occasionally. I think vitriol isn't really an art form." With Axis Of Stupidity, Rod says he's moved beyond anger to frustration. "There's some joy in this though. I think ten year ago this war would have been over by now. It can't happen that quickly anymore and people can't get away with such gross hypocrisy anymore."

What would Rod do if he ruled the world? "I think probably sack myself. Actually I think I'd move the continents closer together. If people could nip round the corner to Iraq or North Korea and say, 'Can I borrow a cup of sugar,' or 'D'you want to come around for a barbecue?' I think the world would be a better place. I've seen prehistoric maps of the world and the continents all fit very nicely. You could get rid of cars and boats and aeroplanes and just walk and bike ride everywhere."

My father's genius idea is to make sure everyone in the world must procreate outside their own race. Rod questions whether Dad's a revolutionary or just a pervert and reasons that it would be hard to get Pauline Hanson to mate with an Asian. "You'd need lots of sedatives, particularly for the Asian."

His comedy is razor sharp and savagely jabs at the rich and powerful. No subject is off limits because Rod says there's always a guilty party. "More often than not they're closer to home than most people realise. It'd be a brave person to make jokes about Bali, though. There's some humour in thinking that it was aimed at Australia, for instance. In a perverse sort of way people thought we were important because someone wanted to blow us up. You've got to tread carefully. It's more about the standards of the audience."

Then again, Quantock says his audience won't stand for anything sexist. "And I'm not such a fool to think that John Howard's all bad so anything nice you say about him really puts you in the position of being a traitor." Although he realises that the biggest danger is that he might turn it into a lecture rather than a comedy show.

In the event of daisies blooming, doves replacing nukes in the skies and some terrible, Ebola-type virus being sewn into three-piece suits worldwide, would Rod have to return to being spokesperson for Captain Snooze? He posits that he could be a rep for chemical and biological weapons, "I think there's a growth market there. There's no ethics or morality associated with advertising so why pretend." Either that or the humble Australian paling fence. "That's as Australian as all get out." So, peace permitting, may we introduce Rod Quantock as Captain Paling Fence.

http://www.criticalcondition.live.com.au/Arts_Int/Rod_Quantock.htm

Rod Quantock's New Year's Eve show

ROD QUANTOCK

SUNDAY AGE 28.12.1997

By Fiona Scott-Norman

He seems an unlikely political warrior, Rod Quantock, the lanky eccentric in the red nightshirt who used to clown around in the Captain Snooze commercials; not someone who'd necessarily have strong opinions about anything.

Almost certainly there is a lost generation of television viewers out there who missed 'Australia You're Standing In It', and know of Quantock only in relation to bedding.

Within the comedy industry, however, and among his many fans, it comes as a surprise to no one that Melbourne-born and bred Quantock has emerged as a passionate, meticulously well-informed, fearless political comedian.

Quantock, who has been performing stand-up comedy for 28 years and is renowned for his integrity, has always been politically aware; it's only in the past couple of years, however, that he's been galvanised by events in Victoria to become actively political.

"Comedy doesn't have to be political," says Quantock. "I think it's a temporary choice that I've made. But even though issues like education cuts and WorkCare don't directly affect me, I'm finding more and more that I can't just sit around and do nothing, and more and more I think that I can do something about it through performance."

Quantock's recent work reflects his commitment. His pre-Christmas show (with Lynda Gibson and Fred Rowan), 'Happy Birthday Je$u$', was a satirical bid by the Victorian Special Events Commitee to host the Second Coming in the year 2000.

He appears regularly on the ABC's 'Good News Week' and is sometimes so outspoken he is censored for legal reasons, he was on the ballot as a pro-republic delegate for the Constitutional Convention Election, and he's considering running against Jeff Kennett at the next state election.

Quantock's recent solo show, 'Sunrise Boulevard' was an hour-long exploration of the murky relationship between big business and Victoria's state government.

"There is with Kennett, I think, a genuine vindictiveness that Victorians rejected him for so many years, so he's going to get them back. And it's their fault that everything went wrong, because they didn't elect him sooner and they stuck with that appalling Labour party."

Quantock is a tall, skinny, ginger-bearded man who, apart from having weathered over the years, looks and dresses probably exactly like the student ratbag he was when he was studying architecture at Melbourne University and putting on the comedy revue in 1969. Despite his obviously sinister left-wing tendencies, Quantock is not particularly enamored of the Labor party either.

