WATCH THE TRAILER (IF YA WANT)
Awards
Nominated: Best Documentary
Nominated (Aleck Morton) Best Editing in a Documentary
Won! Best Direction! Capricorn!
Nominated: Best Documentary (AWGIE Writers Guild Awards)
Nominated: Best Documentary, FCCA Awards
PS there’s a book!
My memoir WOULD THAT BE FUNNY: GROWING UP WITH JOHN CLARKE is reviewed here: Inside Story, The Conversation, ArtsHub, Tumbleweeds.
Screenings
Dad’s home town - Palmy screening!
Kiwis show up for Fred
NOT ONLY FRED DAGG BUT ALSO JOHN CLARKE (about which you can learn more at the official film website) is currently enjoying many a crowded screening across the country in Aotearoa New Zealand and I am absolutely LOVING SICK the reports I’m getting from Kiwis who have seen the film. Please never stop getting in touch. Thank you so much to each and every one of you for going along, with or without gumboots.
The Trevs at the film launch.
Australians can now watch on iView
Australians! Even though it’s still screening at select cinemas, the New Year’s Day launch of the film on ABC TV and iView generated such a lovely response.
Dad’s audience showed up right on time with a big heart, a cup of tea, and the memory of an elephant.
I’ve loved hearing from you and I’m so grateful to the ABC for welcoming Dad back for one more appointment with his audience.
Thanks again to all the wonderful people who worked on the film and worked to make it happen, and also to Dad’s audience, who followed him everywhere he went, always.
Press
“Entertaining, touching and very, very funny.”
- FILM INK
“This works on pretty much every level you could ask for.”
- IT’S BETTER IN THE DARK
“A deliciously enjoyable, and masterfully made, piece of cinema.”
- GLAM ADELAIDE
“Lorin Clarke’s remarkable effort in weaving so much material together and measuring against too much hagiography in favour of insights and giggles in equal measure shows that the apple hasn’t fallen too far from Fred Dagg’s tree.”
- SCREEN HUB
“Australia has always liked John Clarke. And thanks to his daughter’s delightful film, it will perhaps come to know him just that little bit better, too."
- THE AGE
FEATURED: Best Australian Films of 2025 (Andrew F. Peirce) at the Curb.
FEATURED: Best Australian Films of 2025 (Stephen A Russell) at ScreenHub.
FEATURED: Best Australian Films of 2025 (Nadine Whitney) at the Curb.
Things that are not my movie…
Me in The Monthly
“All that pumped-up bravado falls away,” he said. “And almost to a person, the next thing that happens is they cry for their mum.”
And, oh man, that hit hard. Partly because I related.
I wrote a pice for The Monthly about the experience of being a young person in the current age.
Yes I am aware I am not a young person and that patronising pontificating about young people by middle-aged white ladies is not the finest tradition, but I’m coming at this one with empathy, I promise!
Test that theory here.
Fitzroy Diaries peeps…
I get asked a lot whether The Fitzroy Diaries is going to have another season. I wish I could say yes, but the fact is, my partner in crime, Sophie Townsend, is busy with her own projects, and I’m busy with a bunch of other things too. Meanwhile, do go and have a listen to me reading my audiobook. There’s even an extract or two from Fitzroy Diaries in there.
If you haven’t heard the Fitzroy Diaries, you can listen to it wherever you find your podcasts. Written and narrated by yours truly and produced by ABC Radio National by the incredible Sophie Townsend.
2025 Literary Awards
2025 Premier’s Literary Award winners with Minister Brooks.
2025 saw a new category in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards; the John Clarke prize for humour writing. When he moved to Australia from New Zealand in 1977, my father, satirist John Clarke decided to learn to write. The Clarke family is deeply grateful to the State government of Victoria, especially The Hon. Colin Brooks MP, for backing the $25,000 prize. In the process of this coming together, I learned a lot about how to get a literary prize to happen and quite frankly there should be a TV show about it. Thank you to the absolutely terrifying Kay Setches AM, to previous Minister Danny Pearson, to Andrew Kenyon, to Jonathan Pickering, and to arts hero Claire Febey. And of course congratulations to the many excellent writers whose work we read for the prize, and to the inaugural winner, Robert Skinner.
Congratulations, too, to Lech Blaine for winning The Age Book Of The Year non-fiction book (another award I sat on the jduging panel for). This was another list of brilliant books and the short list is just hit after hit. Lech’s book is funny and touching and thought-provoking and unique. Have a read why don’t you.
