by David Knight

Australian TV has suffered from the lack of antics from The Chaser boys this year – no outraged Today Tonight stories, no West Coke Eagle, no embarrassed politicians trying to find the easiest way to get out of a stunt and no sight of Chas Licciardello’s arse. For those who have missed The Chaser’s antics onscreen this year, never fear as you now have a chance to catch the comic muckrakers perform their stuff live on stage; The Chaser is coming to town. The Chaser’s Andrew Hansen says the break from television was needed for The Chaser lads to recharge their batteries.

“We did feel in need of some recharging, I suppose, because we churned out 52 half-hour episodes in the space of two years,” begins Hansen, who is famous for his Surprise Spruiker segment as well as his ever-changing hair on the program. “With only the six of us writing it and the five of us performing it, it was pretty exhausting and we didn’t want to creatively burn out too much. We all just enjoy doing live theatre; it’s something we haven’t done in three years. It’s such great fun; it’s a good experience for audiences too. I enjoy watching live shows enormously, I love seeing live comedy – it’s great. If it’s fun for the performers and the audience as well, you’ve got the ideal situation.”

Last year was a massive success for The Chaser’s television series War On Everything. With a much-needed change of timeslot from its first year, War On Everything regularly screened to massive audiences. The show was not without its controversies, with Chaser members Chas Licciardello and Julian Morrow famously getting arrested for breaching the red zone at the APEC summit in Sydney and both John Howard and Kevin Rudd taking time out of their election campaigns to criticise a song performed by Andrew Hansen, The Eulogy Song. This parody also earned the wrath of current affairs shows and the conservative media. In reality, The Eulogy Song was a brilliant send-up of the media that can savage a personality like Steve Irwin for his baby/crocodile incident before turning him into an ‘Aussie legend’ when he dies. Hansen says he was disappointed in the humourlessness of people who objected to the song, which featured lyrics such as ‘And Brocky was some revhead who pumped the air with pure lead, so anti-green he drove into a tree. But all that was forgotten once they took their final breath, yes even tools turn into top blokes after death’.

“I was very disappointed in John Howard and Kevin Rudd particularly taking time out of their day to comment on this comedy cabaret song,” said Hansen. “I really thought they were supposed to be these world leaders but they were actually spending time being TV critics. What are they going to do next, are they going to take over from David [Stratton] and Margaret [Pomeranz] and host At The Movies together? Don’t they have something more important to do? Strangely enough on the street I’ve only had great goodwill from people about that song. I think it was a vocal minority of people that complained and certainly from what the ABC switchboard operators said the only people who did complain hadn’t watched the show, simply read about it in the newspaper or watched the report on A Current Affair or Today Tonight.

“We don’t really believe that Peter Brock was a dreadful person. This is just a comedy song and I’m just playing a character on screen. I’m not expressing my actual points of view. A lot of people confuse us for saying in The Chaser what we really think in real life. I always think that is a bizarrely illiterate way of interpreting things. I would have thought people would have surely been able to tell the difference between comic characters and real life but apparently not all people can.”

Hansen says he is not missing the outrage stories from Today Tonight this year. The Channel 7 current affairs show was almost the biggest publicity department for The Chaser, with the show once spending 17 minutes on a segment about Hansen and Chas Licciardello managing to get into the Today Tonight offices.

“I never quite understood why they were so angry about us. I mean it’s true we made fun of them but when Chas and I went to their office we witnessed first hand just how much some of the people that work for Today Tonight do genuinely hate us. And they do from the depths of their soul; some of those guys really hate us as people. Which was strange for me because I have no feelings towards them, I didn’t know who they were really. I found their show funny and I think their show is a disgrace and ought not to be on television. I think it is a show that damages the social fabric a bit by whipping up hatred and disapproval and negative feelings of all kinds. I certainly don’t hate the people that make it where as I found they hate me.”

Hansen says away from the screen they can actually push the envelope further on stage.

“There’s a slightly different feel in a theatre because it’s an enclosed space and you feel like you’re hearing a naughty little secret with these people in a room together. When you do something on television it seems terribly public and open. It’s watched by so many more people, it’s also the case that generally in a theatre people will only buy tickets if they want to come to specifically see The Chaser show. When The Chaser’s on telly people can just flick past on their remote control, not necessarily wanting to watch whatever offensive dreadful thing we’re doing at that particular moment. Then they’ll get outraged and ring up their talkback radio station.”

Finally Hansen says The Chaser will be back on television in the next 12 months.

“We haven’t really decided yet on whether we want to do more episodes of The Chaser’s War On Everything or whether we might create a different show. We’ve got a few ideas kicking around, we just want to spend more time developing them and seeing what we come up with.”

The Chaser’s Age Of Terror Variety Hour is on at the Thebarton Theatre from Wed May 14 to Sat May 17. Tickets available through VenueTix.

CLOWN WARS

Did you find that whole experience of being detained in the Today Tonight offices ironic or ridiculous?

“I did find it ridiculous. I was surprised by the level of anger by three people in their office, the rest of the office did seem quite calm, and then Brian Seymour [Today Tonight journalist] jumped in and kind of did the story, I’m not sure how he feels. Particularly there was fury coming from [a Today Tonight producer], one of their other segment producers and one of their other reporters. Those three guys just went ballistic, threatening physical violence and shoving our crew and yelling at us and [a producer] swearing his head of at us and it did feel strange. I suppose I was amused and baffled at the same time by this behaviour. It was a world I’ve never seen before and the atmosphere in the office was very testosterone-charged and full of anger, like the show itself I suppose.”

Are you guys of the opinion if you’re not offending someone then you’re not doing your job?

“No, I have no interest in offending people at all. I just want to entertain people. Sometimes it just happens that one type of joke out of many different jokes is the tasteless joke or the offensive joke. There are rude jokes, surreal jokes, character jokes, narrative jokes, there’s also just jokes that are funny simply because you are saying something that you are not supposed to say. They are just one type of laugh out of many possible types. I don’t see it as necessary though, I certainly never want to hurt someone’s feelings or generally upset anybody. I’d be in a different business if I wanted to do that, I’d probably be a banker or a real estate agent or something. As far as I’m concerned my job is just to amuse someone for a while and divert their attention from the miseries of the world.”

You do some ballsy sketches such as the Surprise Spruiker and stuff like that - have you ever felt uncomfortable doing them or afraid someone might crack you?

“Ha ha! The only real source of nerves for me (and the other guys when I talk to them have said the same) is being nervous about just getting the piece in the can, I’m not so worried about embarrassing myself or people getting carried away or whatever. I don’t enjoy that particularly and I wouldn’t choose to do it in my spare time, but the real concern when you go out there is that you’ve got this film crew with you and there’s a lot of money being spent on this. You’ve got some screen time to fill up. You’ve written your script. You’ve done all your preparation and what happens when you don’t get the shots that you want on screen? If you miss your opportunity or if the sound doesn’t work or if you’re standing in the wrong spot or if you’re not facing the right way you can’t deliver the comedy properly? All those concerns make me very nervous with those sorts of stunts where you don’t get a second take.”