|
TV WEEK - 2/6/90. By Nicola Murphy
The All-Stars have done it again...
BANNED! (so what's new?)
Being banned by censorship authorities for their irreverent antics has done little to dampen the spirit of the Doug Anthony All-stars. The black-humoured choir-boys are on the upsurge!
Their latest foray includes the release this month of their album Icon, an ABC sitcom in September, a BBC documentary, a feature film to be shot in the UK and a major art exhibition.
Already Icon has sold more than 30, 000 copies in the U.S. and is expected to hit the 100, 000 mark here, but in the UK the record has hit a snag with censorship authorities for its references to the IRA.
Ringleader Tim Ferguson, 26, says: "We're urging people not to buy it because it will definitely corrupt the youth!
"In fact the next album we're bringing out will be blank, but with a sticker warning people of offensive language!"
In June the boys jet off to make the BBC documentary Mad In Italy, which will take audiences - All-Stars-Style - behind the scenes of the World Cup Soccer.
The feature film, backed by Paramount Pictures and co-written by the All-Stars and controversial U.S. author Hunter S. Thompson, will begin production at London's Pinewood studios in January.
Says Tim: "It's going to be a rip-roaring violent film about the occult."
Set to take four months to shoot and another three months to complete the animated dream sequences, the film is scheduled for an international release.
In anticipation of the financial go-ahead from the ABC, the All-Stars have completed scripts for their 12-part sitcom tipped to star Big Gig oddball Flacco (Ian Livingston) and Chawfest's Andrew Goodone.
The trio are also completing paintings for their national art exhibition later this year.
For a bunch with such diverse backgrounds, it's certainly coming together. Tim says: "Paul went to a hard-line Jesuit school, Richard went to schools in Paris and Bonn and I went from a public school run by football thick-heads to an alternative school which was an educational disaster."
The boys met in Canberra. Richard and Tim, through their fathers' involvement in the Diplomatic corps and Paul "through mutual art contacts".
Paul, who is responsible for the album cover, graduated from art school before living on a kibbutz. Richard studied political science at ANU and Tim joined military school Duntroon.
"At school i didn't really fit in," Tim says. "I was a sensitive creature until I joined the military. I wanted to show my peers I could beat the hell out of them if they threatened me. I don't approve of violence but I'm prepared to defend myself. I'm extremely disciplined, we all are, but the army reinforced it."
Originally called The Clumps Slags, they were banned for their "undesirable" music and humour. But it wasn't until they changed their name that "things really took off" for the group.
|