"I have turned down quite a few fundraisers for them on principle. I think they're a really lousy rotten party who aren't doing their job . . . The Labor party has lost its sense of history."

One irony that the 49-year-old Quantock is very aware of, is that the political situation in Victoria was one of the major factors involved in invigorating his career and returning him to the live stand-up comedy scene.

Not that Quantock has been particularly slack at any point over the past three decades; he ran The Comedy Cafe and performed at The Last Laugh and The Flying Trapeze in the 1970s, toured his revolutionary show, 'Bus', nationally and to Edinburgh in the 1980s, and has been working as a stand-up, corporate comedian, television writer and keynote speaker in the 1990s.

There was, however, a sense that Quantock was treading water and has now found a focus and motivation.

"It's been the kick in the head that I needed to get up and do something… I think there are things happening socially and artistically in Melbourne that wouldn't have happened without Kennett."

The other contributing factor to the vitalisation of Quantock was that his association with Captain Snooze finished last year after nearly two decades. The gig promoting Snooze was regular, reliable money for Quantock that allowed him to feed his family and be somewhat selective about what he did. The relative financial security equated to a certain amount of artistic freedom, but in another way also limited what Quantock could do.

"I wouldn't have done 'Sunrise Boulevard' if I was still wearing the red nightshirt, for example, because of a responsibility to the people who own the shops . . .

"But Captain Snooze also meant I never had to go out and do those things which over-expose you, and reveal that no one has a bottomless pit of ideas. That's a part of why I'm still doing live stand-up. But then I wouldn't have stopped because there's nothing else I can do."

John Pinder, a consulting producer for The Comedy Channel and Fox Studios, worked extensively with Quantock in Melbourne from about 1975-85. "Comedy is the only thing he knows how to do," observes Pinder. "It's not a career option for Rod, it's a life option."

The Quantock experience tends to be a subtle and intimate affair. He generally doesn't prepare, preferring instead to get up on stage, start chatting, and see where he ends up. He usually begins with a theme or an issue that has captured his imagination, weaves in his personal perspective, and throws in a good dollop of absurdist exaggeration to keep things interesting.

In 'Happy Birthday Je$u$' Quantock constructed a scenario that began with the premise that Victorians only noticed the changes to the Office of Auditor-General because the Government foolishly tabled the issue at the end of November, the only time of year there is an event void in our social calender.

Using the low-tech tools of a blackboard and chalk, he diagramised Ron Walker's solution to the problem - the obtaining of the rights to the Second Coming, to be staged at the to-be-constructed Bethlehem World in the park opposite the Crown Casino.

"It's the only thing the Special Events Committee could think of which was bigger than the Olympic Games," he explains drily.

Onstage, Quantock is as confrontational as a cup of tea. In another incarnation he would have been a sensational scout master or teacher; the audience sits back and listens to him ramble, and at the end of his discursion discover that they've learned something. Quantock is surely the only comedian in Australia who has seriously considered doing a show about quantum physics and mythology.

But despite his idealism, he is realistic. He is under no illusions that his political commentary will necessarily change anything.

"Comedy doesn't change the world; when I did 'Sunrise Boulevard' I didn't get sued and I didn't have any impact on the wider fabric of society, which upset me a great deal. What I've been doing is only really morale boosting amongst people who share my interests."

His importance as a morale-booster, however, should not be underestimated. Quantock performs free at hundreds of fundraisers for innumerable small causes around Victoria. He hosts quiz nights, MC's, launches books, or does a few minutes of material; he estimates that until the middle of this year he was doing two free gigs a week.

"I get asked to do a hell of a lot, all comedians do, and it's very difficult to say no because these people have a desperate need . . . I've tried to withdraw from it somewhat, mainly due to time, and because my family does go mad when I wander off and raise money for people less deserving than them."

FAMILY is an important, private, part of Quantock's life. He has been married to comedian Mary Kenneally for 25 years - "What an extremely tolerant woman she is" - and they have two teenage daughters.

Kenneally, a talented singer, comic writer and performer herself, is best known for her character Debbie from the Brainspace sketches on 'Australia You're Standing In It'. Quantock clearly worships the ground his wife walks on.

"I learnt from my wife, who is very keen on only going to perform when you have something to say. Some of the things I've got to say now I think are reasonably important, and I like to think that what I've got to say is right."

