www.JohnWaters.info The Official Fan Site: Career 2000s

Sydney Morning Herald. March 5, 2005 The big sign-off

After a dud year, David Williamson has returned with a winning theme. The playwright tells David Marr why he sticks with satire, loves narcissists and believes his latest play will be the last.

David Williamson is doing it all over again just one more time. The writing, the rehearsals, the interviews, the foyer work, the critics - those damn critics - have taken their toll over the years. At 63, his heart is playing up. The workaholic writer reckons Influence - the story of Sydney shock jock Ziggy Blasko - will be the last big play.

The diagnosis is atrial fibrillation. "There's no sense that I'm going to drop dead from it, but the worry is that it's associated with a stroke - and I don't want to have a bloody stroke."

That's exactly the sort of talk that drives Ziggy Blasko mad. "All this rubbish about stress and depression is just a way to keep thousands of so-called mental-health gurus making a very good living," he rages on Life 608, the station that lets you get it off your chest. "Stress - we all have stress in our lives. So what's new."

Theatre without David Williamson turning out a couple of plays each year is hardly imaginable. You don't have to be a fan to recognise how an industry has come to be built around this man. He's the Country Road, the Angus & Robertson of Australian theatre. The national brand.

What he writes each year is rolled out across the country. Arts centres light up for the latest Williamson. Business has been a bit up and down lately, but he's still a mighty presence in subscription brochures. His face is as familiar as an old rock star's and his name has entered the language - a generic expression for comic playwright of the contemporary middle class with a sheen of money and the promise of laughs. The press has been picking the "next David Williamson" for decades. Unlike the original, they never last.

Time hasn't changed Williamson much. He's a great length of unfelled timber, greying a bit at the tips, still lofty, touchy, exposed, defensive, patient and good-humoured in the face of yet another interrogation. But it's all part of the business and this man is a professional.

Last year was a shocker that would test anyone's endurance. With the bad heart came bad reviews, first for Amigos - friendship and competition among the survivors of an Olympic rowing team meeting years past their glory - and then a romp called Flatfoot, set in ancient Rome. Broadsheets were dismissive. Tabloids such as The Sun-Herald went for the jugular: "What a perverse achievement: David Williamson's second new comedy for the year, Flatfoot, is even more of a stinker than his first."

Ziggy Blasko knows Williamson's pain. "I've been touched, even overwhelmed, by your messages of sympathy since the gutter press decided to put the knife into me," moans the shock jock on Life 608. "The tall poppy syndrome is still alive and well out there and I seem to be the No.1 target."

Ziggy and the playwright also share the same lifeline in their distress: the audiences that stick with them through thick and thin. So long as the crowds come back for more, these two are invulnerable.

Williamson calls Influence a farce and wants it reviewed as farce - a farce in structure but not tone. A moral farce? "Yes. Some perceptive critic wrote recently that I don't write realism, I write satiric parables. That's probably true. I don't resile from that. It's what I've always done and, without blowing my trumpet too loud, Influence is doing better than any other play in the subscription season, and I've been at it 35 years and I must be doing something right."

My guess is that the parable of Ziggy's ordeal - he suffers every fate but laryngitis - is about to pull great wads of cash into the coffers of the Sydney Theatre Company, the State Theatre Company of South Australia, the Civic Theatre in Newcastle and the Melbourne Theatre Company. If this is the last big Williamson play, it's also the last big Williamson tour.

Ziggy has a dash of Alan Jones and John Laws but a fair helping of the wilder Stan Zemanek. Nothing from Queensland radio. Up at Sunshine Beach, where the Williamsons live most of the year, they listen to Radio National - "which means we're incredible pinkos, but it's the only intelligent national discourse there is" - so listening to the Ziggy Blaskos of radio "is just a Sydney activity". Their voices haunt Williamson in taxis.

This is not documentary. Williamson doesn't explore how a man like Ziggy builds his influence. You never hear a product plugged. There's no more than a passing reference to the millions Ziggy can make selling his opinions for cash.

"Thanks to a totally hysterical press, even that's in danger." We don't see Ziggy doing one of those blazing interviews that rescue the worst of the radio jocks from complete derision. None of this interests Williamson.

And though he finds these men quite amusing - Alan Jones especially, "in his utter self-righteousness" - Ziggy isn't a figure of fun behind the microphone at Life 608. "I don't want to make this guy a total straw man held up for ridicule. He's far more effective than that." Why? Because he is sincere. "My guy believes what he says."

And knows how to press buttons. "It's something demagogues - and these guys are demagogues - have used enormously effectively over human history. Demagogues know that in the right circumstances, when there's the vaguest of threats, human intelligence can be easily overridden by the emotional system. They know that fact.

"Academics can analyse why the positions they're taking are irrational, stupid, laughable. They don't care a damn because they know they're connecting at a much deeper level than sheer analytical intelligence."

Williamson hopes to succeed where academics fail by pursuing a strategy only possible in the theatre: demonstrating the dangers by half-persuading audiences that Ziggy is right. "Some of Ziggy's arguments are reasonable in a sense, and because he's being played by John Waters - who is very plausible, very presentable - that may bring out a bit of the submerged emotional fascist in our audience."

Ziggy hammers away at elites, bleeding hearts, "the so-called working poor", tenured academics, child criminals, psychiatrists, counsellors and feminists. But the plot of Influence is driven especially by this shock jock's attacks on Muslim radicals and Lebanese crooks. Back home - with his ballerina wife, manic-depressive daughter and elderly father with terrible secrets to get off his chest - there is a stern Turkish housekeeper tuned into Ziggy's diatribes.

"The words 'Lebanese', 'Muslim', 'gangs' and 'south-west Sydney' are never supposed to pass my lips," he rages into the microphone. "The culture of murder, gangs, knives, car rebranding, intimidation and sheer thuggery just appeared out of the blue sky, according to the wimpish legions of the politically correct, who still seem to think they can tell us all what we can say and can't say."

So why can't Ziggy say a woman was raped by a gang of Lebanese youths? What's the line that can't be crossed? In a town that's lived through years of airwave thuggery directed against Muslims, these are important questions to ask and answer. But they don't interest the playwright. Williamson treats them as unnecessary finetuning.

"I suppose my point is that naming does increase fear levels and hate levels, but whether that's a necessary by-product of the right to tell the truth, I don't know. I don't have any answers on that particular one."

