| Tony Martin | |
|---|---|
Tony Martin |
|
| Born | 10 June 1964 Te Kuiti, New Zealand |
| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Years active | 1986 - Present |
| Genres | Comedy, Satire, Improvisation |
| Notable works and roles | The D-Generation, Martin/Molloy, Kath & Kim, Get This |
| Website | http://www.thescrivenersfancy.com/ |
Tony Francis[1] Martin (born 10 June 1964) is a comedian and writer from Te Kuiti, New Zealand who has had a successful TV, radio, stand-up and film career in Australia.
Contents |
A former stand-up comedian and commercial voice-over-man, Tony Martin moved to Brisbane, Australia from New Zealand when he was twenty-one to work as a radio copy writer.[2] Having worked in radio and amateur theatre back in NZ, Martin approached the ABCTV's The D-Generation in 1986 to work as a writer only to be told that filming on the first series had been completed. In the interim, he was invited to work as a researcher on ABC-TV's The Gillies Republic which was the follow-up to the highly successful political satire The Gillies Report (1984–85) starring Max Gillies. The show was not a success but Martin learnt a considerable amount from the production's mistakes.[2] He was also able to observe the production of the last few episodes of the 1986 ABC-TV live sketch-comedy show While You're Down There which starred Richard Stubbs and Glenn Robbins and it was on the set that he met D-Gen member Tom Gleisner.[2] Following that, Martin was employed for a short period as a puppeteer on the ABC-TV political satire Rubbery Figures which featured rubber puppet-caricatures of famous politicians created by artist Peter Nicholson (Martin also did the voice of Joh Bjelke-Petersen). Martin was on the verge of heading back home to New Zealand when he was invited to be a writer for the second series of The D-Generation in 1987.[2] He also made short appearances on the show, making his TV-debut as a dazed supermarket employee, and he also appeared on the 1989 spin-off album, The Satanic Sketches. Martin began to take on a more prominent role when the D-Generation produced four comedy specials for Network Seven in 1988-89, including doing one of the voices for 'DeGenocide' where clips of the old Australian TV crime series Homicide were dubbed over with funny lines. Martin became a bonafide D-Gen member when he began writing and performing on the troupe's "Breakfast Show" on Triple M[3] radio (1987–1992), which led to the 1990 compilation album The Breakfast Tapes. On air, Martin was frequently referred to by the other D-Gen members as "The Fat Man." Along with Rob Sitch, Martin left the radio show a little earlier than the other members to prepare The D-Gen’s next venture for ABC TV (although he did make time to host Bulltwang, a Sunday Night radio show on Triple M with Mick Molloy, which ran for sixteen weeks in 1990).
Instantly recognisable as the "tall skinny guy with glasses," Martin was one of the most valuable members of the D-Gen as a writer and performer on The Late Show (1992–1993). His co-introductions to almost every episode and "Street Interviews" segment highlighted his effective comedic partnership with Mick Molloy. Noted for his quick wit and passion for mimicry, Martin also appeared in countless Late Show sketches (including sleazy filmmaker Warren Perso in the classic sketch: The Last Australian Auteur), and provided the voices of Senior Sergeant Bargearse in the serial "Bargearse" (dubbed episodes of Bluey) and Governor Frontbottom and Judge Muttonchops in the serial The Olden Days (dubbed episodes of Rush). Martin compiled all three volumes of The Best Bits of The Late Show with Santo Cilauro and Wayne Marks, and also co-produced the "dangerously overstuffed" double DVD set, The Best Bits of The Late Show: Champagne Edition, which was released in 2001.
After The Late Show finished, Martin and Mick Molloy went on to develop and perform their top-rating national radio programme Martin/Molloy, which produced three ARIA award winning compilation albums: The Brown Album (1995), Poop Chute (1996) and Eat Your Peas (1998). Martin also made several appearances on Thank God You're Here, The Panel, The Mick Molloy Show (reprising his "Street Interview" skills), and Kath & Kim (as Magda Szubanski's fiddle-playing boyfriend). He also appeared as a porn-shop owner in one episode of the 2003 ABC-TV sitcom Welcher & Welcher which starred Shaun Micallef and Robyn Butler and appeared as himself in the dvd-extras of the ABC-TV sitcom Very Small Business (2008) which starred Wayne Hope and Kym Gyngell. In 2004, Tony Martin and Shaun Micallef began work on a TV sketch comedy series for the ABC with the working title Mouse-Patrol but after they wrote enough material for the first three episodes, the project was cancelled by management, much to Martin's disappointment who commented in an interview in 2009 that the un-filmed scripts contained the best sketch stuff he had written for TV. [4]
On 3 April 2006, Martin returned to the Austereo network to produce a nationally-syndicated show with Ed Kavalee and Richard Marsland on Triple M Network named Get This. Although Get This was a ratings success [5] and developed a dedicated legion of fans,[6] on 16 October 2007 Triple M announced that the show would be axed, so the network could focus company attention and resources on new breakfast shows debuting across the country such as The Shebang in Sydney and a new, multi-million dollar Melbourne-based show presented by Peter Helliar and Myf Warhurst, both of which were ironically also cancelled by Triple M over the next couple of years. Towards the end of the show's run, a gathering of about 170 devoted fans took place outside the Triple M studios in Melbourne on November 5, 2007 to protest the cancellation of the program.[6] The last episode was aired 23 November 2007.[7]
Martin writes an online column called 'Scarcely Relevant' at The Scrivener's Fancy which is updated weekly.
