Comedy Club

I am chatting to respected Australian actor John Wood on the phone, and our chat naturally turns to football. John is a Hawthorn supporter and we discuss the team’s close association with Tasmania. John believes it’s outrageous that Tassie doesn’t have its own team. The talk is topical as John is bringing David William’s famous play about football to Tasmania’s Theatre Royal. Of course, among other things the play features a character who is a Tasmanian football recruit.

When I ask John Wood how often he gets to Tasmania he says ‘not terribly often’. He recalls on the tourist side spending Christmas with his whole family a few years ago in Hobart, visiting the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and Mt Wellington, apart from that his visits have been work related, touring with plays. This visit John brings David Williams’ ‘The Club’ to Tasmania and he hopes during this trip he might be able to fit in a visit to Mona.

‘The Club’ is still relevant today, although payment for footballers has increased considerably to that detailed in the play and football has become a complete profession whereas in the plays time footballers had regular jobs.

John says the play’s flexibility could easily see it adapt to a story about a netball team but whereas the males might find it is difficult to express themselves and their solution so disputes might involve physical violence. Women can be more ‘subtle, malicious and hurtful’ in how they handle power disputes.

The play is however, as John says, hysterically funny and he singles out Act 2 when his character Jock unwittingly gets stoned as stand out comedy!

During the run of the play John says most characters end covered in blood, metaphorically of course, and that the play is a contradiction, although it is ‘ a Jacobean tragedy’ it could well be performed with ‘slap shoes and a red nose’

John, although he loves theatre, says he doesn’t regret his career in television where he is most known and loved by viewers as Tom Croydon in ‘Blue Heelers’. He recalls with happy memories his career at Crawfords.

When he started out the dramas were Homicide, Division Four and Matlock Police and John was employed by Crawfords in the 1970s to act in these programs and was often flown from one state to another to take part.

John is still working on television and you can see him on a semi-regular basis in the Dr Blake Mysteries.

You can also see John in The Club at the Theatre Royal 17 – 19 July.
Paula Xiberras