Out of Context
One of the most intriguing shows at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival is Richard Herring’s Hitler Moustache, currently packing them in at the Underbelly. From what I can glean, Herring, who Melbourne audiences may recall from his Talking Cock show of a few years back, is attempting to reclaim the so-called ‘toothbrush moustache’ for comedy. He’s been sporting one himself for several months now, to a mixed response, and this got me thinking. In all my forty-five years, I have never once seen anyone wearing a toothbrush – or, to use its more common title, Hitler – moustache in any context outside of a comedy sketch or ill-advised office Christmas party shenanigan. In fact, as far as I know there have only been five Hitler moustache-wearers ever: Hitler himself, Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy, Blakey from On the Buses, and Peter Sellers as Fred Kite in I’m All Right Jack. No doubt there was some obscure South American tyrant or eccentric Norwegian balloonist who gave it a crack, but once Hitler made the toothbrush his own, it soon fell from favour. Just like colourful jumpers post-Daryl Somers, to cite another twentieth century dictator. But, as far as most people would be aware, it’s Hitler, Chaplin, Hardy, Blakey and Kite; history’s greatest psychopath and four comedians.
Now, obviously there would have been no Blakey or Kite without Hitler, so we can cross them off the list. They’re essentially taking the piss. It’s the Chaplin-Hardy-Hitler chronology that intrigues me. Of the younger people I have polled, many assumed that Chaplin and Hardy came after Hitler; that they, like Blakey and Kite, were sending him up. Chaplin’s Great Dictator only adds to the confusion. But Chaplin first donned the toothbrush way back in 1913, and Hardy soon after. By the time Hitler began his rise to power (which began with the ‘Serious Moonlight’ tour in ’33), Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp’ had the most famous face in the world. What an odd decision, then, for Hitler to don what was surely known at that time as a ‘Charlie Chaplin moustache’, in an attempt to terrify the world into accepting his Final Solution. It must have been like Saddam Hussein wearing a Carrot Top wig, or Osama Bin Laden recording one of his taped messages with a comedy arrow through his head. But who could tell with Hitler? The guy was nuts.
I trust that this issue will be fully put to bed in Mr Herring’s show, although, by all reports, Hitler Moustache is a comprehensive look at fascism in all its forms, and has inevitably created a firestorm of controversy, centring on an article by Brian Logan in the Guardian that created the misleading impression that the comedian ‘hates Pakistanis’. Herring responded with an article of his own and was able to show that Logan had quoted lines from the show out of context. And when the lines include ‘racists have a point’, you can see why he’s so ropable. The whole business has been extremely ugly and must have had Herring wondering whether he should have stuck with talking about his cock for an hour. But it’s hardly the first time that a comedian going about his business has been stitched up by the scribblers.
I was reminded of this myself at the weekend, when I ran into a journalist from the Herald Sun down at my local shops. It was an uncomfortable encounter, given an article about me penned by this man back in August 2007. While hardly comparable to the Logan-Herring stoush, this absurd affair does perhaps illustrate why comedians are so suspicious of the press and their motives.
A few weeks after the well-publicised BoyTown Confidential brouhaha – or ‘Funnyman Feud’, as the Herald Sun put it – the paper’s radio correspondent called to request an interview. ‘It’s not going to be another story about the trouble with me and Mick, is it?’ I said. ‘Definitely not,’ replied the reporter. ‘I just want to do an article about your radio show.’ The interview took about an hour, during which, as promised, all the questions concerned Get This, save for one at the end about Mick Molloy. I stammered out as diplomatic an answer as I could muster, and was assured by the reporter that ‘It’s just going to be about the show’.
‘So, not another article about the feud, then?’
‘Definitely not.’
At the end of any interview comes the awkward business of getting a photo to go with it. God help you if there’s a wacky lampshade nearby, or a set of monkey bars. Or someone you work with; one of you will usually end up in a headlock. But, as Shaun Micallef once wisely observed, at least if you’re, say, wearing ten bowler hats, you don’t have to pull a zany face. The hats are doing all the work. It was with this in mind that I agreed to the reporter’s suggestion that I be photographed clutching a disembodied steering wheel in the aftermath of a car accident. Although, the reasons for this setting were not immediately clear.
‘Well, remember you talked on the show about having that car accident,’ he explained.
‘Yeah, but that was, like, over a year ago.’
‘Sure, I just thought it could be a nice tie-in.’
‘Right. So, it’s nothing to do with, say, my relationship with Mick Molloy?’
‘No, no, no. The story’s about the show. Definitely not.’
The photographer, who appeared to be wearing Jon English’s teeth, showed up the next morning in a car that really should have been taken behind the screens years ago.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Just been shooting that Ian McEwan.’
‘The novelist? Is he in town?’
‘Nah, not him, mate. Fuckin’ Gandalf.’
I wondered who he thought I was. Toni Collette, perhaps.
He announced that he wanted to take the shot down on the St Kilda Esplanade, so I climbed into the rusting hulk and looked in vain for a seatbelt. Before he could start the engine, the photographer unhooked a small hose from the steering column and started blowing into it. After several minutes of wheezing, a beep finally sounded and he was able to start the ignition. He then revealed that this exhausting procedure was court-mandated. ‘This is the price you pay for having too much fun, mate.’
‘But if you were pissed, couldn’t you just get someone else to blow into it for you?’
He looked at me like this had never occurred to him.
At seven consecutive sets of lights, the motor stalled and he was forced furiously to blow into the hose while cars behind us honked impatiently. By the time we got to the beach, I thought he was going to have a heart attack.
It took half an hour to set up the photo, in the middle of the road, as harsh Antarctic winds sliced in from the bay. But in the end, the shot was so tight, we may as well have done it in my driveway. I felt ridiculous, but at least I would be publicising the show. Because that’s what the article was going to be about. Not Mick and me. Definitely not.
I knew I’d been done over as soon as I saw the banner on the front page: a picture of Mick and me with the headline ‘Best of Enemies’. The car crash photo took up the whole cover of the ‘Weekend’ section and was accompanied by this caption: ‘Their twenty-year friendship is in tatters, but Martin insists he’s the one in the driving seat.’ Inside, there was another full-page photo of Mick and me separated by a massive crack with the headline ‘Split Ends’ (although wouldn’t that have made more sense if the feud were over?). The article spent several paragraphs talking about the ‘bitter public spat’, and featured a box containing several celebrities offering their comments on the ‘comedy split’. A further box contained a second mini-article about the ‘major falling out’ and ended with the line ‘The only people talking now are their lawyers’ (we both have the same lawyer, so presumably he’s talking to himself). This box also contained a brief one-line mention of my radio show.
When I bumped into the reporter at the weekend, he was with what appeared to be his wife and child, so I refrained from saying what I was thinking. Besides, I’d hate to have it taken out of context.
Tony Martin is the Melbourne-based author of ‘A Nest of Occasionals’ and ‘Lolly Scramble’. Podcasts of his radio show ‘Get This’ are still available for free download at iTunes (type in: ‘Get This: Richard Marsland Lives’). He is currently directing new episodes of ABCTV's ‘The Librarians’.
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