The Chaser Report - The Earl of Cobras | David Quirk

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

David Quirk joins Charles and Dom on The Chaser Report. Listen and discover why you should (or shouldn't) get tattoos, and the real reason Sydney has no nightlife.Tickets for David Quirk's show Cobra can be found here! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And today, comedian David Quirk, hello, David. Hello, folks. How is everyone? Good. How was the Melbourne Festival you've just done weeks of, you know, finessing and honing your craft ahead of bringing it to Sydney, the nation's second biggest city? how does it feel? Yeah, officially now, I think, yeah.

Personally, I can't believe a lot of the comedians just, I think on Monday went straight up to Sydney to sort of think about that and get that started. I can barely imagine that. I am just like the dust is settled and I don't know. It feels, you know, the circus leave town and it's quite, it's weird and it's desolate and it's brilliant. You know, it feels good.

The run was good, yeah. And so you did, what, 20 shows, 25 shows or something? Did you? 20 odd. All the other comedians on Instagram are saying they did 22 shows, so I must have done 22, but I wasn't counting. Right. I lost interest in that.

Would you say you were funnier now than you were a month ago? Yes. Yes, I would. The show, I'm the first to say the show, I don't think, hit the ground running. Some of the other comics had the benefit, the privilege maybe even, of doing their show. in your Adelaide's and your Perth's.

I didn't do that. My first festival was Melbourne, which is not ideal. So, yeah, I thought I knew what I was doing, but it really took a good week or more before I started to go, oh, wait a minute, you know what I mean? Maybe I do know what I'm doing now. I've often heard it said that the 22 dates in Melbourne are merely a sort of warm-up for your shows at the Sydney Comedy Festival.

Oh, yes. For those two dates, it takes 22 just to make sure you've got it in tip-to. condition. Yeah, I wanted to wear myself out for a month just so and then have a couple of weeks break. So it's like the biggest run-up of all time for the ultimate sprint, which is Sydney. Well, your show couldn't have been more underprepared than Daniel Kitson's show in Melbourne. I don't know whether you saw his show.

He was charging only 20 bucks for his show because he hadn't written anything. And then he did you say? Yeah, yeah. It's good you bring him up. I saw him. I know Daniel Kitsen a little bit these days, and he loves to drink coffee. Sure.

Like, properly. Like, that's all. Doesn't no alcohol, no. It's always daytime catch-ups with that man. But he said, on day one of speaking to him, when he arrived in Melbourne, he said, I've got nothing. This is in a text message.

I've got nothing for this vessel. And I wrote to him, not trying to kiss his ass too much, but I thought it's true. said, well, your nothing is another person's solid gold, which I think most people would agree. I would agree with that. But it was like, I saw his show, and it was not nothing. He, some, yeah, some great, great stuff in it. But charging $20 does the rest of us no favors.

No, exactly. Yeah. Trater. I mean, we're here to promote your show, but I think you've reminded everybody that Daniel Kitson's show, which might have gone. by the time people listen to this would be, it's a very good investment, very good value for money.

It is. So, yeah, it's nice, nice of you to promote another artist, David. Yeah, I think he could use the help, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's right.

But his old thing was, oh, I'm just going to work it up so that by the time I get to Edinburgh, it will be good. Is he bringing it back for us next year? Do we get to see the finish? Or are we just the out-of-town tryout?

Where's the respect, Kitsen? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It was still, yeah, it was an hour and a half long. Yeah. So you get, not only do you get,

you get nothing, but you get it for a solid amount of time. Yeah. To us for a self-indulgent extent. Yeah. That's fantastic. No, no,

there was some really great stuff in it. Is that annoying though, isn't it? Someone who has done no preparation. Blathers on for an hour and a half, and yet in there is so much brilliant. And this is my experience of watching Benio Kitsen, even when he doesn't prepare.

It's just really infuriating. I just listen to what his mind produces and go, well, fuck comedy. I go, you know, why do I even play in this world? This is, this is not for me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he did do a lot of quite a bit of written stuff that you could tell he did have

prepared, but, you know. Oh, so he lied about it. Okay. He's an outright liar, yeah. Oh, my God. But he, you know, the crowd work is, whoo, you know, just him. But yeah, we don't have to talk about him any longer. No, no, let's, let's, uh, so what have you been thinking about?

Um, I love this room you're in, by the way, guys. It's very sparse. Yeah. We've set up our own podcast network. It's called Iconiclast. Right, right. And this is going to be the studio. Yeah.

