‘Doo Dah Bang Bang’…
Damian Callinan, co-host of the Town Criers, explains his love of rural Australia and why we need the Town Criers as a platform for small towns.
I’ve been reflecting on what has drawn me to collaborating with Kirsten on the Town Criers Podcast. How did a northern suburban Melbourne boy become so enamoured with regional Australia, and small towns in particular, that he finds himself embarking on a project celebrating the heart of country life. There are a number of origin marker stories that I’ve identified: 3 year old Damo being jammed in with the luggage in the back of the station wagon for a road trip from Melbourne to Townville is probably worth unpacking, but let’s save that story for another day, and delve into two more recent stories.
Whilst on tour in the South Australian township of Port Macdonnell, I met a bloke who introduced himself as Doo Dah Bang Bang. As he leant on the fence outside the tackle & bait shop, his baggy parachute tracksuit flapping in the breeze, he attempted to explain his complicated nickname.
‘I’ve always been called Doodah, for as long I can remember,’ he drawled. ‘But the Bang Bang bit is newish.’ He took a drag of his rollie and the wind guided the smoke back through the lower reaches of his mullet. ‘I accidentally sprayed a couple of blokes with buckshot, cos I thought they were dogs attacking my sheep ... I was a fair way back so they weren’t too bad off,’ he reassured me. ‘Bloody dogs had been getting into me sheep of late and it a bit was dark so … ’ he trailed off leaving me to work out the rest of the case for the defence.
‘So that’s when your mates added the Bang Bang?’ I suggested.
‘No, it was after I shot the diver at the sinkhole in the foot.’
‘Right’
‘I saw his flipper come up out of the water and I thought it was a duck.’
Ever since my earliest experiences touring regional Australia with the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow, I’ve always been predisposed to tailoring and localising my material. I enjoy the challenge, but it serves a strategic, comedic end as it drills into the basic human condition of wanting to be acknowledged. The audience’s enjoyment is heightened because their immediate world is being reflected back to them. That night in Port Macdonnell when I mentioned that a bloke in a dodgy track suit and mullet had offered to take me shooting the next day, the roof lifted.
Earlier in my touring life, I would ordinarily just trawl for potential content as an interested observer: an outside looking in. However, once I started going out of my way to meet with and engage locals like our old mate Doo Dah Bang Bang, I began to evolve a deeper understanding of rural Australia. Motivated by this change, I began to not just dabble in a bit of ‘local colour’ on stage, but create dedicated community engagement shows like ‘Town Folk’ and ‘Damian Callinan is Mayor for a Day’, that were entirely devoted to tailoring the content to each community.
The joy of seeing an entire audience taken by surprise by my level of commitment to taking in their world, is hard to describe, but there is one gig in particular that explains the feeling and profoundly changed my perspective about community.
In 2009, I was about to embark on a regional Victorian tour of my show ‘Last Drinks’, when the devastating Black Saturday Bushfires swept through my home state, causing widespread devastation. The conflagration burnt out over 450,000 hectares, killed 173 people and over a million animals.
My tour was supposed to start in the township of Marysville: a town that was all but destroyed on February 7th of that year. 40 lives were tragically lost there and, of the 450 homes in the town, only 16 remained standing. An historic tourist town, every single heritage listed guest house was burnt to the ground: The less grandiose Tower Motel survived. Looking more like a cell block in a Soviet Gulag, it barely had a blemish, when all around was scorched earth.
The tour producer also happened to be from Marysville and had lost everything, including many dear friends. The tour dates were reconfigured and despite the venue no longer existing, Marysville was moved to the final day of the tour.
I always go on a reconnaissance walk before regional shows, so on the day of that show, I decided that I would honour them by not changing my routine.
It was the Queen's Birthday weekend, traditionally the opening of the ski season in Australia, and as Marysville is en route to the ski resorts, it’s a popular pit stop, so the sight of cars with skis on roof racks crawling through town taking in the devastation, added another layer of sadness.
The clean up was still a work in progress. The ruined remains of each house had been bulldozed into single piles at the end of each street, patiently awaiting removal and a melted blue & white sign was the only hint of where the police station had been. Yet amidst the devastation, there were flashes of hope. Blackened trees and ferns were sprouting vivid green regrowth; some businesses had set up in a marquee to entice the snow bunnies as they passed through town and the brand new community noticeboard was vibrant and alive with new possibilities. The sight of my show poster amidst the advertisements for guitar lessons and Bowen Technique massages, reminded me of my primary purpose, so I headed back to the venue.
The show had been relocated to the Marysville Golf Club, a couple of kilometres out of town. The clubhouse, though singed around the edges, had survived. We had decided to make it a free show and, as it was the first show of any kind since the fires, the community came out in force.
As they piled into every nook and cranny of the clubhouse, I watched on through the partially open door of the Club President’s office. Without fuss, fanfare or any discernible leadership, the space was rearranged to fit everyone in. There was no stage as such, just a small area defined only by the flimsy lighting trees being loosely aimed in that direction. That space began to shrink as tables were reconfigured across the front of the performance area. Once populated with patrons, it created a Last Supper tableau. A last minute space acquisition saw a couch moved to the side of my stage area, onto which plonked 3 blokes who stretched their legs further into my domain. The malleability of this community was palpable.
With only moments to go, I still wasn’t sure how I was going to start the show. I wanted to address the sooty elephant in the room, but how? As I walked on to what was left of the stage, I decided to go with my gut instinct.
‘Gidday Marysville,’ I began. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve been overseas for the last 6 months, shit, you’ve let this town go!’
I can genuinely say that I have never had to wait longer for an audience to stop laughing. People were slapping the tables, gasping for air and guffawing in waves. I had given them a surprise reprieve from months of mollycoddling; of people walking on eggshells around them. This one moment of dark humour released a valve. They had given me licence to continue in this vein, so I did.
‘You can’t imagine my relief when I drove into town and saw that the Tower Motel had survived.’ More delirium.
‘They’re here!’ Someone yelled when the laughter slightly abated.
‘Who is?’ I asked
‘The owners!’
The couple who owned the business, were already up on their feet, soaking up the ironic applause.
Over the next few minutes, I convinced the audience that there was still a chance that they could win the 2009 Tidy Town Award.
The rest of the show, and the night is a blur of joy.
What stayed with me from that experience, was the realisation that even though that township had physically all but ceased to exist, the sense of community was indelible. The bricks and mortar may be gone, but the town remains.
Such was the impact, I was asked to mount another tour to 10 halls across the Murrindindi Shire. Since that night, I have found that I am much more attuned to the issues, battles and traumas of rural life and I have found myself constantly drawn to writing regional stories and performing to country audiences. Since 2020, I’ve been touring on and off to drought, flood and fire impacted communities with the National Emergency Management Agency. That work has been as rewarding as anything I’ve done in my career. It’s taken me to communities I didn’t previously know existed, and now can't imagine a world without them.
The Town Criers Podcast allows Kirsten and I to share our love for small town Australia to a wider audience: The yarns, the people, the quirks, the history, the issues and everything in between.
See you at the Bicenntennial Rotunda in the Rotary Park. I’ll bring the vanilla slices from the bakery.
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