The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 21

The Sunday Age AGENDA 5 5Jma992 ill turns tie hotel. fifth is secret HctwK WAYNi LUOWV it 7, -ulai been listening to Vaughan Williams' 'Fifth Symphony' while thinking about a recent documentary he had seen on the Queen. "Two outstanding things occurred to me about the Queen. First the enormous wealth. I mean, they showed a banquet for 200 people.

You saw all the dinner plates with the Elizabeth II crests. Just imagine how much It Is going to cost to change the crockery and cutlery alone when Charles takes over. No wonder she's hanging on. "The other thing was the amazing breadth of knowledge the Queen has, and how absolutely shallow it is. You should have heard the chit-chat between the Queen and Reagan.

They know nothing. But they have a superficial, skimming knowledge of everything. There's a depth of nothing. "I wonder if In the end we will all know Just a little bit about everything. That's the way the issues tend to get processed." Ian McFadyen is a baby-boomer, born in Melbourne in 1948.

He was "You can go back to American cinema to see what I mean. Rhett Butler carrying her up the stairs, or the gun-fight in 'High Noon', or Jimmy Cagney slowly dying on the steps. Where are our great moments?" "And who do you think are the great screen performers?" "Well, Charles Laughton has to be one. I almost cried when he died. Burt Lancaster was electrifying.

The way he takes control of a scene. Robert de Nlro, Al Paclno." "Have there been any great Australian performers?" "There have been some little ones. Robert Grubb in 'My Brilliant Career'. He was the foolish station owner who wanted to marry her. Bryan Brown In 'Stir'." Ian then suggested that Australian directors improve when they go overseas, and that they then create the sort of moments and performances that are lacking here.

"Put Peter Weir with Harrison Ford. Wham! Beresford with Jessica Tandy. What we lack In Australia Is people putting together good packages. "George Roy Hill (director of 'Butch Cassldy and the Sundance Kid') said If you get the script right and the cast right, you can't go wrong. You Just point the camera at them.

"Another problem Is that In Australia we don't have a national agenda for themes. We don't seem to have an adequate range of concerns. So often you come away and think, 'Why was this "But If you go to 'Dr Strangelove' or 'Death of a Salesman' or 'On The Waterfront', they are about things that mattered, not just on a political level, but also a personal level. "I think In English 1, someone said there has to be a movement of some kind. The hero has to have changed at the end for example.

Our national cinema has lost that basic point. "Our films lack catharsis. They lack that moment when Biff and Willy understand each other. Or Terry Mai-loy gets up on his feet and walks into the warehouse." brought up, first in Pascoe Vale lounge and dining room had frosted glass which included a picture of a windmill. And in the bathroom there was no heating system beside the bath.

But there were scallop-shaped soap holders." Ian's father died four years ago, six weeks after being diagnosed as having cancer. His mother now lives by herself in Dlngley. "My older brother died six months after my father, and I suspect he died because our father died." Ian's brother Bob was spastic and "fairly profoundly He was 41 when he died. His parents had looked after him all his life, then his mother was left to care for him by herself when she was 73. "He became sedentary and depressed.

Then he got pneumonia and died. He would not have been able to comprehend that our father had died. It's hard to describe him exactly, but I would say that he did not grow much past two mentally. "When we were children, we shared a bedroom. If you have someone disabled like that In the home, the whole household tends to revolve around them.

They probably wouldn't have had me If they'd known the extent of Bob's disabilities at the time. "He was treated with phenobarb In those days. He would have convulsed to death without it." In about 1955, the Spastic Children's Society was formed, which made things enormously better for the McFadyen household. Ian's brother had somewhere to go during the day. And for the first time the family came into contact with other famallies with similar problems.

"The Spastic Society was a life saver. Later my mother went back to work and made her way up to principal of Moorabbin Heights Primary." hausting week. He's one oi tnose people who has a hundred irons In the fire. On Monday he had been working at Channel Ten on a show called 'Bin-gles', of which he Is the writer and director. On Tuesday he had been working on new shows of 'Let The Blood Run Free', which he said was "not necessarily for the Australian It has been sold to eight European countries and been to air In Spain, Sweden and Holland.

The Ten Network has the option in Australia. Ian Is executive i producer. On Friday he was working at Crawford Productions on a slt-com he wrote called 'Newlyweds'. He has Just produced the second pilot for Channel Seven and "it looks like a 'Cluedo', where he is simply the front man, seemed far from his mind because It, for the time being, Is finished as far as his work is concerned. "You sound overworked," I suggested.

"Yeah. Oh yeah. I keep weekends free. We're moving house too." He sighed at the thought He and his second wife, Maryanne Fahey, have an Infant son, Jamie. "I am also doing a full-time university course," he said softly.

"You're what?" "Well, more or less full time. It's a bachelor of education." "Oh, a number of reasons. Working In television has turned my brain to mush. I feel out of touch with not only classical knowledge but what's going on in the real world. And, who knows, I might need a Job one day." In the far past he was a teacher.