There's a vagueness to Williamson that's baffling. Quiz him about motive and he'll answer in terms of the human species. Try to pin down his beliefs and back comes a survey of human decency. This has become familiar to us after all these years as Williamson's territory: he's an obviously good man but his vision is not particularly focused or personal. It's been an underlying complaint of critics for years.

"I have a satiric impulse, I can't deny it, and I often get criticised for it because some critics would prefer realism with three-dimensional, fully rounded characters. For satire to be effective, you've got to make the characters a little larger than life to point out what you're trying to say. That's what I've always done and that's why the audiences come."

But sitting with Williamson by the harbour on a perfect Sydney day, feeling great affection for the man and respect for his work, it's impossible not to wonder what it might have been like if he'd put aside all the decent things he's been saying in the theatre over the past 35 years and really let that satiric impulse rip.

Laughter is his currency. He believes in good laughs. A few years ago one of his more serious plays did poor business after getting great reviews. He put this down to people "reading between the lines and saying: 'Shit, we're not going to get a good laugh out of this one'". Good laughs come out of Williamson in a long, booming hoot. It's the good-humoured, not particularly infectious laughter of a decent, sometimes puzzled man.

Driving the laughter in Influence is another of his narcissistic, vengeful women: Ziggy's second wife, with Zelda Fitzgerald-ish ambitions to return to the stage as a prima ballerina. "I love narcissists because they're so blind. For a narcissist, the world exists merely to shower praise on them. I've got a touch of narcissism myself, which is why I analyse that condition. Narcissists hate criticism and demand praise, and I've been known to have a little of those failings myself, but not at the level of some of the characters I wrote. But I love narcissists because they literally are totally uninterested in anything but themselves."

He hoots at the thought of finding himself on talkback radio to promote Influence. "I've actually been on all their shows at some stage. I've been interviewed by Laws and Jones and Stan Zemanek. And they've been interesting interviews. They weren't particularly hostile interviews; just informational ones: What are you doing? What makes you write? All of that sort of stuff." He knows his obligations to the Sydney Theatre Company. "If publicity says do an interview, who am I to refuse?"

Williamson has survived a posse of bikies turning up at the first night of a play he wrote about bikies, and a theatre full of lawyers to launch Top Silk. Very dull. But will the shock jocks turn out for Influence? "I'd hope they would, but probably not." And many have to get to bed early. "Yes, they do. So maybe they'll come along to a matinee."

If Influence is the last of the big plays - and frankly everyone doubts this man can ever put the stage behind him - then Williamson's next opening nights will be some years down the track in the cinema. He sees film as yet another chance to prove his critics wrong, to show them he can write the realistic, fully-rounded characters he's been birched for not putting on the stage.

And for a man in his mid-60s, film holds the prospect of a late-life breaking away: "I've told Australian stories for 35 years. I want the opportunity to tell a few world stories as well."

Influence is at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre from March 18 to April 30.

The Australian Radio hosts exposed by playwright's influence By Jane Albert March 12, 2005

TALKBACK radio hosts may love the sound of their own voices, but can any of them spot themselves in David Williamson's latest play, Influence?

The satire is about a fictional talkback host, Ziggi Blasco, an outrageously outspoken and narrow-minded bigot who takes broad aim at Muslims, lesbians, Jews and Aborigines. And that's just for starters.

But the real-life broadcasters - the Derryns, Stans and Steves -- say they're nothing like Williamson's character.

And they hate being tarred with the same brush.

"It's a bit like being a rugby league player - everyone thinks you're a sex maniac and a thug," said Sydney breakfast host Steve Price.

Derryn Hinch said he found talkback hosts such as Alan Jones, John Laws and Stan Zemanek "offensive".

"Especially the cash for comment," he said, referring to a scandal involving Jones and Laws.

"I've been a journalist for 45 years and I just happen to talk on radio."

Night-time announcer Zemanek said Blasko's fictional tirades bore no resemblance to his own editorials, and he resented Williamson's representation.

"What David Williamson won't accept is we still have majority rule, but the minority seem to scream the loudest because they have the most time on their hands," he said.

"What those small-minded left-wing cretins want to do is rewrite history, and they see talkback announcers as riling up against their stupidity."

Talkback often dominates the airwaves. In the most recent ratings survey, Jones's breakfast program took 16.2per cent of Sydney listeners, while Hinch won his drivetime slot in Melbourne, with 13.7 per cent of the audience.

Williamson, Australia's master of theatrical farce, said the inspiration for Influence came from listening to various talkback stations, and he did not intend to ridicule any one radio personality.

"The play is saying that humanity is a fearful lot," he said. (Talkback presenters) are good fear amplifiers. They take an anxiety and turn it into a fear and a panic and that's what they're good at doing, and that's what John Howard is good at doing. Fear is very easily turned into hate and rage."

Williamson, who suffers atrial fibrillation, a stress-related heart condition, said Influence would be his last play for a while.

The Sydney Theatre Company has invited a number of the presenters to the premiere next Friday.

The Australian Stagestruck and proud of it By Rosalie Higson March 11, 2005

FUNNY you should ask that, says Zoe Carides, when quizzed about why she became an actor. "Because I'm working for the Sydney Theatre Company, finally, I can say this now.

It was seeing Robyn Nevin in Mourning Becomes Electra back in the early 1970s, when I was about 10. She was such a powerhouse. It was a life-changing experience. I just thought, 'Oh my god, that's what I want.' I never wanted to say it before because I didn't want Robyn to think I was crawling . . . to get a job – I wanted to get here on my own merits."

Thirty years on, Carides is a remarkably youthful and vital 42, and about to open in Influence, the new – and possibly the last – David Williamson play. Carides has made her mark in the Australian entertainment industry, her face familiar from roles on stage, television and the big screen. In Influence she plays Zehra, the new housekeeper to filthy-rich shock jock Ziggi Blasko (John Waters) and his neurotic and demanding second wife Carmela (Genevieve Hegney) and unhappy teenage daughter (Octavia Barron-Martin).

Zehra is a widowed mother of three children, works 12 hours a day, six days a week for $470 (no overtime, naturally), then faces a train and bus ride home. "Zehra," says Carmela at one point in the play, "it's really important that your problems don't become my problems. I have enough to worry about - not that I'm uncaring." Meanwhile Ziggi rants on radio against the whingeing working poor. It's vintage Williamson - plenty of issues and plenty of laughs.

