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Will the real Rove McManus please standup?
By Dylan Behan.
For many, the idea of Rove McManus returning to standup comedy is a bit like Sir Edmund Hillary announcing he wants to conquer Mount Druitt. He's long moved on from his days of being a struggling standup to now be the new King of Australian television, a triple Gold Logie Winner, overseeing a small media empire run by his self-named production company, Roving Enterprises (as well as being the official face of Channel Ten). He even filled in for television royalty recently, hosting Good Morning Australia while the ubiquitous Bert Newtown was off sick. "I think I did okay... until I closed the show at 11am by saying 'Goodnight'... "I did plenty of throws to Moira. You live the dream of reciting that line at some point and I got to do it about eighteen times in one day."
"I used to say for years to people the only reason I wasn't doing standup was because with TV and then, at the time, the radio show, my schdule was very busy. So we finished up the radio show at the end of last year so now I've got a bit more time, so first thing I do is fill it again."
Speaking from Melbourne the morning after the first show on the tour, Rove has already honed the entirely new show with some secret gigs, but says one of the things he'll enjoy most is being able to interact with the audience, and stretch bits out - a luxury he's not afforded with the split-second nature of live television. Rove also promises a few "left-of-centre ideas" that he says, audiences are reacting well to - but don't expect old gags. "What people are going to see with this show is not just me doing the 'best of' my opening monologue material that's been rehashed from Rove Live. I'm not doing that. Even if I'm talking about something that's been covered on the TV show, I've written all new material for it, because I think audiences deserve that."
In an interview with Revolver in 2000, Rove mentioned the economic squeeze he experienced when he first moved to Melbourne from Perth to concentrate on his standup, saying he learned exactly how far he could stretch a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. In going back to his standup roots, I asked him if he's also going back to his standup diet, and if this will on his backstage rider. "No no no, it'll be nice hotels and there's actual beer backstage. The other night I had a fruit bowl and actually had dinner before the show, a proper dinner. You know you're doing well when the backstage rider isn't more than you'll eat for a week."
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Directors David Cronenberg Miranda July Walter Salles Guillermo Del Toro American Splendor Morgan Spurlock Tarnation's Jonathon Caouette What The Bleep...
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Perhaps bored of conquering TV, Rove is returning to headline his first standup show in five years, and typical of Rove, nothing is done in small doses. It's a national theatre tour including all the major capitals (and even Canberra), with a record four shows in Sydney. Something Rove says disproves the Sydney-Melbourne rivalry, which he doesn't subscribe to since he says he half lives in Sydney anyway. When asked why he's returning to live comedy, he's still driven by his early ambitions to do a massive solo tour - and he had a gap in his schedule.