John Clarke, comedian and satirist, has died suddenly.
From Fred Dagg to Farnarkling to his recent Clarke and Dawe interviews, Clarke has always helped us see the absurdity of politics and kept us laughing. His wit and intelligence will be sorely missed. As this flashback to 2007 shows, he had the capacity to remind us of what the politicians would rather we forgot.
Vale John Clarke!
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I think we all feel we have lost a friend.
Vale John Clarke.
Oh no! Fluck Bill Leak this is a major loss.
Nothing changes. Still at same point as with Howard. Labor two terms and all it achieved has disappeared into the ether. I hope this one goes viral.
This is just too sad……..he will be missed. R.I.P. John Clarke
Indeed. His wit will be very sadly missed.
Damn damn and damn it. What a tragedy, John was a wonderful comedian/actor/writer and a beautiful person. I had the privilege to interview him in his early years as Fred Dagg. His star was beginning to shine brightly then and it never lost its brilliance,
Bless you John Clarke for bringing much need laughter into our lives, political satire has lost one of the best.
Here is John in early days in NZ and his signature ‘Gumboots Song’, accompanied by his mates ‘The Trevs’.
The man was an comedic genius.
Vale John Clarke.
The man was an comedic genius.
Vale John Clarke.
I saw John interview Barry Jones at the beginning of this year and after the interview I asked when the Clarke & Dawe sketch would restart as I was worried that the ABC might cut this off. John said they were just waiting for Brian to return from holidays, but now
John is no longer with us and will be really missed.
Will definitely be missed. But he died fit and healthy, and doing something he loved. No nursing home for our John, for which we can be grateful.
So Sad…………..this one can’t be replaced. One of a kind ! RIP John
I’ll miss him, he was a real comedian, not like the ones I saw last night on ABC, all fast-talking but the joke never came.
I saw Clarke in an Aussie movie, he played a real estate agent: he became one, he WAS one, truly funny….
Our politicians have to be shown how horrid and incompetent they are, Who’s going to make us laugh now, and make it a bit easier to bear….
What a loss! As an antidote to today’s sad news, listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfTZTujf6t8&list=PL_qjzfFbDk49RaDKIvUHxE2i4fRasHNiR&index=31
John Clarke will be sorely missed. Fond memories of a million laughs from a sharp witted and erudite man!
Thank you for writing this Rossleigh.
Still coming to terms with the demise of one of the world’s truly great human beings.
Off to do a spot of farnarkling and to wish Brian Dawe and the Clarke family my sincere condolences.
Gunna miss you, John !
Oh nooooo.
That it is sad indeed, R.I.P John, we will miss you a lot.
The high point of a week, Clarke and Dawe. Who is going to keep us all sane ? Who can we turn to for the real truth about stuff ?
Australia has lost a friend, all of us.
To Brian and to John’s family my deep condolences.
One of a kind.
So young, my heart goes out to family and friends and the TV community. We will miss him so much. Love to all.
Just gutted.
It will take a long time to come to terms with this.
What a loss to Australian humor! RIP Brian you WILL be sadly missed, Thursday nights will not seem the same with out your interviews with Bryan Dawe.
All of the above.
Whilst feeling incredibly sad, I am also incredibly grateful. Not just because of his wonderful talent, but his generosity in sharing it with us.
Take care
We will miss you and your unique sense of humour and satire. Thanks for the laughs.
Agree with everyone here. My Thursday night fix of political humour gone with the great man himself!
A great person. Love ya John.
Pity the good ones have to go first.
Clarke & Dawe provided the best three minutes on ABC television each week.
A brilliant, very funny, and incisive satirist, and such a sad loss to this nation and to his home country of New Zealand.
Condolences to his colleagues, and particularly to his friends and his family.
I found this while farnarkling, another way to remember John Clarke:
diannaart…thanks for the link, some wonderful stories there, what a remarkable man of so many talents John was. Shall so miss him.
Since my childhood, John Clarke has helped me cope with the inanity, absurdity and sheer malevolent insanity of politics by dissecting it with keen insight, roasting it with blazing intelligence, then serving it with his own special sauce, wry and dry with a twinkle in the eye..
The world just got a whole lot harder to laugh at.
Ave atque vale John Morrison Clarke.
You’re welcome, David1…. someone you could sit and have a yarn with, and now, who will warn of the Ministers for Limp Falling?
They say only the good die young, but this is immeasurably sad. John’s ability with Bryan to see the ridiculous in awful situations has helped keep us sane for so long. And for me the best thing about the Sydney Olympics was The Games. Wonderful television. Wonderful man. They broke the mould when they made him. What will we do without him?
Words are not enough. I wish I still had my Fred Dagg LPs. I will never forget him.
No-one of his calibre left to take up the reins.
You know some people and some things can always be replaced,John Clarke was not one of them.
John Clarke’s passing has made an impression on us all coz we know we won’t see his bright blue, cheeky eyes acting for the clever words his mouth said.
More reason to treasure our still living clever people amongst us, who can continue to show the way. Some of them correspond on AIM and others correspond on Twitter such as Cathy Wilcox.
I didn’t get a chance to tell John Clarke he was great but I can do it for those still living with the assumption that that will spur them on stronger and braver … taking our fairer and kinder Australia with them.