Speaking over a soy latte at a Sydney waterside cafe, Carides says the role in Influence is her all-time favourite. She laughingly acknowledges that all actors say that. "But this one is special. And it's definitely not a fashion parade for poor old Zehra – it's pure polyester all the way. This role is quite different to anything I have done before. I have often played single mums, and have been a single mum for a great many years, so that aspect of the character is not unknown. You take what you know from your real life."

A seemingly carefree Sydney childhood with two equally enthusiastic sisters, Gia (now working in the US with her husband, actor Anthony LaPaglia) and Danielle, inspired a love for things thespian.

"We had great fun. Our parents loved movies, plays, ballet. I used to stay up late – too late – with my father watching the old black-and-white films that Bill Collins presented. That was another seminal moment for me: when I saw Bette Davis [in Dark Victory] declare 'I think I'll have a large order of prognosis negative', I thought I'd like a large portion, too, please. That level of drama – that's what attracted me. Those strong women."

Carides's CV takes in many of our most popular TV series, including Acropolis Now, Wildside, All Saints, White Collar Blue, Police Rescue and Grass Roots. Following her 2002 appearance in The Vagina Monologues – every Australian female actor seems to have done it – her last stage appearance was in Michael Gow's Away last year.

The luxury of having time to develop a role is what attracts her to live theatre. "The fantastic thing is you get five weeks or so to discuss and work to find new aspects of the piece – and you always do. No matter how well you perform in a film part, six months later you'll be finding new aspects of the lines you had to say. Trouble is, you can't go back and explore that possibility, so it's fun and very satisfying to be able to do that with theatre."

Her other love is music and she almost dumped theatre for pop stardom in her youth. "I did a few months of training at the Ensemble when I first left school. But I thought, 'I want to go and do something, I want to go and form a band.' So I did."

She enjoyed some success with various bands, including the '60s pastiche group the Proteens: "I had short spiky hair. I was wishing I was Nick Cave, but I was in this sweet girly band."

Carides auditioned for the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney a couple of times and worked with PACT Theatre through her school years. The lack of formal training certainly hasn't limited her, she says. She embraces a no-nonsense approach: "I think you should just throw yourself in there. Years ago Mum told me I should get something else beside acting to fall back on, and I told her, very audaciously, 'I don't intend to fall back."'

Like most of her colleagues she hit the thirtysomething slump, when women past the first bloom of youth seemingly are invisible to scriptwriters, producers and directors. "Every now and then I would threaten to leave and tell my agent, 'Take me off the wall!' And she would say, 'No, just hang in there."'

And don't mention Botox. Carides shakes back her long hair. "It makes me very sad to see people who as actors choose to paralyse their main tool of expression – the face – with Botox, and lasering away all expression lines. It's interesting that we're choosing to paralyse so you can't express yourself properly. What's the point?"

Influence is at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, March 18-April 30. The production tours to Adelaide, Newcastle and Melbourne later in the year.

David Williamson on Influence An extract from David Williamson's Writer's Note

The protagonist in Influence, Ziggi Blasko, knows how to turn fear into hate. He is not just a ruthlessly cynical manipulator. His power over his audience derives from the fact that they sense that he’s telling the truth as he sees it. Underneath the confidence and bluster is an often fearful man. And maybe some of his fears are justified.

Influence, raises issues, but also looks at the eternal human tragi-comedy, as we go about our daily lives. Ziggi might feel he has all the answers Australia needs, but he’s got very few answers to the course of his own life. But because he is human and vulnerable doesn’t mean that at another level he can’t be virulent and destructive.

As every demagogue and dictator knows full well, being smart, in the sense of intuitively knowing how to manipulate and influence, can sometimes be far more potent than mere intelligence.

We are a fearful species. Evolution seems to have wired us to be excessively afraid. John Howard won an election by elevating the flight of a few hundred desperate people to our shores into a major threat. A threat so grave, seemingly, that our armed forces had to board a ship of another country to control a sick, dehydrated and debilitated bunch of refugees going nowhere. Our emotional system is the way it is presumably because on average people who overreacted to threats survived at a greater rate than people who under reacted. The old dictum “Better to be safe than sorry” seems deeply embedded in our psychology.

The opinion makers who control our airwaves intuitively understand this fact about us. They understand how easy it is to generate fear by overstating and exaggerating supposed new threats to our well being. And they understand how easy it is to turn that fear into hate. If something is making us anxious, then it’s easy for us to feel very negative about the source of that anxiety. In the time of our distant ancestors rumours of an impeding incursion from the people over the river could be quickly fanned into hatred, whether the rumours were true or not. These people could rapidly become designated as worthless and sub human and a pre-emptive strike justified. Our fearful nature is at the root of tribalism and intolerance.

Hatred of “the Other”, the “dole bludger”, the ethnic minority, the homosexual, the Catholic, the Protestant, the Muslim, the Collingwood or South Sydney supporter, stems from a fear that our beliefs, values or “way of life” are being threatened.

My protagonist in Influence, Ziggi Blasko, knows how to turn fear into hate. I felt however, that it would be a mistake to satirise Ziggi to the point that he became a joke. He and his ilk are more formidable than that.

My Ziggi is not just a ruthlessly cynical manipulator. His power over his audience derives from the fact that they sense that he’s telling the truth as he sees it. Underneath the confidence and bluster is an often fearful man. And maybe some of his fears are justified. When his sister Connie tells him that his fears of an extremist Muslim attack on Sydney with a “dirty” atomic bomb are over the top, he replies

ZIGGI: If I had’ve told you on September 10th 2001 that you could wake up tomorrow with the twin towers gone and the Pentagon wrecked you would have said exactly the same thing. “The probability is tiny.” Well I’m sorry, but it wasn’t.

Ziggi is right to be worried about Muslim Extremists. Their fear of western values has turned into a very virulent hatred indeed. And the insensitive behaviour of the world’s only superpower towards the feelings, needs and interests of the rest of the world has exacerbated that hatred. But the central question of the play, which must necessarily remain unanswered, is how worried is Ziggi entitled to be?

Influence, raises issues, but also, I hope, looks at the eternal human tragi- comedy, as we go about our daily lives. Ziggi might feel he has all the answers Australia needs, but he’s got very few answers to the course of his own life. But because he is human and vulnerable doesn’t mean that at another level he can’t be virulent and destructive. As his father Marko says to Connie:

MARKO: Connie, you are intelligent, but Ziggi is smart.

