Tim Ferguson Interview
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Tim Ferguson Interview Interview transcript Date: April 1 2020 Audio Length: 00:17:32 Interviewer: Roland Naufal (Director, DSC), Nicole Rogerson Start of Audio Nicole Rogerson Thank you everyone so much for Joining us today at DSC. My name is Nicole Rogerson and I'm here with Roland Naufal. And we are interviewing the absolutely fabulous comedian, Tim Ferguson as part of our, I don't know, COVID Home Delivery video messages. Roland Naufal Welcome Tim. Tim Ferguson Hey. Welcome everybody. Thanks Roland and it's great to see you again Nicole and thanks Evie for standing by. Just sit there and be millennial for a while, Just relax. Nicole Rogerson Evie's the only person that when I told about the option for, I kind of make you look better video screener said she didn't need it. I thought that was an ageist, but anyway, I digress. Let's get into the interview. Roland Naufal So I've got the first question Tim. I saw you speak at a gig a couple of years ago. And as a comedian that is now treading into the disability space and the disability sector has, it reaches the high point of political correctness as you know at times. Do you find yourself editing yourself, changing your humour to fit into disability or Just stuff them and get on with it? Tim Ferguson Well, not really Roland, mainly because the great thing about people with disabilities is, you know, most of us have already made the Jokes. It's usually the other people who are like, oh, should I, should I say, or they'll meet me, and then afterwards they go, oh no, I can't believe I was saying, I will Interview with Tim Ferguson (1 April 2020) not stand for that, when he's in a wheelchair, he's in a wheelchair, it's like I'm in a wheelchair, I'm over it. So it's usually only people who don't have a disability who will be treading on eggshells, otherwise most people, particularly Australian people with a disability, you know, we can't help ourselves. We try to be funny about it. Nicole Rogerson And if there's a need to be funny right now because it's pretty dark right? So for a lot of people it's like, oh, you know, I've got enough going on in my life and enough challenges and like, could COVID make it worse? Like, really? Tim Ferguson Yeah, yeah. It's been a funny period actually because I've got quite a few friends with various, you know, exciting, exotic disabilities and a few of them are homebodies anyway. So I had one friend, she said, what's the difference you know, I work from home, I do my computing from home. Not many people are visiting anyway, so she's sort of been self-isolating for quite some time. She's a writer with Multiple sclerosis, so she's not noticing any change at all. For other people of course it's a much bigger transition because there are people with disabilities and that's hard enough working, but then being told, oh no, you're not working anymore, is very difficult for anybody, especially if like you say, they've already got a disability to try and stay one step ahead of. Roland Naufal I saw you musing on Bunga Bunga about it being some people saying it's the crappiest year of all time. Do you want to reflect on that? Tim Ferguson Oh yeah, no, my spin on that, and I said it to my mum who said, this is Just terrible. I said, for God's sake mum, you know, you and your parent's generation are the ones who stopped Hitler, you know, Coronavirus is bad, but we're not all worried about, you know, Adolf Hitler trying to kill us all. We're not at war. Most countries are not at war, which is why we can sit at home and you know, switch on Netflix and not be, you know, keeping an ear open for falling bombs. So it's bad, but you know, it could be worse, we could have Hitler. Roland Naufal You're sort of touching on an issue that I wanted to ask you about too, which is resilience and I was reading about Jerry Seinfeld and what he says makes a good comedian today. And he was basically saying the ability to do a bad show and come back again the next day. And not that you've ever done a bad show, but you probably have had one. Nicole Rogerson And bad shows, I've seen them, he's done them. Tim Ferguson Yep, Nicole's seen them, where it's Just, oh my God, is that a train wreck. Hard to know from the wreckage. Roland Naufal So surviving from numerous train wrecks in your professional life, does that set you up for better dealing with MS and better dealing with COVID, does that give you a resilience? Tim Ferguson Interview with Tim Ferguson (1 April 2020) Well, I suppose so yeah Roland, the thing with like when you're writing comedy, if you're trying to write Jokes and things, is you're already playing around with finding new perspectives on things that can be scary or sad or outrageous or whatever it is. So when something like Coronavirus happens, writing a lot of comedy makes you more skilled at trying to find a way to put it in your head somewhere where you have, you know, a better perspective on it. It's much better to think about COVID looking down at it and you know, trying to think ahead about it, than to be lying under it and saying, oh, woe is us, everything's ending. Six months from now it won't have ended and all people will have is you know, bruises on their shins where they kicked themselves and a lot of toilet paper, a big ton of toilet paper that they don't know what to do with. Nicole Rogerson I didn't realize how long it takes to go through toilet paper. I think everyone overestimated how much toilet paper they were actually using. Tim Ferguson Well, you know, to use a bad word as I did in the New Daily, I do a thing called the Ferguson Report, Fake News You Can Trust. And I had a, and stand by citizens, I had a headline which was Australians who are scared shitless still need toilet paper. I mean you can't have both people. You can't have a need for toilet paper and be that scared. Nicole Rogerson So Tim, in terms of the little bit that I know about comedians and actors and entertainment people, they don't like to be ignored, and staying at home and watching Netflix is difficult. So there's a lot of obviously refrigerator opening, lights come on, show starts. What's going to be the entertainment for you guys, because I know I saw you in a Bunga Bunga video with our dear friend Maynard this week. Are we all Just going to go online, are we all Just going to watch you online now and we get to see you in your trackies and? Tim Ferguson I suppose so. Yeah, some people like the MTC and probably the Sydney Theatre Company are doing plays with one or two actors that they're filming, and you can buy a ticket to it and watch it online. So yeah, yeah, it's all about adapting. I mean the other thing about being, you know, a comedian as such, is that most of the time you've no idea what you're doing next month. Most of the time you spend your life being sacked again, if only because a proJect comes to an end, so you're effectively you know unemployed. The only difference is that most of the comedians I know are really quite adept at saying, oh well, so what do I do now? Maybe I can turn this into a movie. Hang on, maybe I can turn it into a podcast. Maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. My friend Gretel Killeen, I caught up Just before, you know, they locked everything up, and she said, well, I'm Just going to be painting. And then when the sun comes up again, then I will sell my paintings. Like, so while we're sitting here, she's working, and I kind of, my beautiful Canadian wife who, I don't know, she was here before wearing activewear, and you interrupted me, she said, why don't you write an article about being resilient, about you know, coming up with ways to deal with this thing. Which is kind of easy if you're already working in a creative business. I guess it's a lot harder for people who were doing something that was a Job that they could forget about as soon as they got home. A Job that people rely on them coming up with new ideas. So it's a different kind of challenge, but it's kind of the same approach I think you Just have to look at the whole thing from above and try to come up with a positive way to keep yourself busy, because after a while there's only so much on Netflix.