Under the leadership of the Abbott government, our once great nation has seemingly backflipped on the majority of our social, political and environmental advancements in the name of the almighty dollar.
Considering the general public elected the Coalition with a landslide victory in 2013, it’s gotten to the point where aligning yourself as Australian has reached cartoonish levels of embarrassment – which is the first thing Dylan Moran wishes to discuss when I reach him at his Edinburgh home.
“I’ve got to ask you, how much domestic support does he actually have?” laughs Moran. “The international reputation that Tony Abbott has is that he’s not a terribly imaginative right-winger who blames climate change on the lesbian Illuminati. He’s regarded as having his head in the sand.
“For 20 years Australia had such massive growth,” he says. “The whole world looks to Australia – especially Europe and America, as we’re all allies. Everyone looks to you as a bellwether and an indicator of what the hell is going on, especially when it comes to climate change. To hear now that big business is coming first is pretty ridiculous.”
While Moran is best known for his work as the drunken and cynical Bernard Black in the television show Black Books, he says his approach to stand-up comedy is far less pessimistic. “I don’t think it’s very useful to iterate an endless tablet of humanity’s ills, woes and faults. I’m not saying that everyone has to be an Easter bunny hopping around all time with a lust for optimism, but if you don’t have any hope at all there’s no point in crawling any inch further. You have to have some hope that we’ll find answers to the problems in front of us, or why bother?”
Returning to Australian shores with his latest show Off The Hook, Moran will once again treat audiences to a sardonic and insightful look into his world. “It’s about family, it’s about getting older and it’s about looking at your kids growing up,” he says. “I’m like anybody else who has children. They become the centre of your life. When I look at my kids and their generation, I wonder about what sort of world they’re going to grow up into. I don’t think it’s easy for anyone to find their way through the world when they’re 18, 19 or 20. It’s pretty scary stuff. You’re being spat out of an education system and your home and into the world and you’re told you’ve got to figure it out. In retrospect, I don’t really know how I got it together.
“I’m still messing around with the show every night. I’m playing it upside down, inside out, throwing out this bit, trying to write new bits. I play with my shows until the very last minute until I have to put it down. I don’t really want to know how it’s going to be 100 per cent, from A to Z; I never really have with anything I’ve ever done. That’s how it’s been ever since I started. I’m always refining things until it comes to the point where I just have to kick it away.”
As we conclude our conversation, I quiz Moran on what is left for him to accomplish in his career, and the legacy he wants to leave. “I’m not interested in making a mark on the world,” he says. “I’ve never been interested in making a mark on the world. I just want to make things that are good. I know that may sound childlike, but I want to be able to make things that people engage with and laugh with. Things that make people forget their worries, even if it’s just for ten minutes, half an hour or an hour. I don’t care if it’s comedy, if it’s books or if it’s television programs. That’s all I’m interested in doing.”
Dylan Moran’s Off The Hook is on at State Theatre Saturday July 18 – Tuesday July 21 and Sunday August 23 – Sunday August 24, and also at the Civic Theatre, Newcastle on Friday July 17.