As every demagogue and dictator knows full well, being smart, in the sense of intuitively knowing how to manipulate and influence, can sometimes be far more potent than mere intelligence.

Williamson exerts some influence By Rebecca Baillie for the 7.30 Report

There is no name linked more to Australian theatre than that of David Williamson.

He says he has lost count of the number of plays he has written over his 35-year career.

It is just short of Shakespeare's tally of somewhere between 36 and 38 plays, depending on who you reference.

But Williamson's new play, Influence - which premieres with the Sydney Theatre Company before touring nationally - could be his last.

The workaholic has been ordered to slow down and if Influence is his final play, he will be bowing out with some customary controversy.

It tackles the power of radio's so-called shock jocks and some are not necessarily happy with his portrayal.

Like the David Williamson plays before it, Influence tackles a prickly aspect of Australian society.

This time Williamson has the power of radio talkback announcers in his sights.

"Right-wing journalists and radio announcers are so self-righteous that they're ripe for satire," he said.

"I think they actually do social harm because their technique is to amplify anxieties into fears, turn fears into panics and engender a general wave of fear and conservatism."

Williamson insists that his bombastic character Ziggy Blasco, played by John Waters, is not modelled solely on any particular radio host.

Stan Zemanek bills himself as the most complained-about broadcaster in the country. While he maintains that the rabid views of Williamson's radio host don't reflect his own, he is still claiming some credit for the play.

"Maybe David got a little bit of inspiration out of the fact that, yes, I did sell him an apartment in Sydney, and it was quite interesting. He liked my study, so much so that he wanted to - in the contract - have the wastepaper basket and the desk that I wrote at," he said.

However Williamson maintains Ziggy is a fictional character.

"I did write some of it at Stan's desk, but I wasn't asking for his vibes to be transmitted to my word processor," he said.

In Influence Williamson also explores the plight of the working poor, through two characters employed in the fictional Ziggy Blasco's household.

"We don't like to think there's a servant class in Australia, but there is. Most of our professionals couldn't exist without a very low-paid servant class."

Williamson's plays have headlined Australian theatre company repertoires since the early 1970s, when he had international success with The Removalists.

Since then he has written more than one play a year, but says a recently diagnosed heart condition means Influence could be his last.

"But I've poured my heart into it for 35 years, and I'm ready to let the new talent flood the stages," he said.

For actors and directors who have worked with Williamson over the years, it is hard to imagine life on the Australian stage without a new Williamson play.

Actor John Waters, says Williamson is still very popular.

"Sometimes in theatre that seems to be a bad word. I don't know why, because without popular writers like David, I don't think that theatre companies would have survived," he said.

Williamson has no doubt that theatre will survive without him. He plans to spend his time at a more leisurely pace, writing for film, and is happy to let his body of work speak for itself.

"A big thrill in my life is seeing so many of my plays brought to life in such an excellent fashion resonating with the audience, and I've had a very fortunate innings," he said.

Although John Laws and Alan Jones did not wish to be included for this story the ABC understands they are planning to see the play, as is Stan Zemanek.

7.30 Report ABC TV. Transcript.

KERRY O'BRIEN: There is no name linked more to Australian theatre than that of David Williamson. He says he's lost count of the number of plays he's written over his 35-year career. In fact, it's just short of Shakespeare's tally of somewhere between 36 and 38 plays, depending on who you reference. But Williamson's new play, Influence - which premieres with the Sydney Theatre Company tomorrow before touring nationally - could be his last. The workaholic has been ordered to slow down and if, indeed, Influence is his final play, he will be bowing out with some customary controversy. It tackles the power of radio's so-called shock jocks and - surprise, surprise - they're not necessarily happy with Williamson's portrayal. Rebecca Baillie reports.

JOHN WATERS AS ZIGGY BLASCO: What are your pet hates? I'll tell you one of mine - it's our bleeding-heart, over-educated left-liberal elite.

DAVID WILLIAMSON, PLAYWRIGHT: Right-wing journalists and radio announcers are so self-righteous that they're ripe for satire.

JOHN WATERS AS ZIGGY BLASCO: Aborigines, ethnic minorities, gays, women, other-abled, left-handed lesbians - you name it, they're suffering.

STAN ZEMANEK, RADIO BROADCASTER: I don't know any of those radio announcers that go and stir up hatred, that promote racism on radio. I don't know any of them.

REBECCA BAILLIE: It's the latest offering from Australia's premier playwright, and like the 34 or so David Williamson plays before it, 'Influence' tackles a prickly aspect of Australian society.

JOHN WATERS AS ZIGGY BLASCO: Hey, the switchboard's lit up!

JOHN LAWS, RADIO BROADCASTER: You're just plain stupid.

STAN ZEMANEK: Probably been sitting on your bum for the last 10 years collecting the bloody dole. ALAN JONES, RADIO BROADCASTER: Well, I tell you what, the public are sick of all of this. Oh, give us a break, will you? For God's sake! What is going on?

REBECCA BAILLIE: This time, David Williamson has the power of radio talkback announcers in his sights. STAN ZEMANEK: Well, I am speaking for Australia, you fool!

DAVID WILLIAMSON: I think they actually do social harm because their technique is to amplify anxieties into fears, turn fears into panics and engender a general wave of fear and conservatism.

STAN ZEMANEK: It is about 13 minutes after 9. This is the Stan Zemanek program right around Australia. I don't prey on people's fears and I don't promote people's fears and I don't amplify people's fears. They're calling me and saying, "Stan, I am concerned about a particular issue in this country." It's my job as a broadcaster to, I suppose, talk to them, to debate the issue with them, to agree or disagree.

FEMALE CHARACTER IN PLAY: Muslim extremists are a tiny minority.

JOHN WATERS AS ZIGGY BLASCO: It only takes one extremist to arrive at Sydney Airport, self-infected with the ebola virus, and half the city's population could be wiped out.

FEMALE CHARACTER IN PLAY: Don't be so alarmist!

REBECCA BAILLIE: David Williamson insists that his bombastic character Ziggy Blasco, played by John Waters, is not modelled solely on any particular radio host.

STAN ZEMANEK: But at the end of the day, if you can't solve the problem, then it's either the cane or the strap.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Stan Zemanek bills himself as the most complained-about broadcaster in the country. While he maintains that the rabid views of Williamson's radio host don't reflect his own, he's still claiming some credit for the play.

