Spin: Election 2022 at Enmore Theatre
Charles Firth is one of three political wits behind Spin: Election 2022, in which The Chaser Digital and The Shovel present “a comedic masterclass on the upcoming election.”
The other two wits are James Schloeffel, from the The Shovel, and the entertaining Mark Humphries (from the ABC’s 7:30).
Schloeffel’s witty satirical journal, The Shovel, was born in 2013 after Schloeffel felt frustrated by political coverage in the Australian media. His journal is right up there with that paradigm of American satire, The Borowitz Report.
The Chaser used to be a “wide and diverse” group of white privileged men, but nowadays, according to Firth, “we’ve done this generational renewal and got a whole lot of 20-something, keen-bean interns, underpaid creatives, so we’re far more diverse, we even have some women!”
I raised a metaphorical eyebrow, and Firth added, “Yes, we have to adapt to these modern things, like women.”
The Federal government provided “a wealth of material” for their 2022 show. “It’s not that we were lacking material,” he says wryly.
“What defines this year’s politics is the extraordinary spin, which Scott Morrison is a master at. In fact his prime ministership has been defined by a series of photos of him dressed up in every single profession in Australia. This is an extraordinary feat of image-making and image-management,” Firth says.
Finally, Charles offered this advice to politicians: “The most important qualification for any politician is to get into Hi-Viz gear and wear a hard hat, and to pretend to be a working–class suburban dad and not a rich Eastern suburbs person who went to an elite private school and played rugby.”
Firth added that, “Our audiences this year express a strong hostility to the Morrison government, and they are laughing longer and harder in our shows.”
