The acclaimed recent ABC series The Killing Season has projected former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd back into the spotlight. Its forensic investigation into Labor’s series of leadership challenges seems to have dredged up a different Rudd; one less of daggy charm and more cold resentment.
As it happens, Nathan Lentern is likewise reviving Rudd in The Book Of Kevin. Written around the fictional book launch of Rudd’s autobiography, the show was developed by Lentern and long-time collaborator Timothy Hugh Govers. It also features Jonas Holt, who has gained YouTube popularity for his Tony Abbott impersonations.
“The Killing Season has caused a few rewrites,” says Lentern. “It has been an immediate refresher in regard to the toxicity and duplicity between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, but it also highlighted their mutual dependency throughout the early years.”
Lentern has been impersonating the enigmatic former PM for four years now, including the last two years since Labor’s defeat under Rudd’s leadership at the 2013 federal election. “As you’d expect, there has been dwindling interest in Kevin over the past few years,” says Lentern, “so I became conscious of not wanting to flog a product no-one wants. The idea was that The Book Of Kevin would be a big show highlighting all the different versions of Kevin and then we would retire him on this one. It’s kind of a farewell.”
The show takes a reflective tone, starting out with Rudd’s audacious forgiving of the Labor Party for having wronged him. “He gives a solemn press conference, a rousing speech and then we show him in interview format, which is my favourite version of him,” says Lentern. “He tries to gear his interviewers toward asking the questions he wants asked and all the while he has this magnanimous smile. It’s very crafty. I love playing the interview more than anything else.”
Over the years, Lentern has worked to capture Rudd’s particular mannerisms, from hand gestures through to fair dinkum quips like “fair shake of the sauce bottle” or “water off a duck’s back”. In pinpointing a personal favourite, he says, “It’s always fun to do the asking-yourself-a-question thing.” He slips into Rudd’s passive-aggressive tone and mimics: “Was there a need for serious intervention? Well yes, yes there was.”
Lentern continues, “Another thing he does is what I call the double ambiguous statement – he answers a question with an ambiguous statement and then when the interviewer seeks to clarify he repeats the statement. The way he set speculation rife by simply repeating things was really masterful.”
The current political landscape is full of colourful characters, offering up plenty of material for satirists to work with. “For me, it’s about celebrating the quirks and eccentricities attached to these larger-than-life people,” says Lentern. “Luckily, I have the Rudd voice so I can do him. But I also love doing Clive Palmer, Christopher Pyne and Craig Emerson – they’re such ridiculous people who manage to land themselves in enormously influential positions. We love that they’re so absurd and we affectionately play around with that.”
As Lentern prepares to put Rudd away for good, he has been working on a new politician to send up. “I’ve been working on the Christopher Pyne voice for the last six months,” he reveals. “We’re hoping to do two shows this year – the second one being the political year in review, which we’ve done for the past two years. So I’m hoping to have Christopher nailed by about November.”
The Book Of Kevin, part of Bondi Feast, takes place Wednesday July 15 at Bondi Pavilion, and at Gleebooks on Thursday July 16, thenruns Wednesday July 22 – Friday July 24 at The Rocks Pop-Up, Merchants House.