STAN ZEMANEK: Maybe David got a little bit of inspiration out of the fact that, yes, I did sell him an apartment in Sydney, and it was quite interesting. He, I think, liked my study, so much so that he wanted to - in the contract, he wanted to have the wastepaper basket and the desk that I wrote at. DAVID WILLIAMSON: I did write some of it at Stan's desk, but I wasn't asking for his vibes to be transmitted to my word processor. I guarantee you, it is a fictional character, and it is just ironic that this play was written on Stan's desk.

CHARACTER IN PLAY: Ziggy thinks he's paying good money, but I'll tell you something - he's not. FEMALE CHARACTER IN PLAY#2: Don't talk to me about it. In the last 10 years, I've not saved one cent. Our rent takes most of it.

REBECCA BAILLIE: Influence is not a one-issue play. Williamson also explores the plight of the working poor, through two characters employed in the fictional Ziggy Blasco's household.

DAVID WILLIAMSON: We don't like to think there's a servant class in Australia, but there is. Most of our professionals couldn't exist without a very low-paid servant class.

ROBYN NEVIN, SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY: David's plays are, I think somebody suggested recently, a social history in the making, so inevitably they're going to connect with the prevailing dinner-time conversations.

REBECCA BAILLIE: David Williamson's plays have headlined Australian theatre company repertoires since the early 1970s, when he had international success with The Removalists. Since then he's written more than one play a year, but says a recently diagnosed heart condition means Influence could be his last. The doctor's said to you you should slow down?

DAVID WILLIAMSON: Yep, very definitely. But I've poured my heart into it for 35 years, and I'm ready to let the new talent flood the stages.

ROBYN NEVIN: Actually, normally by this time of this year he's brought me a play to consider for the following year, and he hasn't done that yet, so maybe he is serious.

REBECCA BAILLIE: For actors and directors who've worked with David Williamson over the years, it's hard to imagine life on the Australian stage without a new Williamson play.

JOHN WATERS, ACTOR: He's very, very popular, and sometimes in theatre that seems to be a bad word. I don't know why, because without popular writers like David, I don't think that theatre companies would have survived.

REBECCA BAILLIE: David Williamson has no doubt that theatre will survive without him. He plans to spend his time at a more leisurely pace, writing for film, and is happy to let his body of work speak for itself.

DAVID WILLIAMSON: A big thrill in my life is seeing so many of my plays brought to life in such an excellent fashion resonating with the audience, and I've had a very fortunate innings.

KERRY O'BRIEN: We did approach broadcasters John Laws and Alan Jones for tonight's story. While they didn't wish to be included, we understand they are planning to see the play, as is Stan Zemanek. Rebecca Baillie with that report.

Excerpt in interview with Artistic director Robyn Nevin "Nevin puts acting centre stage"

October 12, 2004 SMH

David Williamson's latest play, Influence, one of STC's two world premieres next year, portrays the double life of a fictional powerful Sydney talkback host, Ziggy Blasco, filling the airwaves with anti-terrorism and anti-PC raves while being feted by politicians clambering to be his next guest.

Asked who Williamson might be drawing inspiration from for the character Blasco, Nevin simply rolls her eyes.

"Take your pick!" she says. "Clearly it's modelled on a number of very influential, powerful men, broadcasters, shock jocks, talkback hosts.

"David is really concerned by the amount of influence that these people can have. I think it's a very tough piece but of course it is social comedy. It's his annual satire."

State Art by - Alex McDonald How to win friends and influence people 07 March 2005

When we think of 'shock-jocks' a few things come immediately to mind. Alan Jones, Cash for Comment, Valvoline commercials and really bad hairpieces. Whether you love or absolutely loathe them, you can’t really avoid them or underestimate the sway they have over public opinion. But what is there to know beyond the on-air frictions and the behind-the-scenes power plays? David Williamson's new play, Influence, endeavours to strip away the layers of opinion and ego to reveal what motivates these odd but influential creatures.

In Influence, Williamson’s subject is the fictitious Sydney talkback DJ Ziggi Blasco and he’s pretty standard as far as shock jocks go. He has little sympathy for ethnic minorities, gays or the working poor and sees ‘over-educated, left liberal elites’ as his natural enemies. Off-air however, Ziggi is an entirely different person. He worries about his daughter’s drug-taking and is dominated by an overbearing wife.

Peter Fitzpatrick has said that David Williamson’s interests as a playwright “have been consistently sociological, in the patterns of aggression and submission, the rituals and role-playing, in group behaviour. The groups have normally been drawn very much from Williamson's own experience; indeed, from the randy graduates in The Coming of Stork (1970), through to the disillusions of the educated ocker in Don's Party (1971) and Jugglers Three (1972).

“The exceptions to that brand of first-hand sociological observation are The Removalists (1971) and The Club (1976). The former, a study of the violence implicit in male sexual and social roles, was inspired by a casual anecdote told by a removalist. Both plays are peopled with mythical or stereotypical figures rather than with the playwright's acquaintances; neither play contains anyone who could be said to represent the author.”

Undoubtedly Australia’s most prolific playwright, David Williamson’s career began at La Mama Theatre in Carlton, with the premiere of The Coming of Stork in 1970. Influence is his 17th play, and reunites the playwright with Bruce Myles who also directed a recent production of the classic Williamson play The Club in 2003.

SMH Influence Reviewed by Bryce Hallett March 21, 2005

By David Williamson, STCDrama Theatre, March 18, Until April 30

"Right from the start he was an aggressive, opinionated little swine. I tried to drown him in the bath when he was four, but he wriggled out of my grasp," says Connie, the otherwise fair-minded sister of bully-boy broadcaster Ziggi Blasko.

By the time the sardonic comment comes in David Williamson's serious-minded play about power, manipulation and fear, the audience has been bombarded with Ziggi's breathlessly self-righteous views and plunged into his faltering private affairs.

The play begins with a flourish as John Waters's Ziggi sits in his studio altar looking like a despotic showman manning a grand organ and pushing all the right buttons for maximum effect. He cuts a familiar figure in Sydney, a shock jock who has the ear of politicians, the clout of celebrity, the cushion of sponsors and the ready-made sermons that dedicated followers take comfort in.

"This is Ziggi Blasko on Life 608, the station that lets you get it off your chest. What are your pet hates? I'll tell you one of mine. It's our bleeding-heart, overeducated, left liberal, elites ..."

