Shaun Micallef, Francis Greenslade and Gary McCaffrie take lawful fun from 1980s Adelaide Uni into 'Mad as Hell'
The ”Marat Pack” (from left) Francis Greenslade, Shaun Micallef (inset, in Mad as Hell mode) , Alex Ward and Anthony Durkin in Adelaide University Footlights Club revues in the 1980s.
A tradition of comedic talent among Adelaide’s legal profession was kept alive on Australian national television through Shaun Micalleff's Mad as Hell (2010-20).
Logie-award-winning performer Micalleff, who began working as a lawyer in Adelaide in the 1980s, honed his early comedic talents during law school days at Adelaide University and four years beyond, where he starred in the university’s Footlights Club revues such as 39 Steps, Two Escalators and a Lift, Poodle Armageddon and Beckoning Gullett.
Micallef's Footlights alumni included lawyer and Law Council of Australia former president Alex Ward, Adelaide barrister Anthony Durkin and federal circuit court judge Tim Heffernan.
Two other Footlighters from the 1980s, co-star Francis Greenslade (who studied French at Adelaide University) and co-creator Gary McCaffrie, also were heavily involved with Mad as Hell. McGaffrie was involved in Footlights end-of-year revues including The Return of the Revenge of Beneath the Planet of Bambi and Biggles and Flipper Meet Frankenstein '82 Part III (1982).
McCaffrie, who moved to Melbourne and began writing TV comedy, inspired Micaleff (by then married to lawyer Leandra) to make the leap from the law in the 1990s and also move to Melbourne to begin writing scripts for the comedy series Full Frontal.
Adelaide University Footlights Club, founded in the Depression year of 1930, presented many revues with casts including future supreme court judges, diplomats, a state premier, state and federal politicians, doctors, playwrights, actors, media and musical celebrities, professors and academics and a bishop but with a dominance of lawyers.
Law revues Gidget Goes to Law School (1980), Barristar Galactica (1981), McMillhouse and Wife (1982) and Star Laws (1983) were presented with the Footlights Club and Adelaide University law students' society.