Good point, Jennifer, we all should be wiling and able to show how much we appreciate some people, and what a better time to do it…whilst they are still amongst us…. 🙂
You people make me bloody sick.
Check out the Pickering site.
Doesn’t the Hypocrisy, the Bastardry, the absolute Mongrel, ever disturb your sleep.
Check this out, the rabid Right on John Clarke. They are nearly as bad as you Bastards., regarding Bill Leak.
http://pickeringpost.com/story/-/7037/comment/2136442
Disgusted in the World.
Are there any Australians,
True Australians, left in this world.
Mark Needham
PS ‘n I didn’t know about Murray Ball. Shit really does happen at times, Bugger and Damn.
Mark, as I ignore your total insensitivity and your ignorant contribution (I won’t be visiting Pickering thanks anyway), I am guessing you never saw Clarke’s work.
Kaye Lee. I loved Clarke and Dawe. Bloody marvellous stuff.
Brilliant satirist……………..
Bugger,……what is the problem.
Mystified,
Mark Needham
The world, honestly, has gone “Barking Mad”
Now, I am insensitive bastard, because of bloody what.
Bugger me,
Mark Needham
he dispensed satire with a scalpel and laughter with an axe bludgeoning the government and slicing the individuals.
45 years ago satire in america died when tom lehrer retired because nothing he could do would top the satire of kissinger.
Well such is importance of the clarke and Dawe’s 5 minutes of insightful brilliance which made the ABC shine with them gone we will be left with uhlprob productions and how sad is that?
Your explanation – or your wish?
And if the later, then MT might wish to impose an advertising levy.
How True. from diannaart. checked her link https://meanjin.com.au/memoir/commonplace-3/
Australians of a vociferous political persuasion, should hang heir collective heads, in bloody shame.
John Clarke
At a time when Australia has lost touch with its identity it is regrettable that not only has this tradition been lost but that there is not a federal Minister of Limp Falling, charged with revitalising an important symbol of folkloric independence. It cannot be that the activity is too absurd. There are many federal ministers engaged in idiocy of a far greater magnitude than going limp and falling to the ground. In fact it might help if some of them made enquiries and joined the association.
No apostrophes, no crap, just as it should be.
John Clarke, Honorary Australian, has wasted his talents on you No Hoper Bastards.
Pissed off,
and proud of an Anger, to give it to you self righteous Bastards. ( John would be disgusted at your duplicity and hypocrisy)
Mark Needham
Mark Needham,
I have no desire to ‘check out the Pickering site’ for the reason that I do not play in sewers.
I also politely decline your general invitation to ‘bugger’ you for similar reasons.
mn by mw
oh and Up yours too.
Mark Needham
My suspicion is now strengthening. MT, are you now in the business of promoting AIMN as an alternative Ashley Madison site?
Borus Corveus. “I also politely decline your general invitation to ‘bugger’ you for similar reasons.”
Now here is the duplicity. Now is the time, when are typed the words, “So who have you buggered”
But it is not for me to presume, pre-empt or even lie about a situation that I know bugger all about.
Also, when it comes to being buggered, I have been done over by nicer Bastards than you lot. Not that I enjoyed it, but the Malice the pure Vindictiveness, unrelenting, acrimonious, catty and Bitchy vernacular, as seen and used here, would be the worst that I have ever come across.
You bastards are good, and I mean really good.
Here I am, disturbed and mourning the death of another good person, and you lot are up me for the rent. go bugger yourselves.
Buggered,
Mark Needham
PS. Humour, has anyone seen the humour in this.???????
Ashley Madison site? had to Google that one. One of your popular…………………………
this is shite……….
Good night.
Yawn,
Mark Needham
Mark Needham,
I wonder about you, Mate.
Is it that you want democratic political representation or is it that you are a libertarian Liberal manipulator?
Either way, these words of mine are relevant to your input:
“More reason to treasure our still living clever people amongst us, who can continue to show the way. Some of them correspond on AIM and others correspond on Twitter such as Cathy Wilcox.
I didn’t get a chance to tell John Clarke he was great but I can do it for those still living with the assumption that that will spur them on stronger and braver … taking our fairer and kinder Australia with them.”
Instead of finding fault with every opponent to the current neoliberal Liberal National Coalition political fraudster, you would do much better to attack the LNP Government at every opportunity and demand an alternative government that provides a 180 degree better source of representative, equitable and reformist governance for us all.
Mark Neesham,
I do not doubt or deny that you seem somewhat ‘disturbed’, but If you choose to stride into a room full of mourners and start indiscriminately slinging around terms of abuse, you should not cry victim when you cop some rebuke in return.
As for the late Bill Leak, although I neither admired nor enjoyed his work, I will not indulge in any posthumous sledging or gloating over his demise, nor do I condone such.
My, someone’s in a foul mood.
Me too. John Clarke’s death, too early and feel as though Ive lost a big brother, a protector.
All the way back to the Gilles Report he went, never overplayed a performance, like any real satirist.
For those who may be interested, “John Clarke – Thanks for your time”, hosted by Brian Dawe, will be screened on ABC TV at 8.00 pm on Monday, 17th April.
Take care
Thanks for the reminder Kyran, cheers
RIP John Clarke.
RIP Bill Leak.
RIP Murray Ball.
If we cannot laugh at ourselves!
Mark Needham