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Clip description
Peter (John Derum) wants to learn Italian. He puts a record of 'Italian Made Easy’ on the turntable. The voice on the recording accuses him, in Italian, of having an extramarital affair with Beryl, 'Beryla’, while on the other side of the record, in the advanced course, Beryl continues her extra marital affair with Peter until a jealous husband shoots her.
Curator’s notes
In this sketch, Peter is attempting to learn Italian from a 78rpm record. He discovers that his pre-recorded Italian tutor is seemingly aware of his extramarital affair. The sketch makes the most of what is essentially a single actor and off-camera voice. The quick cutting between Derum and the turntable effectively turns it into a two- and then three-person sketch. Simply filmed, it allows Derum the space to employ his excellent comic timing.
This sketch is from the episode Kulture, in which Thin Arthur (Rory O’Donoghue), Narrator Neville (John Derum) and Flange Desire (Sandra McGregor) attempt to introduce the arts to Wollongong, the coal mining and steel mill town just south of Sydney where culture is the domain of 'pinkies and poofters’. Aunty Jack is deeply suspicious of anything 'arty’.
John Derum was already an established comic actor when he joined the amateur team of Rory O’Donoghue and Grahame Bond who, until they met the ABC comedy producer Maurice Murphy, had only ever written and performed in architecture revues at Sydney University. John Derum was not available for the second series of Aunty Jack so Garry McDonald joined the team in his place. His small role as the bumbling television journalist Norman Gunston in the sketch What’s On In Wollongong became the little Aussie bleeder that took Australia by storm in two series of The Norman Gunston Show for the ABC in 1975 and 1976.
