Released 2025 (Australia)

SUNDAY 15 February 2026 – 10.00 am
TUESDAY 17 February 2026 – 8.15 pm
RUNNING TIME 103 minutes

Synopsis:

Lorin Clarke’s film about her late, much-loved father John Clarke offers insights and giggles in equal measure. 

Review: Stephen A Russell

As beloved a Kiwi import as Crowded House or pavlova, the late, great satirist John Clarke may have been worshipped as fictional sheep-shearer Fred Dagg across the ditch, but here he was arguably best known as one half of a multi-channel political flame-throwing duo with Bryan Dawe. So it felt like the nation was torn in half when Clarke unexpectedly died while hiking in Victoria in 2017.

Luckily for us, he and his family were prolific home video enthusiasts, with his eldest daughter, Lorin, enjoying impromptu interview sessions with her father. These recordings, alongside a wealth of archival footage and effusive talking heads, form the basis of her illuminating documentary, But Also John Clarke.

In New Zealand, it’s Not Only Fred Dagg But Also John Clarke, a nod to Clarke’s adoration of the classic Dudley Moore and Peter Cook’s BBC sketch show, Not Only… But Also.

He’d study their routine religiously while working in the back offices of  NZBC. Something his family did with taped comedy bits in the way others would study sports manoeuvres.

It’s an abundantly comforting the documentary, with Lorin acknowledging, ‘We shared him, in a sense, with strangers at the supermarket or while walking the dog’. His celebrity, half of which was established across the water before the kids were born in Melbourne, followed the family wherever they went.

An emotional Sam Neill, best mates since their uni days, confirms that it would take three hours to walk 100 yards in his company because he’d always take the time to talk with fans who flocked to his side.

Holding truth to power can sometimes be a dreadfully earnest business, but not so with Clarke, who had, as a plethora of his pals can attest, the most mischievously twinkly eyes that made it incredibly hard for his comedic partners and others to maintain a straight face.

A Current Affair presenter Jana Wendt certainly struggled keeping it together on air before the pair decamped, with their faux interviews intact, to the ABC’s The 7.30 Report. She notes their sharp-witted spitfire was both horrifying and hilarious on live television.

With oodles of smarts behind the silliness, Clarke was ferociously well-read, loved playing with language and performing poetry aloud. While he may not have excelled academically, that was more about his rebellious refusal to temper his high-spirited humour in the face of authoritarian bullies masquerading as respectable disciplinarians.

That included his father, Ted, though the documentary is at pains to put his violent and dismissive nature in the context of a spirit shattered by the horror of World War II. A shadow that also haunted his mother, Neva, who lost two fiancés to the earth-shattering conflict before marrying Ted. The pair would clash incessantly, with Clarke even pressed into service by his mother during the divorce proceedings.

Perhaps this is why Clarke ensured there was such abundant love for his own partner, art historian and writer Helen McDonald, and their kids? It’s certainly a treat to see glimpses of the real man behind all the multitude of faces he wore professionally, in But Also John Clarke’s beautifully drawn portrait of an impeccably crafted artist peddling seeming anarchy.

In a sure sign of Clarke’s kindness behind the scenes, several comedians credit the fictional sport of farnarkling inventor with giving them a hand-up in their early days.

People like Andrew Denton, who received a supportive call while smarting from the cancellation of his show The Money or the Gun. Both Anne Edmonds and Wendy Harmer note how hard he championed women writers and performers.

I’ll leave the last words to Clarke himself, with this wise piece of advice: ‘Life would be pretty boring if we didn’t make it funny.’

Source: www.screenhub.com.au  ~ Stephen A Russell 3/9/2025: Edited extracts. Accessed 14/1/26