Stand up, the real John Clarke!

Press, 18 June 1976, Page 13

Stand up, the real John Clarke!

Ask home-grown comedian John Clarke, alias Fred Dagg, what makes New Zealanders laugh and for a moment that big, friendly, moon face takes on an even blanker look than usual: “I dunno — but they laugh at me,” he says.

And they are laughing — to the tune of cash registers so far in Blenheim, Nelson, Greymouth, and

the Town Hall, Christchurch. John Clarke is on a South Island tour, continuing the Fred Dagg cult that has covered television spots, singlets, books, commercials, and records for more than two years.

It is this merging of personalities, this not quite knowing where John Clarke ends and Fred Dagg begins, that explains a great deal. Underneath the long, straggling hair, and the gumboot image, there is a thoughtful young man who has worked it all out.

“I am an ordinary Kiwi joker,” he says. ‘‘lf I think of something funny as John Clarke, it is a safe bet that thousands of other people will think it is funny too.”

John maintains he does not have to look far for gags. “Take current affairs, you don’t have to scratch very hard to find something. There’s a Fred Dagg script on the front page of every day’s newspaper; you’ve only got to remember the key words and there you are.” But how about living with Fred Dagg every day of his life, on every street, and in every bar? “If I had wanted to be anonymous at times I would never have done the Fred Dagg bit in the first place,” he says. “But I made Fred Dagg as nice a guy as possible so I could live with him.” This means that most of the people who come up to John Clarke in the street or at a function are bent on being friendly anyway. “There is no acid about Fred Dagg,” Clarke says. “And anyone who is going to be nasty is not likely to want to speak to me at all.”

It all began with John Clarke doing the Fred Dagg turn in revues on stage at Wellington. He was asked to appear on Television One and made a pilot for a Fred Dagg show to be called “The Wonderful World of . . .” There was to be a regular television show, but it never got off the ground; John Clarke has been too busy with Fred Dagg. As for touring with the country and western singer, John Hore, and a band, John says; “I love it. And I get job satisfaction, making people laugh.” Clarke just knew Fred Dagg would work even before he started playing the homespun Kiwi character. “I could see on television the ingredient that was lacking in New Zealand content. It was all so pompous. There was no attempt being made to lighten our lives by laughing at ourselves, our politicians, and some of our institutions.” What if the Fred Dagg bubble bursts? John Clarke shrugs and says he is philosophical about that possibility. “I have been lucky for the last couple of years, although I did a lot of ground work before then.

“But if everything suddenly went wrong, I could go back to what I was doing before —which was just about every job under the sun. I could go back to an eight-hour day instead of a 16-hour working day.” Clearly John Clarke has not contemplated deeply life without Fred Dagg and admits to having difficulty planning ahead, and to living on a kind of razor edge. “Being a professional idiot makes it difficult, because one never knows when idiocy is viable.” he says.

And the money he is making? "It is not as much as people think. A year ago I was making less than the minimum wage and my wife had to work as a teacher. If you level it all out, I’m not making all that much now.”

It is clear that Clarke is hooked on the life of a touring entertainer, but he doubts whether it is much of a life for his wife. “We do most of the stage work ourselves, come back to the hotel about midnight, still a bit high, and have a few drinks before going to bed. Then it's up about 7.30 and off somewhere else. But it’s a good way to live.”

KEN COATES went to the Town Hall this week to find the man beneath the black singlet and gumboots. Fred Dagg peeped through at times, but John Clarke answered most of the questions. Photographer. Des Woods.