His value as a symbol for the dispossessed aside, Quantock is important within the comedy industry simply because he has been around for so long. There aren't many 49-year-olds performing live stand-up, which means that he is almost unique in terms of his experience and level of stage craft.

Quantock enjoys watching other comedians perform, especially new faces, but is wary of offering too much advice.

"What I tell all of them to do is what I do myself, which is to tape everything you do, listen back to it as though it's someone else, and be really critical about it. At home I've got a tea chest of cassettes going back to 1972.

"There's a long apprenticeship in comedy, I think. My mother used to listen to 3AW a lot when she was alive, and somebody on 3AW once said that comedy was the hardest business of them all, and you don't actually get to be a really good comic until you're in your forties."

And, of course, there is that part of Quantock that will ever strive for whimsy.

"My ultimate ambition would be to write something like 'Hunting of the Snark' or 'Alice in Wonderland'. 'Winnie the Pooh' would be a wonderful thing to write."

Rod Quantock's New Year's Eve show with Fred Rowan and Judith Lucy is at the Trades Hall.

Boredom Protection Policy

BOREDOM PROTECTION POLICY

ROD QUANTOCK

The Age, August 5 2002

Reviewer:Helen Thomson

Of course, Rod Quantock and his audiences are anything but bored by our border protection policy, and this show, subtitled "An Evening of Comic Revenge", takes further the ruminations of Quantock's Comedy Festival Show, Scum Nation.

The subject, our treatment of asylum seekers, is one that he confesses is difficult to keep within the bounds of satire, chiding himself for slipping into vitriolic mode at times.

His subjects are many: Andrew Bolt, the World Economic Forum, George Bush and his Axis of Evil, Warracknabeal's passionfruit sponges, tram conductors and, of course, Tampa, Woomera, Philip Ruddock and, saved for a wonderfully comic act of revenge at the end, John Howard.

As usual, his engaging presumption that the audience shares his opinions is proved correct. And since he comes to summon us at the beginning of the show, collects our tickets at the door, gently chides late-comers and walks out with us like a benign host at the end, we almost feel like family.Quantock's method is to begin with what seems a scrambled, rambling series of anecdotes without any apparent logical connection. Again and again, and mostly mid-sentence, he runs off with another hare, just as he seems to be reaching a crescendo of splenetic, opinionated abuse. Occasionally brilliant observations only whet our appetite for more, like the description of Ruddock's "cryogenic charm". So he sends us off at interval, having laughed mightily for nearly an hour but without a clue where it might all be leading.

In the second half, however, he reveals a clever thread of connectedness in all the muddle.

We return to Andrew Bolt, who is demolished by a simple reading of his own words, in a hilarious act of satiric self-destruction.

Warracknabeal's generous charm becomes a measure of Woomera's moral deformity. The disappearance of our tram conductors becomes a fateful precursor to the Pacific "solution" to asylum seekers. Once again, Quantock delivers telling blows to the right with disarming humour, cunningly disguised intelligence and idiosyncratic charm.

A Brief History of the End of the World

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE END OF THE WORLD

ROD QUANTOCK

The Age, April 8, 2005

Reviewer: Andrew Murfett

For a man whose show should be utterly predictable, Rod Quantock has a pleasant habit of producing something different every year.

This year is no exception with a new show, A Brief History of the End of the World, that welcomes new fans while still embracing those more familiar with his comedic brilliance.

Quantock nonchalantly walks on stage and sits down to read the paper, The Persian Herald, and personally greets latecomers.

Like most Quantock shows, a whiteboard is the centre of some frenzied scribbling and diagram-drawing which, for the most part, remarkably manages to make sense.

Audience participation is a key too - Quantock doesn't want to lecture, he wants to make us laugh.

Unlike last year, tabloid columnist Andrew Bolt goes unmentioned until late in the show when Quantock proudly states that Bolt has branded him a "far-left comedian" like it's a badge of honour.

A Brief History is exceedingly clever, with Quantock flaunting his love for facts, figures and statistics to help with his persuasive arguments.

The Iraq war, Macquarie Fields, Amanda Vandstone, the collapse of Mark Latham's leadership and the inevitability of Kim Beazley's reinstatement are all given the trademark Quantock once-over.

