Beat chats to RocKwiz's Brian Nankervis ahead of the 10th anniversary of RocKwiz's Really Really Good Friday at Arts Centre Melbourne.
Jesus was traditionally thought to have been 33 years old when he died. RocKwiz’s Really Really Good Friday, held on the holy day commemorating Christ’s death, is fast catching up.
The annual live event will celebrate its 10th birthday at Hamer Hall on 3 April. In the last decade, RocKwiz has gone from being a staple of Saturday night television to a full-time touring spectacular.
RocKwiz’s Really Really Good Friday
- 3 April
- Hamer Hall
- Tickets here
Really Really Good Friday is one of the biggest events on the RocKwiz calendar, and it has its roots in the crew’s desire to find an alternative to the public holiday’s erstwhile solemnity.
“As a kid, I just always remember it was really strange day,” says RocKwiz co-host and scorer Brian Nankervis. “We all agreed that it was an odd time in our childhoods and then someone said, ‘Oh, you know, we should do a show and make it a good Good Friday or a really Good Friday or a Really Really Good Friday.
“As the years have gone by, it’s just become a celebration of life and a way of kicking off a year for us.”
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RocKwiz premiered on SBS in 2005. Since the beginning, Julia Zemiro has been the host, Nankervis the scorer and adjudicator, and Dugald McAndrew the human scoreboard.
Much like the TV show, a RocKwiz live show features two teams competing in a music quiz. Two-thirds of the panelists are selected from the audience in a pre-show quiz.
“They’re often people who have never been on a stage,” Nankervis says. “And suddenly they’re in their favourite show, so they’re incredibly excited. Often the real rock freak can be quite an eccentric person, so they bring a whole other energy.”
RocKwiz’s Really Really Good Friday will feature a total of four musician guests, plus a couple of comedians, who’ll take turns joining the quizzing panel. The musicians’ identities are kept secret until they walk on stage.
“Julia begins with Who Can It Be Now and there is great excitement when that particular person comes through the curtains,” Nankervis says.
“Occasionally producers get a bit frustrated and they say, ‘Yeah, but we’ve got to advertise the guests,’ and we’ve always stuck pretty firmly to our guns. We hope that the audience trust us to come up with some great guests – and I can tell you that this year is no exception.”
RocKwiz finished on SBS in 2016 after a 14-season run. The program returned for a single, eight-episode season on Foxtel in 2023, but they’ve since diverted all their focus into the live show.
“The live shows, in a lot of ways, are much more enjoyable than the TV shows because it’s just it’s very relaxed,” Nankervis says.
Nankervis and Zemiro both have plenty on their plates outside of RocKwiz. Nankervis hosts The Friday Revue and Saturday Breakfast on ABC Radio and comperes public and private events. Zemiro has hosted a slew of shows on SBS and ABC in recent years, including Crime Night!, Great Australian Walks and Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery.
But they keep returning to RocKwiz for one simple reason: they love it.
“RocKwiz feels like it’s always exciting because it’s totally unpredictable,” Nankervis says.
“On this last tour, we toured with Phil Jamison from Grinspoon, and Phil was incredible. So there was a degree of, okay, we know Phil can talk, he can sing, he can dance, he’s funny. But we don’t know about the two people sitting either side of him: a truck driver from Mildura and a surgeon from Swan Hill, we don’t know how they’re going to act.”
RocKwiz’s Really Really Good Friday has always coincided with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and each year they invite a couple of comedians onto the show – something they never did on the TV show.
“When our show started, it was the same time as Spicks and Specks on the ABC, and that was very much comedy-based and I think probably we always decided that we would be more music-focused,” Nankervis says.
“But [on Good Friday] it worked really well. I remember the first year, we had Rich Hall and Kitty Flanagan. We’ve had Judith Lucy, we’ve had Bob Franklin, we’ve had David O’Doherty from Ireland, Josie Long from the UK.”
Despite the integration of big-name guests, RocKwiz’s appeal remains rooted in its unpredictability and proud embrace of amateurism. It’s not just another celebrity quiz show dotted with pre-prepared gags and promo opportunities. It’s more akin to pub trivia: a loose, wacky, and refreshingly lowbrow way to bring people together.
“You can’t deny the fact people love a quiz,” says Nankervis.
Get your tickets for RocKwiz’s Really Really Good Friday at Hamer Hall here.
