Damian Callinan.
 "It's probably my favourite show I've ever done," Damian Callinan says of 'Sportsman's Night', a show he originally performed in Melbourne five years ago and is now dusting off for the Adelaide Fringe. And well he might, as the basis for the show is a town right here in South Australia.
"I saw a news story on tabloid television," explains Callinan, of the true events that would become the winner of Best Comedy at the Melbourne Fringe. "It was the story - this is a true story - of a country football club that got banned when a rather nasty melee occurred, and it was obviously the last straw in this competition; the club had a pretty bad reputation. But the fight actually started in the kids' playground. The kids started fighting, and the parents got involved, and it got massively out of hand.
"The news story I saw of it was fantastic. They decided to take the angle of, 'What a tragedy the town has lost its footy club, what are they going to do?' And there was a beautiful image of a grandfather standing next to his grandson, and he was obviously a club stalwart, and he was going, 'What's this little fellow going to do?' And he hit him, just slapped the side of his head. 'What's he going to do?'"
From this heart-warming scene, Callinan devised 'Sportsman's Night', a show where he, in the guise of several different characters (including a tribute to that impassioned grandfather), hosts a charity night to appeal the ban of rural football team the Bodgy Creek Roosters. The event is described by one character as "a night where people who used to be good at sports come to talk to people who aren't any good at sports."
"I've played country footy, and I've been involved in football clubs, not in recent times," Callinan says of his own experiences with such events. "I have an affection for that world, but also, I know exactly what it is, I can happily step away from it. But there are so many people, especially in country towns, where even guys who are shit at footy play ... So I kind of have an affection for it because it's just such a part of the Australian rural landscape."
But what about people (like, indeed, myself) who don't see football as the all-consuming obsession that some Australians hold it in? "It seems to strike a chord with both people who love footy and hate it. I've had women who've come up to me and say, 'That's exactly my boyfriend and his club. Thank you.' And then that same boyfriend will come up and say, 'Mate, that was fantastic.'"
Henry Nicholls
 | Damian Callinan performs 'Sportsman's Night' at the Belgian Beer Cafˇ (Ebenezer Place) from Wed 1 March |
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