‘I am a snivelling coward’: Why Shaun Micallef won’t be doing a Zelensky

Shaun Micallef is a comedian, actor, writer and television presenter. He is the host of the ABC’s satirical program Mad as Hell.

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Fitz: I put out a tweet on Wednesday saying that given Ukraine’s inspirational President Zelensky used to be a comedian, which of our current comedians would you choose to lead Australia in a crisis? There were a thousand responses, and you were the hands-down winner!

SM: [Laughs] I must say that I have great admiration for President Zelensky and the things he has achieved with the Ukraine people are extraordinary. In my case, I know in my heart of hearts that I am a snivelling coward. But in Australia right now, to become leader, that clearly isn’t a problem. My own cowardice would probably go unnoticed in this country.

Fitz: Do you have, and I mean this seriously, any comedic pride in what President Zelensky has done in so inspiring the Ukraine people to such magnificence, along the lines of “Let’s hear it for comedians, one of ours made good in the big city, leading his mighty nation like Winston Churchill!”

SM: It’s so impressive. I can’t really see how he got there from where he was. He must have had an enormous amount of confidence that I certainly don’t possess, where he thought, “I’m gonna back myself here. And I’m going to run!” Confidence and, I suspect, actual ability. Something else I lack.

Shaun Micallef is in awe of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.Credit:

“My jaw does drop more often than it used to. And I don’t know whether that’s because things have become more outrageous or whether it’s because my fuse is shorter.”

Shaun Micallef

Fitz: Despite your popularity, we the people know very little about you as you, not the satirist, actor, comedian, writer. Do you have another persona beyond the one we see on screen? At home, are you secretly a Liberal-voting Carlton supporter who guzzles fine wines, and you’ve invented the figure we see on screen in Mad as Hell just to turn a buck?

SM: Well, the persona on screen has been carefully cultivated over a period of almost 30 years now, and it is the product of a number of very talented writers so that I end up looking smarter than I am. But apart from that, it is pretty much me. I’m not an actor. I’m a performer.

Fitz: Two other frequent nominees to my tweet were Andrew Denton and Magda Szubanski and both frequently put their name and fame to the service of great causes. Denton, lately, with dying with dignity; Magda with marriage equality. You must be approached all the time to lend your fame and comedic chops to causes. Do you always resist?

Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

SM: Well, not only am I a snivelling coward, I’m also extraordinarily self-centred. And if I have something to say, I mostly do it on television because that’s where I earn my living. So, I don’t hold forth seriously on topics publicly if I can avoid it. I mean, I have done a couple of documentaries where I’ve dealt with kind of loftier themes, but I’ve always tried to do it with humour.

Fitz: There must be politicians you admire?

SM: For the ALP I quite admire Penny Wong’s approach, and for the Libs, James Paterson, as they don’t seem to care too much what people think. They don’t want to ingratiate themselves with the people they’re talking to. They have a seriousness of purpose, which I find quite admirable. And I like the fact that they don’t really necessarily want to be liked in that moment. Whereas say, somebody else like Barnaby Joyce, or even the Prime Minister, they’ve always got an eye on the gallery to make sure that they’re playing well.

Fitz: Is Barnaby a gift from the gods for comedians?

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

SM: He’s a fascinating character and particularly interesting at the moment because he looks like he’s beaten before he starts whenever he does an interview. On ABC 7.30 this week he was already in trouble from the moment he said, “Pleasure to be here”. And a couple of days earlier, he’d been on Sunrise: he was dismissed as a joke pretty much halfway through the interview because he was referring to the fact that there hadn’t been floods in the area where he was for 3500 years. And he was presenting that as a fact. It was astonishing. But looking in his eyes, I could tell that he didn’t really believe what he was saying and that he was beaten, and he didn’t really know what to say.

Fitz: You’re the expert. What is the problem?

SM: I think it’s a result of him and the Prime Minister and a few other members of parliament presenting themselves as our mates. We know Barnaby by his first name and in the PM’s case, we know him by his nickname. We’re invited to refer to them very informally. And I think at some stage, any weight or gravity that you need when you hold office has been eroded away. So, therefore, people feel they don’t need to shake your hand, or they can scream abuse at you, or dismiss you as a fool. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen in quite the way it has now.

Fitz: Is it hard for you that Mad as Hell is being put to air at a time when while the ABC is under pressure as never before to be apolitical, the federal government lately is giving you enough material in a day, to fill a month of shows, and that a lot of people really are as mad as hell?

SM: Well, it doesn’t affect us too much because of course that requirement for lack of bias is really only for its news services. Besides we started the show with Labor in office, and we didn’t have any trouble at all having a go at them. Probably the jokes were more about Labor being ineffective than they were about them being positively evil ... but we can have fun with both sides.

Fitz: A friend of mine who will remain nameless – let’s just call him Craig Reucassel – tells me you’re an absolute student of comedy, that you love it, you develop it, you think about it at the traffic lights, and while you’re walking the dog. I know you particularly love Groucho Marx. Personally, I love Marx’s line, where he says, “I don’t have a photograph, but you can have my footprints there upstairs in my socks.” Do you have your favourite Groucho line?

