But life scripted another twist for Josh Earl – the birth of his son. A day after the sad news was made public, Earl tweeted: “Thanks for all nice words about Spicks but it’s just a job, my wife just gave birth! Life is brilliant.” I complimented Earl on this. The birth of his child overpowers any bitterness; there is no bittersweet.
“It makes you realise nothing is more important than this right now. Jobs come and go. I’ve always had jobs where I’ve only been in it for a very short time and then it I’ve kinda gone on to something else. It’s been really good for that perspective. I did love doing Spicks & Specks at the time. But something else will come up or I’ll have to work really hard and make something come up.”
I make it clear to Earl that I’d address the very large plant-eating trunked mammal in the room with one question then move on. But to my surprise, Earl brought the show up several times throughout our 15-minute interview. He never spoke about Spicks with venom. Rather, it was as if he was referring to an ex-girlfriend – something that meant a lot to him, and even though he’s moved on, the beautiful moments shouldn’t be forgotten.
“Having Deborah Cheetham on, who is an opera singer, was fascinating and amazing. As a music fan, you read up on all your interviews and people pretty much say the same thing. You ask them the questions and you know the answers – that’s why you ask them the question because you want to make good TV. Debra was amazing. She went off on different tangents and we actually talked music.
“With Spicks & Specks, because it was us coming into a show that was already established, there was this thing of people going like, ‘Oh he’s just trying to be like the old cast’. It was like I couldn’t win any way. If I was trying to be myself it would be too different, if I was trying to be like the old stuff then [people would say] I was trying too hard to be like the old stuff. I said to myself, ‘I gotta shut all that out and just do the show that I want to do’. I think we were getting there in the end. To go onto someone else’s show, you have to stay true to the show. After the 20 episodes that have been aired, I don’t think it got to the place where I was really, really happy with the show. I was happy with it, but I’m still kind of in someone else’s chair.”
When Earl is given complete creative control, without any external or internal barriers, the results are sublime. For several years, Earl starred alongside Damian Lawlor on the RRR sketch show Lime Champions. The radio show, still available on the RRR podcast, featured brilliance such as ‘In The Beginning – The Handshake’ which describes the first time someone proposed a handshake to someone else:
“G’day, the name’s Damo. Put it there.”
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Just grab it.”
“Your hand?”
“Yes, me hand. Just hold onto me hand.”
“But I’ve only just met you.”
“Exactly!”
…“What’s on it?”
“Nothing’s on it, just grab onto me hand before it gets weird!”
And on it goes for two minutes. Another favourite is Our Song, where a girlfriend has ordered a removalist after breaking up with her boyfriend, but she ends up cancelling the removalist after her boyfriend implores her to listen to their song one last time: “Oh Freo give ‘em the old heave ho/We are the Freo Dockers…”
“With Lime Champions, the ones that make me laugh the most when we were recording them were the ‘And then what did you do?’ It’s Damian saying stuff like, ‘I bought chips and gravy’ and then me saying, ‘And then what did you do?’ They went for about three minutes each but it took me about 10-15 minutes every time because I would laugh too much. He wouldn’t show me the script, I would just be there saying, ‘And then what did you do?’ People thought he cut me saying, ‘And then what did you do?’ but it was always me in there doing it.”
Was Earl in the room to ensure there was that instinctual comedic timing?
“I think it was just easier to edit,” he laughs. “Damian wrote about 40 minutes of every show and I wrote 20. It’s nice to hear people actually listen to it because we were always going, ‘No-one listens to this. Everyone’s either at home from work eating dinner or they’re watching TV.”
The cancellation of Spicks has allowed Earl to return to his stand-up roots. 2014 was the first year he didn’t perform his own solo show at the festival – breaking a nine consecutive year run. Earl will be performing his brand new show in Brisbane and Sydney as well as at the Melbourne Fringe this year, but not before this weekend’s slot alongside Adam Hills.
“First time I met Adam was down in Tasmania. I was going shows down there as part of comedy festival and he came down as well. Not sure if Spicks & Specks had started yet but Adam’s great – he’s just as you see him on the telly. He’s not one of these guys that will come out and give you advice and say they’ll teach you the way, because who wants that? Unless you ask for it, it’s kinda presumptuous to go, ‘I’ll give you this’.”
What is the lesson you can take forward in life from the Spicks & Specks experience?
“It proved to me that I can do it.”
BY NICK TARAS