On the tirade goes before he makes a mockery of "the so-called working poor" and lays his well-heeled, bigoted boot into the differences and opinions of others.

Paradoxes and ironies abound in Influence as Ziggi's public and private lives collide. He's not at all happy about his migrant father Marko's wartime revelations because they threaten his career while the caution of his Turkish-Muslim housekeeper Zehra ultimately turns to anger - a sure sign of terror in the fire-stoking words and convenient declamations of Ziggi.

Williamson deliberately avoids making the on-air entertainer too satiric a beast, figuring he's too vile to be made a joke. Instead he reveals him to be out of touch and out of control, surrounded by his spoils and an extended tribe of the greedy, needy, servile and good.

With splashes of farce and the odd silences of social conscience drama, Influence mainly registers as a sitcom and though it's not typically light Williamson fare, it's not exactly penetrating or tragic, either.

Like Birthrights and Amigos it seeks to explore important issues, in this instance opinion making and indoctrination, as well as real-life dilemmas in a journalistic style that's wedded to the comedic. Whenever the play darkens or anticipates possible conflicts it shifts gear and looks for laughs. Influence gives a nod to the cash-for-comment controversy, sends up political correctness and lashes out at terrorists. Mostly it resorts to irony rather than rage. If only it were more lacerating and outrageously bold.

Director Bruce Myles's polished production shrewdly negotiates the mood swings and tonal changes while Laurence Eastwood's salubrious set works a treat, as does Paul Charlier's music.

The ensemble is excellent given the constraints and the uneasy mix of the comic and tragic. Waters is commanding and aloof as Ziggi while Vanessa Downing is first-rate as his alert and caring sister Connie, a foil to the narcissistic broadcaster's cocksureness and ability to incite hatred.

Zoe Carides is outstanding as the housekeeper, not only in conveying duty, pride, good-humour and grace but in communicating a palpable sense of quiet pain, uncertainty and love. Zehra finds a kindred spirit in the guilt-ridden Marko who comes to loathe the rantings of his son. It's a difficult role but Edwin Hodgeman's thoughtful performance adds interest and soul.

On the more comical and caricatured front are Ziggi's brittle, self-centred partner Carmela (Genevieve Hegney), who is determined to rekindle her more limp than illustrious ballet career, and the "bipolar" daughter Vivienne (Octavia Barron-Martin) who shows that a pampered life and expensive education are no buffer from neglect and low self-esteem. It's all a question of balance.

Influence almost ends where it begins - the lone manipulator revelling in the adoration of strangers while his own life is in tatters. The merchant of "the truth" is almost unchanged except he's more smugly inflated as he reassures listeners that he'll always be back "because this country wants to hear what I've got to say".

This is reportedly Williamson's last play but many in the industry can't imagine a future without his storytelling and humour. I don't consider Influence an example of Williamson in peak form but there's no denying its topicality and compassion at the core.

The Australian Williamson's masterful final act John McCallum March 21, 2005

Influence By David Williamson. Sydney Theatre Company. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. March 19. Tickets: $66. Bookings: (02) 9250 1777. Until April 30.

LIKE Adolf Hitler before him, Ziggi Blasko knows which buttons to press. He is the king of talkback radio, spreading fear and loathing under the guise of "common sense". "Hey," he says exultantly after each on-air diatribe against bleeding hearts and their lost causes, "the switchboard's lit up!"

In this, supposedly his last play, David Williamson turns his attention to the newly respectable rabid Right and its discontents. In Ziggi's case the discontents are mostly represented by his own family – his self-obsessed trophy wife, his left-wing psychologist sister, his petulant and troubled teenage daughter, and his war-criminal father. They might come across as a collection of archetypes, but each of them poses a dramatic challenge to the simplistic world that Ziggi peddles to his sycophantic listeners.

At the moral centre of the play is Zehra, Ziggi's new housekeeper, a Turkish Muslim woman who leaves her three beloved daughters each day to travel from the outer suburbs to clean, cook and tend to Ziggi's dysfunctional family. Only occasionally does she object (very mildly, because she needs the job) to his public ranting against Muslims. Zoe Carides plays the role with great simple dignity and authority. Andrew Tighe plays the chauffeur/manservant Tony, another quietly decent character caught up in Ziggi's appallingly ignorant world.

Williamson tends to individualise his political material in a way that sometimes lets his bad guys – and by extension his middle-class professional audience – off the hook. But in this play Ziggi's views are so vile, his hypocrisy so blatant, his claim to authority so thin, and his tribulations with his family so comically absurd that the effect is very confronting, especially because John Waters, as Ziggi, is very human and personable, even as his character rants against political correctness and its sympathy for the weak and the oppressed.

Vanessa Downing delivers one of several strong supporting performances as his sister, who keeps diagnosing people as depressed, is mocked for it and then proven right.

The darkest moments in this play come when Marko, Ziggi's father, a Croatian refugee from World War II, reveals his guilty past as a Nazi collaborator and executioner. He is played with great ambivalence, repellent and affecting at the same time, by Edwin Hodgeman. It is a sign of Williamson's moral complexity that this traumatised ex-fascist is, after Zehra, one of the warmest characters in the play.

