Platform Papers > Issue 10: Satire — Or Sedition?

Satire— Or Sedition?

by Jonathan Biggins

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Paperback. $13.95 rrp. Publication October 2006

ISBN 0-97573-016-9, Series ISSN 1449383-X

The introduction in late 2005 of the reinvigorated sedition laws provoked an angry response from a wide coalition of civil libertarians, authors, publishers, artists, and performers, who saw them as an invasion of the creator’s right to criticise.  In this essay, Jonathan Biggins, one of our favourite creators of satirical revue, examines the threat to free speech in the light of these events and claims that the demand for political satire has been fuelled by an increasing audience need for an oppositional view point. He illustrates his argument with songs and sketches from the Wharf Revue for which Biggins, Phil Scott and Drew Forsythe are famous, and concludes that while the defences against charges of seditious intent are as narrow as the definitions of the offences are broad, ‘the greatest and most immediate threat lies in self-censorship’. ‘Good satire,’ he writes, ‘can reawaken a desire for change, because in the hearts of all satirists is a belief in the worth of the institutions and custos they regard as being mismanaged, or, even worse, degraded or corrupt.'

JONATHAN BIGGINS is a writer, performer, and broadcaster.  Since beginning his career at the Hunter Valley Theatre Company, he has worked for all the state theatre companies, in productions ranging from David Williamson’s Soulmates to West Wide Story.  In 2003 he made his debut with Opera Australia in Orpheus in the Underworld, for which we also co-wrote a new adaptation of the libretto, and in 2004 he played Koko in The Mikado.  He has hosted the afternoon ABC radio shift for Sydney’s 702, co-written and performed in Three Men and a Baby Grand for ABC-TV and hosted Critical Mass, the ABC-TV’s weekly arts programme.  As director of Revue for the Sydney Theatre Company, he has featured in (among others) the sell-out Sunday in Iraq with George, Much Revue About Nothing and Fast and Loose.  He wrote a fortnightly column for Fairfax’s Good Weekend magazine and earlier this year his first book, As It Were, was published by ABC Books..

This issue also includes responses to Stuart Cunningham.

Platform Papers invites considered responses to Jonathan Biggins for publication in the January edition.