Bryan Dawe's radio, television, talks satire founded on the culture/ people of boyhood in '50s/'60s Port Adelaide
Bryan Dawe's national television partnership with John Clarke continued for 25 years.
Bryan Dawe, one of Australian best-known satirists for his television work with John Clarke, also created his own hilarious characters, profoundly influenced by the culture and people of his Birkenhead boyhood in Port Adelaide.
Dawe’s comic creation Roly Parks was derived from his Port working class background in the 1950s and 1960s – and Roly’s wife was played by actress Jody Seidel from the Port suburb of Semaphore. Another of Dawe’s characters was the outrageous doyen of The Melbourne Club: Sir Murray Rivers QC. The National Trouble Makers Union – “championing the merits of pot stirrers, boat rockers and rabble rousers everywhere” – was another Dawe creation. The union presented a 2016 show with Port Adelaide-based alternative theatre company Vitalstatistix.
Dawe’s life twists started at 15, leaving Woodville High School in Adelaide and about to join the navy when his father died. Instead, he went into the music industry, working for Festival records in Adelaide (1963-64) before running a record store for four years. In between a move from Adelaide to Melbourne to work at Brashs and then Astor Records, Dawe spent six months at a record bar in Carnaby Street, London.
Back in Melbourne with Astor Records in the 1970s (where he made Neil Diamond’s Hot August Night a major hit in Australia), Dawe teamed up with English-born singer musician Steve Groves whose band Tin Tin had a past big hit with “Toast and Marmalade for Tea.” With Dawe writing lyrics to Groves’ songs for 10 years, their biggest success was “On the Loose Again” winning the 1976 Australian Song Festival prize.
They switched their writing to comedy for ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio with a programme called Don’t Get off Your Bike, directed by Dawe. As head of ABC Radio’s (one man) comedy unit, Dawe encountered New Zealander John Clarke and his character Fred Dagg. When Dawe agreed to play the straight man in an satirical interview concept devised by Clarke, it was the start of a 25-year partnership, starting on Channel Nine’s A Current Affair with Jana Wendt, then with the ABC television’s 7.30 Report, before becoming its own Thursday night segment until Clarke died suddenly in 2017. The duo had won ARIA (Australian Record Industry Association) award for best Australian comedy record in 1990 for Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century.
In the 1980s, Dawe wrote and performed with actress Jody Seidel in a long-running radio comedy series centred on elderly couple Roly and Sonya Parks. Some of his Roly Park's Letters from Kalangadoo segments were released on CDs.
In 1990, Dawe wrote and acted on the comedy series Fast Forward and had a minor role in the Australian film The Castle in 1997. But most successful, with Clarke, was The Games (1998-2000), a mockumentary about the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.
Dawe regularly appeared on the speakers’ circuit as an MC, as guest speaker:as himself or as alter ego Sir Murray Rivers QC (retired). Dawe’s other interests as a painter and photographer were featured in several gallery exhibitions. He also maintained his passion for port towns.