But we haven't signed the lease. No, so we're sort of, but we're able to access it and sit in it with microphone. So just to describe the scene, we're sitting in, we've got fairly fancy microphones in front of a completely bare bookshelf. It's, it's miserable. It's a miserable space. And it goes horrible. It sort of suits, it suits you guys in some.

backwards way. Yeah, the comedy cupboard is bare. Well, this is all our awards that we've won over the years. There's nothing, nothing at all. Yeah, yeah, it's like, it looks like illegal or like if Breaking Bad was a podcast or something. We're actually squatting. I mean, technically speaking, even though they know we're here, the people who run this, we don't have a lease.

We're just sitting in an empty office stealing government-owned resources, really. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we're doing. Well, that's the dream, isn't it? It is. Well, in New South Wales, that's basically how you get ahead. Yeah. You just steal from the government. Yeah, yeah.

Ever since the Rum Rebellion. So, David. Sorry, you were asking me a question. I know. Tattoos, I gather, are a theme in this new show of yours, Cobra. Oh, yes. And I've never had a tattoo. Convinced me I should, David.

Convinced me that what I need is permanent ink in my life. No, you don't. The show, it touches on tattoos, probably because you're seen the poster the bold photo with my shirt off yeah um you're looking pretty good for for a for a man he's been in the game a while david impressive yeah look i kitsen doesn't have his shirt off kitson doesn't do a shirt off photo does he that's why he saw so many tickets nor should he um no i don't know i my partner just said i said i think the show is going to be called cobra and i've got this stupid cobra or the tattoo of the word had it i thought there's only one way to show it and so i had to take

my shirt off and i also thought at 42 years old I might never look that half decent again, so I may as well take a photo of it. But yeah, it's a very non-comedy sort of photo, but I think that's, I think I'm very non-comedy. Did you train?

Like, did you sort of get a bit buff beforehand? I skateboard a lot. I ride a push bike. I have been trying to do some, you know, I do push-ups. That's the symbol for push-ups on Zoom. Yeah, nice.

That sort of stuff. But no, I'm just, I guess I eat all right, guys, you know? But yeah, should you get a tattoo? Absolutely not. I say at the end of the show, it's a poor,

it's a poor way for one to express themselves, is the tattoo. I never had a tattoo until I was well into my 30s. So I feel like you're free to make some silly choices. Were you aware? Were you aware when he went into the tattoo salon that it's possible to have a picture of a cobra instead of having the word written?

I'm curious about the choice. It's certainly unconventional, really. Many people would have got the word written in Chinese, I suppose. But you've just got the word, the word on one pectoral. Well, if you see the show, it will be revealed because it's a word I always say. The whole show is about, the cobblum to me is, it's all explained in the show, but it talks about, it's like a term of endearment for like a tough idea of normally sort of massacons. skill and things but um yeah so the word and since i use words all the time don't we all i thought

it they're just it's better than a picture the picture of an actual oh i see that's like that's like old school bulldust so i i just thought the word is funny and it also was free as well i'd like to point that out uh i was at a wedding sort of a bit of a punkish wedding where they were there was a tattoo it's giving free tattoos that's amazing that's so that's when i got it i doubt i'd have the tattoo i would never pay money for that i'm gonna i'm gonna hire that to to us to do my next kid's party. That's a very good idea. You should.

I can put you in touch with him. Yeah. Okay. Maybe what I need inspired by you is a tattoo of the word tattoo. And just as a label. Yeah. It's mess up. That's good. Yeah.

That's good. Tattoo, yeah. There's no doubt. Permanent tattoo. I can, perhaps right. That's funny. Look, because my brother's got a lot of, my brother's a lot cool than me. My brother's an artist and a painter.

And much more successful. Much more successful. And he's sort of funny. He's got, he's actually, yeah, he's actually better than me in every dimension. And he has tattoos, many tattoos. He got a tattoo for each of his children when they were born, for his wife. Just, you know, his body tells a story in tattoos. Yes.

Whereas my body has no stories to tell. Mind you, if you were ever wanted for murder, yeah. It would be much easier to identify your brother if he was on the lamb because he'd have all these tattoos that you can't erase. whereas you can just anonymously, you know, go into the crowd and never be saying. Yeah, that's true, it's true. You don't want to be marked. That's a nice way of saying I'm entirely indistinguishable, which is true.

It also means that if you ever turn up dead in a ditch, it'll be very hard to tell whether it's you or not. That's why I have to get the tattoo of tattoo. Yeah. You'll just be one of those anonymous deaths, you know, mass graves or something. Pasty white man. Well, that could be anyone. It could be any other victim. really. So David, are you a full-time Melbourneian these days? Are you in there for the long haul?