More recently, he has directed new episodes of ABC TV's The Librarians, and, since 2008, has co-hosted shifts on 3RRR with Tony Wilson as The Two Tones. Martin has been working on a new program called A Quiet Word With ... which began airing on ABC1 on 28 September 2010.[8] Rather than being a conventional celebrity-interview show, the program featured Martin having relaxed and informal conversations with comedians and performers that he admired, and in some cases, had worked with during his own career.[9] The first two episodes, featuring English comedian Bill Bailey and US actor and writer Carrie Fisher, were aired, respectively, in September and November 2010. The remaining ten episodes were screened weekly on ABC1 from 2 April 2011, beginning with British actor and comedian Alan Davies, and concluding on 4 June 2011 with British actor and writer Richard E Grant.[10]
In February 2011, Martin appeared as one of the regulars on the radio-comedy program The Lonely Hearts Club which was broadcast weekly on ABC Radio National on Saturday nights 10pm-Midnight.[11] The show, delivered in a deadpan, straight fashion, featured an un-credited Martin appearing under the pseudonym of 39-year-old Duncan Jardine, one of Australia's most successful second-unit directors.[12] The first episode was broadcast on 12 February 2011 and the eighth and final episode was heard on 2 April 2011.[13] Although his own name never appeared on either the show or in any of its promotional material, Martin wrote an article in his weekly column on Scrivener's Fancy as the character of Jardine[14] and long-time Martin fans have recognised his voice on the show.[15]
In December 2010, the Nine Network announced that Martin would be reunited with his former co-host on Get This, Ed Kavalee, for an upcoming comedy show entitled The Joy of Sets.[16] This comedy television series looking at the elements used to construct television shows, commenced screening on 20 September 2011 in the 9:00 pm Tuesday timeslot on Nine.[17] The debut episode rated well [18]but audience figures declined for the subsequent episodes, prompting Channel 9 to move the show to a later timeslot of 10.30pm midway through the series.[19] The eighth and final episode aired on 8 November 2011.[20]
Martin wrote, produced and directed the 2003 comedy movie Bad Eggs (in which he also made a cameo appearance as a game show host), and wrote and directed the unreleased 2007 mockumentary BoyTown Confidential. He has also played minor roles in several films (mostly those of former Late Show colleagues), including The Castle (1997), Tackle Happy (2000), Crackerjack (2002) and BoyTown (2006).
Martin's first book Lolly Scramble, a collection of humorous autobiographical essays, was published in 2005. Martin's second book, A Nest of Occasionals, was released in October 2009.[21] The latter book, re-printed in a second edition in April 2011,[22] was voted as the best work of Australian comedy in any medium in 2009 by the comedy review website australiantumbleweeds.com [23]
Martin grew up in the small New Zealand towns of Te Kuiti and Thames.[24] For two years as a child, he lived on a boat for five months of the year as his father was a part-time amateur marlin fisherman. Since there was no TV, he would listen to radio programs like The Goon Show and try to copy the voices.[24]
At the age of 18, Tony moved to Hamilton where he landed a job with a radio copy writer, which eventually secured his first passage to Australia when a visiting executive from the station's sister outfit in Brisbane needed a new writer. A self-proclaimed "film nerd" who watches as many as 375 movies a year, Martin often refers to his encyclopaedic knowledge of film and television trivia. His knowledge of film was entirely self-taught, often from listening to director's commentaries of films. He claims he learned a year's worth of film school from Robert Altman's commentary on The Player and Martin Scorsese's on Taxi Driver. His favourite film is Singin' in the Rain.[25]
Martin married Annie Maver, a floor manager on The Panel and RocKwiz, who has worked as an assistant director in Australian movies and television productions. He met her when she was a floor manager on The D-Generation.[24] They are now divorced.[26]
He suffers from haemochromatosis[27] and often jokes about his health. He made references to his "many odd medical problems relating to his health" on Get This.
