A wry kind of grief: John Clarke's satire and the bureaucracy of sport

Abstract

In Australia, sport has traditionally been held too sacred for mockery. This began to change in the 1980s with radio shows that affectionately mocked the verbiage of sporting commentary. Among the pioneers were Melbourne-based radio commentators, the Coodabeen Champions, and the Sydney-based radio and TV comedy duo, Rampaging Roy Slaven (John Doyle) and H. G. Nelson (Greig Pickhaver). Trans-Tasman satirist John Clarke also built on his earlier work to dissect the imaginary ancient sport of farnarkeling in The Gillies Report (ABC TV, 1984–1985). The advent of mega sporting events including the Australian millennial Olympics favoured the emergence of a more satirical critique aimed at bureaucratic hype and posturing by sports czars. In the run-up to the Sydney Games, Clarke and Stevenson co-wrote a 2-part series The Games for ABC TV (1998, 2000), starring Clarke, Bryan Dawe and Gina Riley. This moved Clarke’s earlier sports humour away from affectionate mockery towards a satirical critique of sport as a bureaucratic construct corrupted by money-making and media coverage. This article argues that such satire contributed to exposing the shady politics and inept institutional management of sport, both in Australia and more broadly. It probes the connections between humorous creation, professional sport realities, audience awareness and social impact, arguing that, while the ability of satire to bring about reform is here (as elsewhere) strictly limited, the satire contributes to public awareness and acknowledgement of contemporary sporting scandals.