Even sometimes against my will. But yeah, I'm from country Victoria is where I grew up and moved to Melbourne. Because I'm from northeast Victoria, I grew up in the bush, I suppose. You know, you turn 18 or so, you start to think about where you might move or what you might do. And I guess Melbourne was the closest town. And so I moved here and sort of lived here since, I think, 1999. Wow. But yeah, I would love to live elsewhere now. or something, but no, I'm happy here. I think it's a good city.

It's a good town. In terms of comedy. The town, world-class city. It's kind of the only place to do comedy in Australia, isn't it? There's not really any other viable place to base yourself. No. I'm very jealous of a lot of the folks that have come out of Brisbane, which is quite amazing. You know, you're Sam Campbell's, your Greg Larson's, your Damien Powers.

Is the amazing bit that they got out? Is that what you're getting out? No, they're getting out makes sense. But I think it must, being the kind of town that Brisbane is, unlike Melbourne, must sort of breed, sort of hone the weirdness can be honed into something hardened. And the rage, the rage that those comedians managed to access, surprisingly easily, I feel, yeah, yeah. But then again, also Sydney, I'm a huge fan and friend of John Crookshank. I don't know if you know him. No, there's no comedy scene in Sydney at all.

I've never heard of him because it's just the way it works. You can do comedy in Sydney and move to Melbourne. Why didn't we do that? Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand. I'll see him next year at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Yeah, that's probably the place to see him, yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, wait until he comes back here. Yeah, yeah. Whatever you do, don't leave the house to pay money to... To go and see a comedy show. Well, you wouldn't find... You'd sound below one by accident, but you certainly wouldn't find out about it any other way. See, I didn't realize until this conversation that you could go out at night. Because I'm from Sydney.

I've lived here my whole life. So is there... I didn't realize... So what happens in Melbourne? You go out at night. In Melbourne, you can finish work for the day. You don't even have to go straight home. You can actually go out and you might be able to see a film or go on out of dinner.

I forgot you guys can't do that. Are the streets illuminated in Melbourne? Do you just bump into cars and things? You guys have got the roving death squads, don't you, at night? Well, I don't know. I've never been out. I've never been outside at night. You would know.

I don't know. I mean, maybe they're illuminated here. I think there's lockouts that begin at 5 p.m. don't they? That everybody locks you out. Yeah, right. Well, unless it's Maryvale. I did forget.

Yeah, I think you're allowed, as long as it's owned by Maryvale, I think there are some sort of exceptions for, yeah, that makes sense. I think the festival that I've been seeing on, that I'm apparently even booked to do is pretend, isn't it? No, it's a really good, see, the thing is Melbourne came up with a world-renowned international comedy festival and had a model where it was open. Anyone could have a show and, you know, hundreds and hundreds of shows. That's one way to do a festival.

Sydney, of course, waited and got it right. Yes. Where it's run by one company that owns all the venues, pretty much. And so that's why, that's why, no, this is a good, this is a good thing. You only get, rather than having to do 20 days and, you know, having the whole problem of having a run and people's, you know, this word of mouth and by the final week you're selling out and there's a lot of excitement. Do you think it's, is it actually, this is interesting.

That's the Melbourne way of doing it. The Sydney way of doing it is, well, there's just two gigs in your case. Most people do one to two gigs. Yeah, I'm doing one. And if you get to it, great. Yeah. But if not, then, yeah, the company's rented to the room to someone else tomorrow night. So you can tell as well as you like, but no, there's definitely no momentum.

That's a superior way, I think it's vertically integrated, isn't it? It's like Apple. Given the high levels of sarcasm that have already in this chant, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I mean, it seems to me a little bit of a frustrating model. However, they've actually managed to create a thing called the Sydney Comedy Festival that apparently makes enough money to continue to exist. So perhaps it's a genius idea. Perhaps it's the only possible way to have anything in Sydney that runs for more than once

without going broke is by the company running the whole thing. The machinations. I don't know. Well, this is certainly an amazing glimpse behind the magician's curtain of the Sydney comedy business. I think both David and I are a little bit too scared to comment, to be honest. I think I did one show with the ever. I also can't comment negatively because I'll... Someone, they're doing it.

It's the other game in town. Yeah. I can fall credit to them for having the only game in town. Well, there was, there was that brief period in Sydney about 20 years ago where there were two competing. That's right. There were two competing ones. Which was hilarious.