SM: Yes. He did a foreword for a book of New Yorker pieces by S.J. Perelman, where Groucho wrote,
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” That for me is a perfect joke.

Fitz: And, all modesty aside, your own line you’ve come up with that we could chisel on your comedic tombstone?

SM: Long ago, I wrote, and please chisel this if you get the opportunity, Peter: ‘We are all individual droplets of water. Together we make an ocean. Sometimes though, sharks swim in us.’

Fitz: Part of your schtick is the absolutely dead-pan wry aside, noting the absurdity of a political situation, where the sole sign of what you actually think comes through lifting an eyebrow as you deliver the line – but it still doesn’t rise half as much as Laura Tingle’s eyebrow on a good day. In real life are there things which makes you shake your fists at the TV screen, where in person you are carpet-biting mad?

SM: My jaw does drop more often than it used to. And I don’t know whether that’s because things have become more outrageous or whether it’s because my fuse is shorter.

Fitz: I can’t help but note when I Googled your name, I don’t see any sort of big profiles in the Women’s Weekly or the like. Few appearances on TV interview shows, very little about anything to do with your private life anywhere!

SM: My partner is not in show business, and we just sort of decided that we wouldn’t sell bits of our lives off to promote my work ...

Fitz: Wait ... you what? You’re going too fast. I don’t understand! You won’t sell a bit of your life to promote a book or the like? WHY NOT?

SM: [Laughs]. I know we do have to sometimes sell a bit to promote something, but I’m very, very careful. I cut the slice very thinly.

Fitz: Leaving Liberal and Labor out of it, let’s just say that a few years from now, there is a fabulously competent Prime Minister running a great government. Would that be the worst thing that could happen to Mad as Hell, as you would have no material?

SM: I’d happily lay down my sword. I’d much rather have that than a TV show.

Joke of the Week

There is a town in Scotland called Peterhead but pronounced “Peterheed”.

A lady calls the Peterhead Examiner wanting to place a death notice for her husband of 40 years.

“What would you like to write?” asks the editor.

“Put this: ‘Robert Reed, Peterheed, Deed’.”

“Surely after 40 years you want some sentiment as well?” the editor queries.

“Noo, noo, that’s eet,” she replies.

“Are you sure? If it’s the money, you get three lines for the same price as one.”

“Oh, let me have a think.” A few hours later she calls back stating she has taken his advice and wants to change her husband’s death notice.

“Good”, the editor says, “Can’t let 40 years go unrecognised, what is the notice?”

“Robert Reed, Peterheed, Deed. Volvo for sale.”

Tweet of the week

Quotes of the Week

“One in 3500-year event.” – Barnaby Joyce on the Lismore floods.

“One in 1000-year event.” – Dominic Perrottet on the floods.

“A one in 500-year flood.” – Scott Morrison.

“How are your knees, by the way? Do you have a safe word in case things go wrong, like ‘pineapple’, or ‘Daryl [Somers]‘? Because my safe word is ‘harder’.” – Channel Seven’s Sonia Kruger, asking Dancing With the Stars contestant Kris Smith, on how he and his partner cope with vigorous training routines.

“Now I will say one thing: I stay here. I stay in Kyiv. On Bankova Street. I’m not hiding. And I’m not afraid of anyone.” – Ukrainian President Zelensky, on TV, daring the Russians to come for him, and giving new meaning to the phrase “an inspirational address”.

“I absolutely understand the frustration, I understand the anger, I understand the disappointment.” – Scott Morrison in Lismore.

“I’m starting to get lots of queries about the number of mushrooms, and slime moulds. All those sorts of things are happening at a great rate. It is going to be an amazing autumn for mushrooms.” – Dr Brett Summerell, chief botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, looking on the bright side of all the city’s rain.

“They probably saved our lives and I know they saved heaps of other people’s lives, and they’re just two blokes in a tinny.” – Brett Bugg, a Murwillumbah flood victim saved with his family by two men in a tinny. Mr Bugg is hoping to find them to say thank you.

“What she described was abhorrent, should never have happened to her and should never have happened in our navy, But sadly, it did.” – Vice-Admiral Michael Noonan, Chief of Navy, apologising to Danielle Wilson, who was sexually assaulted as a young naval recruit over 30 years ago. It has taken this long for an apology.

“A number of bystanders and other emergency service workers who risked their lives to assist these patients are absolute heroes, we can’t thank them enough. One of the vehicles was well alight when we arrived, it was an extraordinary effort to get the patient out of the vehicle safely.” – NSW Ambulance inspector Giles Buchanan thanking the people who jumped into action after two cars collided on the Harbour Bridge on Monday morning.

“NSW is currently experiencing some of the worst flooding in the state’s history. The government is fully committed to assisting affected communities in relation to emergency response and recovery.” – Premier Dominic Perrottet.

“In the spirit of the Uluru Statement, I acknowledge the regrettable reality that this nation’s laws and legal systems have so often in the past delivered the opposite of justice to our Indigenous people.” – Andrew Bell on becoming the 18th Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court. Impressive.

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