Grief gripped Australia on Monday 10 April when the media announced the sudden death of John Clarke at 68, the unforgettable Kiwi satirist. 

Over the next few days, the amount of television time devoted to him rivalled that given to deceased royalty and prime ministers. The Sun Herald and The Age each devoted two full pages to his unique gifts, while The Australian honoured him with an editorial. The Australian public had a small feast of remembrance of his satirical sallies — about events like the Sydney Olympics (The Games) or aimed at politicians whose foibles and mistakes were the stuff of many an elegant jibe. The bombastic Tony Abbott, the sly Kevin Rudd, and the underwhelming Malcolm Turnbull — to name but three — were revealed, under the Clarke eye, shorn of their idiosyncracies were quaintly human. 

John Clarke is without doubt an Australian icon. Laconic satire was his métier. Proudly Kiwi but resident in Australia for 40 years, he garnered an influence over the thought and politics of this land in a way few others have. For New Zealanders, he will also be fondly remembered as the creator of Fred Dagg, the father of seven sons named Trev, and a pair of muddied gumboots (now housed in The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa).

The day following Clarke’s death and alongside the flurry of praise for Clarke’s simple, elegant and evenhanded satire, the Melbourne Age ran a fulsome obituary for that other icon of New Zealand humour, Murray Ball. What a coincidence that these two men, each hailing from the Manawatu, died within a month of each other. Tom Scott, friend of both and rival humorist, also hails from Feilding. Is there something comic in the Manawatu soil?

Wal and the dog, the characters of Footrot Flats, brought great mirth from 1975-1994 to newspaper readers across the world. The classic Footrot Flats movie (1975) scripted by Tom Scott, featured the voice of none other than John Clarke, along with those of two other local legends, Billy T James and Rawiri Paratene. Back then, written and spoken New Zealand humour seemed to be held in a tight-knit circle. How good it is that 40 years on we run humour and comedy festivals. Auckland held one earlier this year, while Melbourne has just sported a month-long International Comedy Festival. Among those fronting up from across the ditch was Alice Snedden, contributor and writer for Tui Motu magazine.

How can we not regard all forms of humour as a special part of loving, something much beloved by the Great Lover of all, who had the flippant good humour, and even foolishness, to create us. Humour is the glue that draws us together to reveal our humanity — the pompous and the proud are pulled back to humble ordinariness; the fragile, the unseen and the nondescript take on a greater humanity. No one escapes from being the butt of jokes. This universal form of loving is as essential to us as waking and sleeping. Above all, humour has the uncanny ability to draw people out of any type of dreariness and dullness. It adds spice to life and gives, if only for a moment, a sense of lasting joy. I can’t wait to experience the heavenly jokes God will have for us on the far side of life. They will be divine!