"Also, Just for Interest I have an abiding interest In the humanities. I have got to re-learn study and scientific research. So much has happened In 20 years. I read 'Scientific American' and try to keep abreast of things, but It's a bit haphazard. And there Is something uniquely unsatisfactory about television Interviews." Ian McFadyen is 44.

He said he was feeling relaxed on this Sunday because driving in to the Windsor he had Ian first went to Pascoe Vale Primary in Cumberland Road, which he remembers as having an asphalt yard. Again the move to Moorabbin seemed glamorous because Tucker Road Primary had new buildings and grass. "I was the class cartoonist always getting praise for drawing. I think I displayed a narrative style. In art, the teacher would get us to do a picture about the circus, and all the kids would get me to do It for them." Ian was usually In the top 10 In the class, and by the time he was 10 years old he knew he wanted to do nuclear physics or science.

He devoured books about astronomy, chemistry and physics. "The Moorabbin years," he said, "were halcyon years. The dog, the cat the household." But at the end of the '50s, his father set up an insurance company with his own brother, which was not a great success. The family moved out of the bank house to a small rented house in mush. I feel out of real Brighton, which was a big wrench.

Ian found himself at Gardenvale Central, a feeder school for Melbourne High School. "It was a rough old school. I was lucky enough to make it into 1 which had a Latin class and that got me to Melbourne High:" At Melbourne High Ian found that his ability at art was competing with his leaning towards science, and then he had a catastrophe In form four when he failed Maths so he had to turn to humanities in fifth form. At the same time he became friends with Anthony Summers and the two of them became Interested In classical music and opera and shooting film on an elght-mtllimetre camera. He says they were "stupid All of this somehow led to Melbourne University, university theatre productions, performing at Melbourne comedy nightspots, appearing In such television shows as 'Prisoner', 'Cop Shop', 'Carson's Law', and such movies as 'Malcolm', 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams', and 'Evil Angels'.

By 1985, Ian had produced and performed In 'The Eleventh Hour', which grew Into 'The Comedy Company', which brought him wide recognition. "Can you remember the first movie to have a big Impact?" I asked. "During the teenage years Anthony and I went Into the city to see a Peter Sellers comedy. It was 'Dr Strange-love'. I thought It was fantastic.

I remember trying to explain It to people. It was one of those archetypal moments In life." "Any others?" "In the '60s American cinema was dead. It was all those spectacles. I was really a great television watcher. Because of our rather unique family circumstances, we didn't really get out much.

I was a bit like an only child. "I remember Jack Benny, Burns and Allen. But I also got to catch up on the previous generation of movies. 'Psycho' made a big impact. Also 'Elmer Gantry'.

And Frederic March In 'Death of a Salesman. And Robert Preston in 'The Dark at the Top of the Stairs'. "Later at the Melbourne University film society I was a bit at odds. If you loved American cinema, you were expected to love directors like Raoul Walsh and Sam Fuller. But I tended to like Sidney Lumet and the A-grade directors.

"The movies I liked were 'The Pawnbroker' and 'The Seagull' and 'La Strada' and 'The Seven Samurai'. I used to sit In the university theatre every Thursday. "When I think of Australian film, I can't think of any great performances! Where Is our Charles Laughton as the hunchback? Or our Toshiro Mifune In 'Seven Samurai'? I mean, we talk about directors and shots and scenes and so on. But the big falling in Australian cinema Is that it is yet to present us with great performances or great moments. 'Working in television has turned my brain to touch with what's going on in the it CONVERSATIONS TIHE man I met In the Windsor "'toyer lor Sunday afternoon tea was hardly a luminous of your typical quiz show host on commercial television.

MyTfnpresslon of that genre Is someone with an eternal Cheshire cat smile, madly agreeable, always on the verge ofSaughter, and an ever-present if faint-tense of panic. (Although, to disprove my own prejudice, Tony Barber lp private Is, not like that at all.) Ian McFadyen, despite his track record in television comedy, is more like a university lecturer in sociology: earnest if not serious, cautious if not anxious, thoughtful if not Intellectual. He is also shortish and stocky and wears glasses that make him look like an offended owl. If I wanted to find someone who Is the total antithesis of Jlmrrjy Han nan, I would possibly choose Ian McFadyen. Maybe commercial television has at last found the courage to try something' different McFadyen is the Nine Network's choice to host a game show called 'Cluedo', the first 13 episodes of which are now running and attracting high ratings.