And there was, and they, what was the other one? One was called the, was it just for laughs or something? Well, it was just for laughs had a Sydney branch, but then there was another one at the same time. I can't what it's called. The Cracker. Cracker. Cracker, that's right.

Cracker comedy festival. Oh, yeah. And they, it was, I mean, actually. a dear colleague of our colleague of ours, I think, did the Cracker Comedy Festival, it wasn't it, John Pinder, who was the founder of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Yeah, yes, and...

That's right, and... He booked out. Didn't he... I never went to it, but the world's funniest island. Yes, the world's funniest island with the world's worst ferry service, apparently. No, he booked... I mean, it was a front page news

because he booked Cockatoo Island and then... No, he forgot... I think he forgot to book the Ferrier. service or something. Right. And so it was a bit like Firefist before Firefifist.

Because it went spectacularly busts. I mean, it was the world's funniest Alan, but the joke was on the audience, unfortunately. He was a wonderful dreamer and entrepreneur and he's given the world many, and we love him.

Yeah, he passed away. Yeah, he was a magnificent man, but that wasn't one of the administrative highlights of his long and successful life. Yes. No, no. So have we offended it? Everyone, have I managed to ensure I can never get a gig at this indie comedy festival?

I think so, I think so. But that's okay. That's okay. Mind you. Do you ever do Adelaide? Yeah, I've done Adelaide numerous times, especially in my early days of doing the festivals. I think I did it in the, it must have been 2021 was the last time I did it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's always, it's always a Mugger's game. Because I love, I love Adelaide. That's my favorite festival, because it's so beautiful. It's just... Yeah, it's so beautiful, and people really come out. I mean, Melbourne, you know, has its festivals and Sydney does well, and they're both pretty amazing places, but I don't think any city in Australia can touch that level of sort of things going on.

That's a thing that's saving all up for one month. Or February or whatever. Yeah, it's crazy. It's a very efficient system. Yeah. And Sydney, by contrast, saves all of its energy up for one night. It's just literally, we only have New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve, yeah, that's it.

And then... You're exhausted for 364 days, yeah. Certainly too tired to go to comedy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and the firework budget, I mean, it must really ruin the rest of the year, I suppose. Well, the cocaine budget, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what you mean by fireworks, yeah.

The Chaser Report, less news more often. David, I must say it's been a while since I saw one of your shows, but I've loved the ones that I've seen. Thank you so much. You are a spectacular comedian. Thank you. I didn't expect that. I just got up from asleep before.

I've talked to a few comedians this week whose shows I haven't seen it all ever. So it's nice to have someone on the podcast where I can actually feel comfortable in saying if you go and see the David Quirk comedy experience, you'll go away happy. Thank you so much. No, that's nice. I was told, no, come and see the show. Free tickets. Free tickets for all.

That sounds like a terrible business. You've made it this far into the podcast. No. I'm not going to make enough money anyway. Pay the man. He's got it. Well, I mean, he did get the tattoo for free, to be fair. Yeah.

You should just do the Daniel Kitson thing and next time not write a show, but then heavily discounted and see how that goes for it. I wonder if that would work. Just quickly, I'm sure you want to wrap up by the sounds of it, even though I thought you wanted to talk about some sort of news thing today. Oh, we did, but it wasn't communicated to us what the story was. Yeah, by all means. No, well, I just want to talk about, in terms of Kitson and his,

why he can promote himself, which I think stands alone. One that stands out to me is Sam Campbell, if you know him. He was selling out a 400-seat venue nightly here and then moved to the Athenaym Theater, which I'm sure you're familiar with. but for example the way he markets himself it's outrageous it's in Edinburgh he was his poster try and picture this if you don't know his poster was a full bleed image a photo of himself and the reviewer Steve Bennett from Chortle

the comedy the comedy English comedy website and no text oh no text no text at all no text that was his post because you had to know who it was and just just you know and he won the award he won the main award with the poster like that and it's just like you know it's very I thought I would see him as a comedy sort of nerd but he's actually a comedy

punk genius that's bloody irritating I must say that level of success it is it I don't like that I've got text on mine I've got times I've got dates it's so weak that's very 22 David yeah I had to be one to tell you that was very last year regarding regarding news there's all sorts of things that are close to my heart but I thought I'd bring up something that I read today that sort of found interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you read The Guardian?

Can you see this? Do you know what that is? Oh, I do know what that is. Yeah, yeah, that's a fantastic story. What is it? Charles doesn't know this story. Tell Charles. Well, it's just that, okay, Charles, here we go.