Sydney Star Observer Williamson exits with Influence By Martin Portus 24/3/05

The big man of Australian theatre was farewelled last week at the Sydney Opera House after the opening of what he says is his last play. David Williamson was rightly toasted for his slick craftsmanship, his skill at making a comedy of issues out of topical headlines, for being a storyteller to his tribe. He’s been Australia’s most successful and best known playwright for more than 30 years. Influence is about his 35th play.Centre stage, cocooned in his own radio studio, is the shock jock, Ziggy Blasco. He’s a peddler of fear, an anxiety touchstone who “tells it like it is” about Lebanese crime gangs, scary Moslems and the privileges enjoyed by blacks, women, lesbians and, well, you get the idea. Ziggy (John Waters) knows his ratings depend on him keeping it up but, interestingly, he also believes what he says. Williamson never shows us how Ziggy became such a bigoted crusader. That’s not Williamson’s style, and that’s the usual disappointment. He just sets up the characters in Ziggy’s unravelling domestic and family life, and then lets it rip. Some of the characters are a little cardboardy but we laugh a lot and we think – a little.But with Influence there’s a welcome new character type. Zoe Carides is outstanding as his housekeeper, Zehra, a Turkish immigrant struggling to raise her family and please Ziggy’s insufferably selfish ballet dancer of a wife. Zehra and the mutely angry chauffeur are Sydney’s working poor, real battlers keeping his harbour penthouse well serviced – and trying hard not to listen to the radio.Ziggy’s problems begin when Zehra loses her servitude and publicly attacks him for his hate-mongering against Moslems. Then his once proud dad, a Croatian concreter, goes off to the media to confess a Nazi past. A manic depressive young daughter and a sniping “bleeding heart” sister don’t help either.Bruce Myles’s direction eschews the usual fast paced cinematic style that most directors bring to Williamson and this play – almost – manages to fill out these thoughtful gaps. Influence dramatises the urgent topicality of talkback power and public manipulation. By introducing its victims like Zehra, Williamson also has the stuff of insightful drama. I always want him to be more like topical British playwright David Hare. But he’s not. Nor is he Chekhov.He’s a satirist who, on the edge of emotional truth, a real debate or the unravelling of deeper character, always short-circuits it with a laugh. And that’s why Australian audiences love him.Influence is a Sydney Theatre Company production now running at the Sydney Opera House.

The Daily Telegraph 22 MAR 2005 Rent-a-rant reveals little By GARY SMITH

Influence, by David Williamson REVIEW

Perched high in the control room of a studio that resembles the cockpit of a spaceship, radio shock-jock Ziggi Blasko rants about the bleeding hearts who won't stop whingeing about their plight.

Listeners ring in, most of them endorsing his views. Those who don't agree get short shrift.

Ziggi, host of Life 608 (``the station that lets you get it off your chest'') rails about minimum-wage workers complaining about how to survive on $470 a week, immigration and crime, among other topics that are grist to the mill of talkback radio hosts.

With his strident opinions buoyed by a healthy ego, Ziggi (John Waters) is at ease with his world as a man of influence who can help shape the political and social landscape.

It's a different story at his ultra-modern harbourside home, where Ziggi struggles to have any influence over his feuding, dysfunctional family. Teenage daughter Vivienne (Octavia Barron-Martin) hates her expensive private school but says she doesn't do drugs -- ``only ecstasy'' -- and Ziggi's self-obsessed new partner Carmela (Genevieve Hegney), with baby in tow, holds out hope that her ballet career is not over. And Ziggi's dad, Marko (Edwin Hodgeman), has decided to come to live with his hero, his son.

Then there's Zehra (Zoe Carides), a struggling Turkish migrant employed as the new cleaner, ironically on a wage of $470.

When Zehra hears Ziggi on radio damning Muslims, it becomes personal and in the salubrious surrounds of his home, he is forced to defend his comments. Meanwhile, Marko feels it's time to come clean about his murky past.

Influence, possibly David Williamson's final play, is certainly not his strongest. Ziggi is a character familiar to most commercial talkback radio listeners, but he is rather one-dimensional in Waters' portrayal.

Barron-Martin as the teenager with attitude is impressive, especially in her manic period of enlightenment that later cruelly backfires.

Vanessa Downing as Ziggi's psychologist sister Connie, who can't help psychoanalysing every dire situation that arises, is nicely understated, and Edwin Hodgeman brings a pathos and vulnerability to Ziggi's dad, Marko.

This Sydney Theatre Company production is well directed by Bruce Myles, and Laurence Eastwood's set, with a backdrop of the constantly changing colours of the city skyline, is wonderful. Williamson has always delighted in drawing on stereotypes to bring out the comedy and a scathing political and social message.

While much of the comedy works, the message of living in a culture of fear since 9/11, and among scaremongers like Ziggi, works only tenuously as it gets tangled among lesser sub-plots.

The Daily Telegraph 18/3/05 Driven to despair by talk-back and pollies By E Fortescue

Playwright David Williamson is saddened by 21st century Australia, whose theatre world he is departing -- possibly for good. At a media preview of his latest, and perhaps last, play this week, Williamson spoke calmly but firmly about his feelings for the country whose social climate he has carefully mapped in his scripts for 35 years.

`You can't help feeling a little despairing about the way Australia has moved on social issues since [Prime Minister] John Howard has taken office,'' Williamson said.

`I think the single most disgraceful thing this country did was the Tampa incident where 400 dehydrating sick people on the deck of a ship going nowhere were invaded by Australian special forces, as if they were a huge threat. They were never a threat and now most of them are in Australia. But it was all political show.''

Williamson blames the Howard Government for creating a climate of fear, aided by the radio shock-jocks who peddle a message of panic to the public. He says: ``I think a lot of politicians -- and I think John Howard is an expert at it, and a lot of radio talk-back hosts -- are very good at amplifying fears. They take a legitimate anxiety and turn it into a fear, and take a fear and turn it into a panic because, in the case of the radio guys, it increases ratings.

`Nothing sells like panic. And in the case of John Howard, it gathers votes.''

Williamson's new play, titled Influence, stars John Waters in the role of Sydney radio shock-jock, Ziggi Blasko. Through the character of Blasko, the play does satirise the self-righteous, right-wing posturings of some talk-back hosts -- but not to the point where Blasko looks silly. For Williamson, it was important for Blasko to retain his power and plausibility.

In the play, when Blasko's sister Connie tells Blasko that his fears of an extremist Muslim attack on Sydney are an over-reaction, Blasko delivers this line: ``If I had've told you on September 10th, 2001, that you could wake up tomorrow with the twin towers gone and the Pentagon wrecked you would have said exactly the same thing. `The probability is tiny.' Well I'm sorry, but it wasn't.''

Williamson said the fear engendered in Australia by the attacks on America is understandable and necessary, but that it has been amplified excessively. He says: ``There are a lot of fears and hates that have been engendered that I wish weren't.

`Not every unemployed person is a hopeless dole bludger.

`This is a very competitive society and people do fall through the cracks.''

Williamson says low and average-wage earners have had their taxes increased `fiercely'' under the Howard Government.

`It's totally unfair. The top-end wage earners are getting off scot-free,'' he said.

Williamson's political fire still burns but he is retiring from the theatre because of medical advice to avoid stress -- but still plans to do some writing for film.

Reviews from South Australia's The Advertiser.

Influential voice By PATRICK McDONALD 11may05

IT'S hard to believe that leading Australian actor John Waters has never appeared in one of David Williamson's plays before.