| Feature Files | ||||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Scumbus | T.B.A | Post-Production | [28] |
| 2009 | The Last Supper | James The Greater | [29] | |
| 2006 | BoyTown | Kenny Larkin | Second Unit Director | [30] |
| 2005 | Australian Pie | Special Thanks | [31] | |
| 2003 | Bad Eggs | Gavin Clark | Director, Writer, Producer, Casting Director | [32] |
| 2002 | Crackerjack | Les Nestor | [33] | |
| Guru Wayne | Executive Producer | [34] | ||
| 2001 | Brown Shoe Polish | Customer | [35] | |
| 2000 | Tackle Happy | Himself | Special Thanks | [36] |
| 1999 | Shonky Golf | HAL 9000 | Voice | [37] |
| 1997 | The Castle | Adam Hammill | Special Thanks | [38] |
| Television | ||||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref |
| 2011 | The Hamster Wheel | Himself | #1.3 | [39] |
| The Joy of Sets | Himself | Writer, Host | [40] | |
| The Bazura Project | Interviewer | Cameo appearance | [41] | |
| Judith Lucy's Spiritual Journey | FM Radio Host | Series Director | [42] | |
| Dogstar | Voice | #2.23 & #2.25 | [43] & [44] | |
| 2010 – present | A Quiet Word With ... | Himself | Creator, Executive Producer, host | [45] |
| 2010 | Santo, Sam and Ed's Cup Fever | Himself | Episode 13/06/2010 | [46] |
| 2009 | Talkin' 'bout Your Generation | Himself | [47] | |
| The Librarians | Gene | Director, Producer, Special Thanks, Theater Director | [48] | |
| Shaun Micallef's New Year's Rave | Himself | [49] | ||
| 2008 | Very Small Business | Himself | DVD extras | [50] |
| 2007–2008 | Newstopia | Giles & Waiter | 2 episodes | [51] |
| 2006–2009 | Thank God You're Here | Various Characters | #2.1, #2.7, #2.10, #3.3, #3.7, #4.5 | [52] |
| 2003–2004 | Kath & Kim | Mark | #1.1, #1.8, #2.4, #2.8 | [53] |
| 2003 | Welcher & Welcher | Sex-Shop Proprietor | #1.3 | [54] |
| Micallef Tonight | Himself | Un-aired Pilot episode | [55] | |
| 2001 | The Micallef Program | Himself (voice) | #3.7 | [56] |
| 2000 | The Games | Barman | #2.13 | [57] |
| 1999 | The Mick Molloy Show | Various Characters/Himself | Director, Writer, | [58] |
| 1997 | The D-Generation: The Bottom Drawer | Various Characters | Writer, Editor | [59] |
| 1993 | Bargearse | Sen Sgt Bargearse & Judge Muttonchops | Director, Writer, Editor, Voice | [60] |
| The Olden Days | Gov Frontbottom & Judge Muttonchops | Director, Writer, Editor, Voice | [61] | |
| 1992–1993 | The Late Show | Various Characters | Director, Producer, Writer | [62] |
| 1988–1989 | The D-Generation Goes Commercial | Various Characters | Writer | [63] |
| 1987 | The D-Generation | Various Characters | Writer | [64] |
| 1986 | The Gillies Republic | Man In Bad Suit | Writer, Researcher | [65] |
| Rubbery Figures | Various Characters | Writer, Puppeteer, Sound Effects Editor | [66] | |
| Radio Broadcasting | ||||
| Year | Title | Role | Network | Notes |
| 2011 | The Lonely Hearts Club | Co-Host (uncredited) | ABC Radio National | No longer on air |
| 2008 – present | The Two Tones | Co-Host, Producer, Writer, | 3RRR | Currently on air |
| 2006–2007 | Get This | Co-Creator, Co-Host, Producer, Writer | Triple M Network | No longer on air. |
| 1995–1998 | Martin/Molloy | Co-Creator, Co-Host, Producer, Writer | Austereo Network | No longer on air. |
| 1990 | Bulltwang | Co-Host, Writer, Producer | Triple M Melbourne (3MMM) | No longer on air. |
| 1987–1991 | The D-Generation Breakfast Show | Co-Creator, Co-Host, Writer, Producer | Triple M Melbourne (3MMM) | No longer on air. |
|
|||||||||||||||||
