When Lorin Clarke told her mum, Helen, she was making a documentary about her late father, John, his “partner in every regard” warned that it couldn’t just be a story of how great he was.
But Not Only Fred Dagg But Also John Clarke reveals John, who left school at 15, created the beloved comedy character Fred Dagg as a young man and later became a satirical writer and TV personality in Australia, was a pretty great New Zealander.
Lorin says she wanted the film to show people who saw John or his black-singleted ’70s alter-ego on TV and thought ‘I feel like I know that guy’, they were not wrong – “It’s the same thing that you’re seeing that we experienced as a family with him. That’s unusual, I think, for somebody to be how they are,” she tells Culture 101.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