What keeps fans coming back year after year is Quantock's dry wit, and one of his least acknowledged assets: his charisma.

Changing Regimes

Rod Quantock is one of Australia's legendary comics, and he can still command the spotlight despite his fondness for a thorough session of pointless and barely audible rambling. Even he admits to his penchant for the ramble, and in this bold (it has no ending) and wildly funny show there's a fair bit of it.

Quantock is passionate, and he manages to translate this passion into comedy which few stand-up comics can. His dislike of the current political regime in Australia is sidesplitting, and he takes swipes at New Labor too.

His ability to laugh at himself is refreshing, and his own laugh (a gentle, avian honking) can send the audience into prolonged bouts of giggling.

Rod Quantock is an extremely sophisticated comedian at the height of his craft, and this season offers Adelaide audiences a chance to enjoy an hour with a man who has spent a lifetime making people laugh.

* * * * * (Five Stars)

– Chloe Fox

Rod Quantock - a brief history

2010

‘The People We Should Eat First’,
Melbourne Comedy Festival
Solo show. Writer, director

‘Bugger the Polar Bears, This is Serious’,
National Tour - Vic, QLD, WA and NSW
Solo show. Writer, director, producer

2009

‘Bugger the Polar Bears, This is Serious’,
Trades Hall, Melbourne
Solo show. Writer, director, producer

‘Rod Quantock Eats Himself’,
Melbourne Comedy Festival
Solo show. Writer, director, producer

2008

‘First Man Standing’
Trades Hall, Melbourne
Solo show. Writer, director, producer

'2050AD',
Melbourne Comedy Festival
Solo show. Writer, director, performer

2007

'Court in the Act',
Old Melbourne Magistrates' Court
Solo show. Producer, director, performer

'Jail Bait',
Melbourne Fringe Festival
Co-producer, performer

'Ferry: An amphibious evening of maritime madness',
Big Laugh Festival, Sydney
Solo show. Writer, director, performer

'anconvenientlie',
Melbourne Comedy Festival
Solo show. Writer, director, performer

'Hand in Bloody Hand',
Adelaide Fringe Festival
Solo show. Writer, director, performer

Recipient of an Australia Council Theatre Board Fellowship

2006

' Coming Clean', Melbourne Fringe Festival

Co-producer, performer

'The Annual Report', National Tour

Solo show. Writer, director

'Australia', Adelaide Fringe Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

'Ferry: An amphibious evening of maritime madness', Big Laugh Festival, Sydney

Solo show. Writer, director

'Australia', Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

'The Inaugural Golden Guy Fawkes Awards', Old Melbourne Gaol

Co-producer, performer

'Mannix' , Trades Hall Melbourne

Playwright

'The Annual Report' , Tour of rural & regional Australia

Solo show. Writer, director, performer

2005

Recipient of the 2005 Adelaide Justice Coalition Romero Community Award for his contribution to Australian social justice

‘Demockracy’, Trades Hall, Melbourne
Solo show. Writer, director, producer

‘Mannix’, Kingston Arts Centre
Playwright

Recipient of the 2004 Sydney Myer Individual Award for his contribution to Australian Performing Arts

‘Rodents & Other Arselickers’, Big Laugh Festival, Sydney
Solo show. Writer, director

‘A Brief History of the End of the World’, Melbourne Comedy Festival
Solo show. Writer, director

2004

‘Howard on Ice’, Adelaide Fringe Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Howard on Ice’, Big Laugh Festival, Sydney

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Howard on Ice’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

Tour of regional Victoria

Solo show. Writer, director

$$PAGE$$

2003

‘Sun, Sex & Sydition’, Big Laugh Festival, Sydney

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Axis of Stupidity’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Baghdad Nights’, Trades Hall, Melbourne

Solo show. Writer, director, producer

2002

‘Scum Nation’, Adelaide Fringe Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Scum Nation’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Boredom Protection Policy’, Trades Hall, Melbourne

Solo show. Writer, director, producer

Tour of regional Victoria

Solo show. Writer, director

2001

‘Lest We Forget: An Inquiry Into Police, Politics and Protest’, Trades Hall, Melbourne

Solo show. Writer, director, producer

‘Rodtacular, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

$$PAGE$$

2000

‘Utopia’, Adelaide Fringe Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Utopia’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘One Size Fits All’, ABC-TV, Melbourne

