Shaun Micallef: ‘Politicians are all borderline sociopaths whatever side they are on’

The latest season of Mad As Hell is wrapping up before the federal election and its host is relieved – though ‘a new government might be slightly better behaved … that’s not good for us’

On 21 May, Shaun Micallef will be sitting at home watching the news coverage as election results roll in. For the first time in months, he won’t be taking copious notes.

“I won’t be able to not watch it. But I’ll enjoy it more because I know that I don’t have to write about it the next day,” he says. “I think I could just watch it as a punter – either with my head in my hands or leaving the room every time something happens.”

Micallef’s satirical show Mad As Hell is wrapping up its 14th season on the ABC on Wednesday night, and won’t be back until August. It is a relief to Micallef that the election happens between now and then: in 2016 he had to write two shows when the outcome wasn’t known on election night.

Mad As Hell launched in the final years of the Gillard-Rudd government in 2012, and has run the length of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government; a Labor win on 21 May could also mean a change in the well-worn jokes and characters that have dominated the last decade.

“It will be interesting to see how we adjust because we’ve just been laying into the LNP for the last nine years,” he says. “[But] Labor gave us some gold when we came in.

“I just have a feeling, relative to what’s been going on recently, a new government might be slightly better behaved, for a little while at least. That’s not good for us. So I hope we continue the way we are, very selfishly for the show.”

Shaun Micallef interviews Donald McEngadine on Mad As Hell

Donald McEngadine – the show’s parody of prime minister Scott Morrison, dressed in a suit, hard hat and thinly veiled rage – may be the first to go. Other memorable parodies of ministers, such as the bouffant-haired Mary-Brett Punish (attorney general Michaelia Cash), the Voldemort-esque Brion Pegmatite (defence minister Peter Dutton) and Draymella Burt (Queensland senator Amanda Stoker), could also be on the chopping block.

Or they could find a life of their own, such as the cigar-chomping Darius Horsham, a Schwarzenegger-like parody of the then-finance minister Mathias Cormann. Horsham appeared on Mad As Hell until Cormann departed for the OECD – but not before the former minister made a cameo, saying goodbye to his parody likeness.

If the government does change on election day, it is unlikely any of the outgoing ministers will pop up on Mad As Hell again, Micallef says, explaining the show generally tries to avoid having politicians in on the joke.

“Let’s face it, they’re all borderline sociopaths whatever side they are on,” he says. “They are people with a platform, they probably don’t need to co-opt another one.”

He also tries to avoid meeting them. One of the longest-running gags is every time Micallef says “the prime minister”, he immediately clarifies that it is currently Scott Morrison.

“[Comedian] John Doyle said he just really wanted to avoid meeting anybody that they talked about,” he says. “You don’t want these people to be humanised, you just want them to be the kind of two-dimensional puppets you see on television, the Punch and Judy show.”

Satirical shows on the taxpayer-funded ABC tend to find themselves as targets of politicians and conservative media, who often complain about jokes made at their expense. But Mad As Hell has miraculously avoided much of the sort of controversy shows like The Chaser have courted in the past. Barely an eyebrow has been raised in Senate estimates. The opening of the show even used to feature a soundbite from Morrison: when asked what shows the ABC should axe, the then-treasurer replied he’d be happy if they kept Mad As Hell.

The Mad As Hell approach is less about setting out a point of view, Micallef says, and more about the jokes: “We’re not really in the business of propagating a particular point of view or being an activist or anything like that. We are just on the periphery. We are just lobbing in a few jokes … I do hear sometimes from certain people who feel they were not properly served, but usually we are OK.”

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Micallef, who practiced law for a decade in Adelaide before launching his comedy career in the early 90s, says the show is instinctive about potentially problematic stories, and steers clear of potentially defamatory ones.

“The show is actually quite responsible,” he says. “And I think we can argue the point of view of a particular joke. But it is always just a joke.”

Micallef’s comedy career spans 90s sketch shows Full Frontal and The Micallef Program, to aughts shows Micallef Tonight and Newstopia, then Mad As Hell. This means many of the people he now works with grew up watching and idolising his work. Sometimes this influences the jokes they write for him, but the 59-year-old says he’s clear he’s “not that guy” from Micallef Tonight anymore.

But he enjoys working with his team: the collaboration involved in television means his ideas are often improved throughout the process.

“The original idea you had in your head changes slightly and I’ve rarely been disappointed. There’s about 1,000 ways you can tell a joke. Maybe 10 of them are wrong.”

In a recent interview, Micallef shared his favourite joke, one by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” On Mad As Hell, whole sketches can be derived from a turn of phrase a politician has used, teased out to its literal meaning, or an unfortunate stumble; like a sketch last week that poked fun at Cash saying she “sits on” the cabinet table.

“I think a big keystone of the show is pedantry. Absolutely,” Micallef says. “A particular turn of phrase, whether it’s a quote from a politician or a particular headline, presents something that provides us with legitimacy to talk about a particular topic … that just gives us some relief from having to deal with what is often very dry material.”

He is still surprised that some people place too much political import in what Mad As Hell does.

“We don’t see it as being anything political at all,” he says. “We’re just kind of having fun.”

  • The final episode of the current season of Mad As Hell airs on ABC and iView on 20 April at 8.30pm

Contributor

Josh Taylor

The GuardianTramp

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