And they must be pleased because It seems another series is already lined up. It faa my Intention to talk with Ian McFadyen about 'Cluedo', Indeed, I assumed he would insist on it As it happened, not only did he not insist but we didn't get around to it We had tea and sandwiches in the Windsor Lounge and talked about everything else. I And then we talked about movies, about he Is passionate. It emerged Immediately that McFadyen had Just completed an ex MINI PROFILE TOBERT NYERICK, 30, Is executive sous chef at the XV Regent Beverly Wllshire in Los Angeles, scene of 'Pretty Woman'. Amobg other things, he has baked chocolate chip cookies for Ronald Reagan, a banquet for Madonna and Liz Taylor, and breakfast for Michael Jackson.

Married, with one child, he Is visMng chef at the Melbourne Regent's Le Restaurant until 18 July. Childhood ambition? To become Elvu) Presley. ChildkMd fear? Not becoming Elvis Presley. Thr4 tailgate take a desert IslaaaY My wife, our baby and an unlimited beer supply. Which lood do yea wish yad bmptodT Popcorn.

What siwaM dentists discover tMrriwf The 30our day. Vktrt wwld yea like te be exiled? The Illustrated' swlmsult Vkaian ya abMlateljr epyesed te? Not enjoying and making the most of yotir life. miu I i. ,1 (rl' MM! 1 i 'fc 'hi where his father, Hector, worked for the Bank of NSW (now Westpac). His mother, Jean, was a teacher.

"I'm pretty much the story of the post-war generation. In 1954 we moved to Moorabbin because my father became manager of the bank there, a shop-front bank. "So that meant we lived in a bank-owned house. A brand new, cream brick suburban post-war Menzies dream house. Double fronted with garage.

"I knew we had arrived when I was five. This house seemed wonderful and modern and rich after the one In Pascoe Vale. Instead of old brown light switches, they were new and white and flush. Venetian blinds Instead of those brown ones you pulled down. "The double doors between the ANNUAL STOCKTAKE SALE Don't miss this opportunity 9 A Turner R.

Johnson S. Long N. L. Lindsay -A Namattra -H. Herbert T.

Garrett AT. Bemaldo W. Blanwe Young-A Boyd S. Nolan -J. Perceval C.

Pugh S. Herman -G. Bell R. Wakelm -W. Frater E.

Haxton -W. Coleman J. Brack B. Shearer G. Irvine G.

Dyer C. Perceval P. Hart -H. Sawery -G. Lants T.

Nlckolls -P. Pdrtos snd otticrs PRICES SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCED ON ALL PAINTINGS 270 T00RAK R0 SOUTH YARRA 8274701 MON-fRI 11-6 SAT, SUN 2-5 GOULD GALLERIES to buy quality works by: IllllllN On -1 (OWAILJ What do packet cake mixes contribute te society? Sales of birthday candies. Your Ideal birthday present? Our baby. How did you spend the mr Not entirely sure, now that you ask. Three must-haves la yonr supermarket trolley? Chocolate ice cream, nappies, my cheque book.

The vegetable yeu refused te eat as a kid? Yes! Humanity's grentest achievement? Dining Instead of feeding. Humanity's greatest failure? Velveeta cheese. The meaning el life? Enjoying everyone, everytlme, all the time. The meaning ef death? The end of enjoying everyone, everytlme, all the time. What de yeu collect? Bills and dust on my mantelpiece.

What would your last meal he? An end-tt-ell banquet with everyone I have ever met and wanted to meet Life's Mggert fallacy? That It Isn't the biggest kick. If SPECIAL OFFER WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY EVERY BRIDE IN 199293 int. Kill receive a beautiful, FREE WEDDING PORTRAIT I would Mu to nun to you today, our coinpMi pricIM.cotobr(Xhun,anduniquaGm(Wicte.0ur7WIM mddmg photography, with tot covwigt homo, ommony. gwdm vd ronption wtth up to 150 color proofs (yt. you do hoop thnt proofs, with your photos or Hbum) only costs 1150.

Brtdss only ordst ths prints cr snUrowiiwitt ol thw choics, star soslng ttw proofs, and then pay tor Hit -corrnlM ordar ov period of 6 months on ths LAY-BY SYSTEM starting from ths ordering data. I tOUt UU TO MAM. 4 OMAT f0OPrf. MKI UST tB sm amncATt ran nun nvm uomt nzuuix -15 Tbesday, July 14 at 6.00pm in ThtS Park Lounge. For $15.00, sip Champagne, enjoy hot cold canapes and view the designs of top Australian designer A 1 3 THERE ARE SOME GREAT SUGGESTIONS FOR HOME IMPROVEMENTS IN HOME WITH TUESDAY'S AGE MAKE YOURS ONE Of THEM.

TO ADVERTISE IN HOME CALL MARY RHODES AT THE AGE' ON 601 2540. rHEJt9fiUdL.AGE Bookings: (03) 412 3067 IX WITH THE JV HJ1 1 LLOYD BUCHANAN Shop Its Brand Boor, GaMrH Shopping Plaza LOnwnonMMn fnn( a Onr. Bourtw A tobatti Streets, Mateuna) aw.