Head writer, script editor, co-producer

1999-2000

‘Backberner’, ABC-TV, Melbourne

Head writer, script editor

1999

‘Eureka: A Blueprint for the Revolution’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘A Major Event: The Final Report of the Comedian General into the State of Victoria’, Trades Hall, Melbourne

Solo show. Writer, director

Tour of Regional Victoria

Solo show. Writer, director, producer

$$PAGE$$

FALL OF KENNETT GOVERNMENT - September

‘Double Disillusion: Musing of a Radical Comedian’, Published, Lothian

1998-2001

Script consultant, associate producer ABC-TV Comedy Unit

1998

‘Crown of Thorns’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Double Disillusion’, Melbourne Trades Hall

Solo show. Writer, director, producer

Greenroom Award for ‘Sunrise Boulevard’

1997-2000

Regular guest on ‘Good News Week’, ABC-TV/Ten Network

1997

‘Sunrise Boulevard’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Sunrise Boulevard’, Melbourne Trades Hall

Solo show. Writer, director, producer

(This was the first show presented at the Trades Hall. Since Trades Hall has become Melbourne’s leading alternative theatre complex.)

‘Happy Birthday Jesus’, Melbourne Trades Hall

Co-writer, performer

$$PAGE$$

1996

‘Bus, Son of Tram’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

‘Denton’, Seven Network

Scriptwriter

1990

‘Lift-Off’, Australian Children’s Television Foundation

Scriptwriter

1989-1994

Weekly columnist for The Sunday Age

$$PAGE$$

1989

‘Fast Forward’, Seven Network

Producer, head writer, script editor

1988

‘Rod Quantock Inflates’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Bus’, Edinburgh Festival

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

1986

‘Bus, Son of Tram’, Melbourne Comedy Festival

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

‘The Book program’, ABC-TVMelbourne Comedy Festival

Writer, presenter

1984

‘Australia, You’re Standing In It’, 6-part series, ABC-TV, Melbourne

Co-writer, script editor, performe

‘Bus, Son of Tram’, The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

1983

‘Bus, Son of Tram’, Kinsellas, Sydney

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

‘Australia, You’re Standing In It’, 9-part series, ABC-TV, Melbourne

Co-writer, script editor, performer

1982

‘Bus, Son of Tram’, The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

1981

‘Ratbags’, 13-part series, Channel 10, Sydney

Writer, performer

‘Bus, Son of Tram’, The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant

Solo mobile show. Writer, director

$$PAGE$$

1980

‘Old Blue Eyes Is Back’, The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant

Solo show. Writer, director

‘Tram’, The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

1979

‘The Comedy Café Show’, The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

1978

Duck For Cover’, Foibles Theatre Restaurant

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

Opened ‘The Comedy Café Theatre Restaurant’ – Co-owner

1977

‘Les Boys’, Foibles Theatre Restaurant

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

‘The Wonderful World of Ducks’, Foibles Theatre Restaurant

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

1977-94

Various shows, Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant and Le Joke

1976

‘The Razzle Dazzle Revue’ – A.B.C.-T.V., Sydney

Co-writer & performer

‘Bondi Pavlova’ – Bondi Pavilion, Sydney

Co-writer & performer

‘The Wunderkind Rocketship Show’, Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant

Co-writer & performer

‘Sunshine Over Nunnawading’, 13 episode, 30 minute radio serial, 3ZZZ Radio

Co-writer, performer

1975

Various shows, Flying Trapeze Cafe

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

‘Upstairs Upstairs: A Pant-pant-pantomime’, Flying Trapeze Cafe

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

1974-78

Various shows, Flying Trapeze Cafe

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

1973

‘Sennitt’s Ice-cream Show’ – Pram Factory

Co-producer, co-director, co-writer & performer

$$PAGE$$

1972

Melbourne University Architects Revue

Co-writer & performer

‘His Mother’s Baby Boy’ –Guild Theatre

Solo show, producer, director, writer & performer

1971

Melbourne University Architects Revue

Co-writer & performer

‘How Many Sugars Do You Have In Your Nose Vicar’, Guild Theatre

Producer, director, co-writer & performer

1970

Melbourne University Architects Revue

Producer, director, co-writer & performer

1969

Melbourne University Architects Revue

Co-writer & performer

1954

‘Nativity Play’, West Coburg Baptist Church.

Performer: Role of the Guiding Star