The only Australian with a role in King Charles' coronation is from Wangorata when most people don't know him. I found it interesting because I'm 45 minutes. I grew up 45 minutes from Wanggarata. Wang. The Wang. Yeah, my dad lives right in your Wang. Greta.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, and then it goes on to say, Simon Abney Hastings, the 15th Earl of Luton, Luden, will be the bearer of the Great Golden Spurs on 6th of May.

But that doesn't cut much ice in the town where Nick Cave grew up, which is true. Damn straight. Apparently, there's a theory, I believe, I don't know if it says so in the article, David, but there's a theory

that this man, who lives in, you know, from regional Victoria, is actually the rightful king in sort of gamans, going to throne's way, because there was a bastard somewhere back in the lineage.

What are the descendants? of, what are they called? There's a word I had to look up. Where is it? Well, sorry, guys. I feel like I'm really blowing this. No, this reminds me. This reminds me of Daniel Kitson.

George Plantaginant. Plantaginit, yes, yes. Plantagenet. Yes. So I had to look that up. It's like some 11th century sort of stuff. Yeah, I think they got killed off. But then they've clearly got some descendants living in rural Victoria.

And if you were a royal, a genuine royal, you would live in regional Victoria, where you could probably hunt on the fly and get some pheasants. It's making me laugh, but I find it really quite wild. No one in the town even knows him. Like, he's just, what the hell? So he doesn't go around. Because if I was an, is he an earl? Is that what he is?

Yeah, he's an earl. He's an earl. I would insist on everyone, you know, addressing me by my proper title. Like, you know, you go and pick up the herald son. You go, please. You're right. You're right. Yeah, yeah.

Call me, sir, or I don't know what. They call Earl, but, you know, yeah, you're royal. Your grace, probably, I don't know. Your grace. But imagine the notion of being a genuine royal of some sort, or possibly even the rightful king, and living in a rural place outside of the UK and just shutting the fuck up.

Imagine if Prince Harriet had that over it. You know, it's a genius concept. Exactly. And also, as I felt, it took me years growing up there, we were, my parents, they had to go do a big shop. You would drive to Wangorata. You had to go to the Kmart or whatever. And we all called it Wang,

Well, the only famous person from there, which is mentioned in this article, is Dean Woods, who is the champion cyclist. Oh. He died recently. But then I found out later in life, probably 15 years ago, that Nick Cave got expelled from school at 13, and he rightly knows it's an absolute shithole. I also know that. It is a shithole. So it is amazing that this – I don't know how he's ended up there, but I love – Well, I think it's – property.

Property prices. Yeah. I think it's – isn't that the only reason people moved to? Wang Goretta? Apparently, he probably moved there during COVID, which is what they did. It says here he's the only Australian to play an official role in the coronation of King Charles Perth. And something involving Golden Spurs, which sounds bizarre, like that cowboy Wild West.

But maybe you should get him on the podcast. We should probably get him on the podcast. Oh, yes. What a great idea. I'll have a word to him for you. Yes, thank you. You can put the word out through the Wang, you know, network. Yeah.

And so does that mean, do you know Nick Cave? Do you know Nick Cave then? Did you grow up in? No, I do not know him. He used to go into the skate shop I used to work in, but no, I can't speak to that. Sorry, sorry to hang on a sour note, guys. Yeah, that's, it's terrible. I kind of, I kind of wanted you on the podcast because I thought you needed a cave.

That's, like, as much as I genuinely did enjoy, I think I've seen you two or three times before and enjoyed them all. It was just sort of a Nick Cave. It was the Nick Cave thing. Yeah. And the Royal connection, obviously. And, and the Royal connection. I had you with a Nick Cave. Yeah.

Despite that, I'm going to, I'm going to be generous and say, despite the lack of Nick Cave. you know, exclusive information, still go and see David Quirk's show, Cobra, 6th, 7th of May at the Sydney Comedy Festival. And if you're lucky, he'll reveal his tattoo, not of a cobra, but of the word. Yeah. I think that's well worth the price of admission. So you, do you flash it? Because it's on your nipple.

Yeah, look. Free the nipple. Oh, shit, that's hard. There you go, guys. That's worth, what are you. That's worth more money than Daniel Kitsen charges. I'll tell you that much. Yeah, I hope they balm me.

Someone stands me up, like, at the end of all this, you know? like a weekend of Bernies. Absolutely. Thanks, guys. It's been erotic. It's good having you on. Thanks, David. I'll see you during daylight hours in Sydney, right?

Yeah, that's the other option. Gears from Road, we're part of the Icona class network. Catch you next time.