While he has performed the acclaimed writer's scripts for film and television – including Eliza Fraser and The Perfectionist – it has taken 30 years for Waters to fulfil that dream on stage, in Influence.

"I've always thought it would be great to be in one of his plays and particularly to originate a role for him," Waters says.

"It's just one of those things where the opportunity hasn't arisen until now. I'm really glad that it has, particularly in light of the fact that it may be his last play."

In Influence, Williamson turns the tables on larger-than-life radio "shock jocks" and the power they can wield in everyday people's lives.

Waters plays Ziggi Blasco, a high-rating talkback DJ who is courted by politicians and has the ability to influence public opinion with his hardline views.

Influence has broken box-office records at Sydney Opera House's Drama Theatre, selling more than 31,000 tickets to date. It will return to the Sydney Theatre Company for an extra three weeks in August, following its Adelaide season.

The cast workshopped Influence with Williamson before Christmas, after which he made some structural changes to the play.

Williamson thought it would be wrong to turn Ziggi into a satirical character.

"They're more dangerous when they are more subtle and a bit more intellectual," Waters says.

"There are a number of choices he could have made ... but I think he decided somebody like me would sell the beliefs better.

"Indeed, that makes the character more dangerous, if he seems to be reasonably charismatic and believable.

"You must try and feel what it is like to believe those things, those sort of right-wing, hasty, knee-jerk reactions and opinions."

The play addresses many of the post-September 11 issues which now dominate Australian society.

"I think it's a xenophobic situation we find ourselves in," Waters says.

"The play asks the question: Are we the warm, fuzzy, welcoming country that we always say we are? What have we become?"

Williamson also tackles the issue of the "working poor" – people who have a wage but still cannot make ends meet.

"He was also very much concerned with the immigration issue and the paranoia and fear of Muslims," Waters says.

"Ziggi calls it a 'clash of civilisations, a fight to the death between free secular democracies and medieval clerical dictatorships'.

"Of course, there are many Islamic countries which aren't clerical dictatorships but people like Ziggi lump them all together."

Things happen to Ziggi which ought to change his viewpoint – but they don't. Ziggi's father, a former Croatian militiaman, wants to confess to past atrocities that the broadcaster feels will ruin his own career. His bipolar disordered daughter loses half his fortune on internet investment schemes and his "wretched, narcissistic, ballet dancer wife" walks out on him.

Waters insists Williamson hasn't written a "boring, leftie, ranting tome".

"There's humour and it's not a political document. It just happens to be based around these very serious issues," the actors says.

"But it is also a farce about the home life of this man who is so dictatorial and so arrogant in his castle up in the radio studio."

· Influence will be at the Dunstan Playhouse for State Theatre Company from May 18 to June 4. Bookings at BASS.

Acting with heart By LOUISE NUNN 16may05

THEATRE isn't Edwin Hodgeman's life – it's his life force. When the 69-year-old discovered he had bowel cancer two years ago, the question was not whether, but when, he would return to the stage.

"I just fell over in Borders bookshop in Adelaide," an upbeat Hodgeman says from Sydney, where he is appearing in the record-breaking run of David Williamson's latest play, Influence, at the Sydney Opera House.

"Then they found out I was losing blood, and shoved me into casualty, and they found I was anaemic and gave me blood, and found me a bed, and found the cancer."

Surgery followed, and a six-month chemotherapy course.

However, within months Hodgeman was back on the boards, playing Willy Loman's brother in State Theatre's 2004 production of Death of a Salesman.

"It slowed me down a bit – I'm OK now but it did slow me down," he says.

"When this came up, I thought I'd love to do it, but I didn't know whether it would perhaps be a bit wearing.

"But it has worked out very well. I'm glad because it has given me a new lease of life."

For Hodgeman, playing a World War II Croation refugee, father to the play's central protagonist, radio shock jock Ziggi Blasko, has turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of his career.

The extended premiere season has been a sell-out in Sydney.

Next stop is home town Adelaide, where Influence opens at the Dunstan Playhouse on Friday as part of artistic director Adam Cook's first State Theatre season.

Influence is the first new Williamson to play in Adelaide in some years.

Hodgeman is happy to be part of the event, which has gained significance from Williamson's announcement that it will be his last big play. Like many in the industry, Hodgeman finds it hard to believe.

He and the other cast members worked closely with Williamson during a pre-rehearsal workshop just before Christmas and there was no sign he was slowing down.

"We all hope it's not his last," he says. "I'm glad Adelaide is seeing a new Williamson after all this time, and one as good as this."

As well as one of the most rewarding engagements in a career spanning more than 50 years, Influence will also be Hodgeman's longest. After the Playhouse season, the production tours to Newcastle and Melbourne before heading back to Sydney for a return season in August.

It has also reunited Hodgeman and director Bruce Myles, who directed Hodgeman in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui back in the 1970s. It was "one of the best things I've done", Hodgeman says. Meanwhile, he says Influence has a marvellous cast, led by John Waters in the role of Blasko.

"It's like all Williamson's plays," Hodgeman says.

"There are wonderful one-liners all through – the audiences in Sydney have been quite rapturous."

Influence is not a "full-on" comedy, however, and Hodgeman had to work to find the humour in his role.

It's his preferred approach to a character, and his way of breaking the ice with the audience. "The first thing I do when I read a script is look for the laughs, no matter what it is," he says.

"Even if it's Macbeth, I look for something that might just give me a hint of humour. But I found very few laughs – in fact, none – when I first read this part.

"So a lot of my efforts were geared to giving the guy a bit of humour, and I did find one or two lines to work with."

For Hodgeman, who turns 70 during the Melbourne season of Influence, that contact with the audience is critical.

"It keeps me going," he says.

"I still have stage fright, and I still have premonitions or feelings I'm going to forget my lines, or fall, or something.

"But as soon as you hit that stage, you hear the audience, you feel the people and you sense them, and you know they want you to do a good job.

"And for me, it pervades your whole being, and you go out and give it everything."

Hodgeman started out in amateur theatre in Adelaide.

He was among the first group of aspiring young actors accepted into the national drama academy, NIDA, in Sydney, along with Sydney Theatre Company artistic director Robyn Nevin, and actors Tommy Dysart and Peter Couchman.

He graduated in 1960 and went on to perform around Australia in theatre, opera, musicals, television and film.

He has worked extensively for State Theatre and companies including the Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne theatre companies, and Bell Shakespeare.