Paul Livingston | |
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Born | Paul James Livingston March 1956 (age 68) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
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Television |
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Paul James Livingston (born March 1956), popularly known as his alter ego Flacco, is an Australian comedian who has regularly appeared on many television shows, predominantly on ABC TV and Network Ten, including Good News Week , The Sandman and Flacco Special, The Big Gig , DAAS Kapital , The Money or the Gun , The Fat and The Sideshow . He also was on Triple J Breakfast from 1994 to 1997, Doom Runners (1997), and is on ABC Radio National. He has also acted on stage and in film. He was joint winner of the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award in 1996 for outstanding achievement in the performing arts in Australia. Livingston also wrote the play Emma's Nose about the relationship of Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Fliess and their patient Emma Eckstein. Livingston also starred in The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey by Vincent Ward.
Livingston has toured Australia and internationally and appeared at festivals in Edinburgh and Montreal. In 2014, he replaced Richard Fidler as the guitarist in the reformed Doug Anthony All Stars, and toured with Tim Ferguson and Paul McDermott.
Flacco is a fictional character played by Paul Livingston. Livingston created the character in 1985, when he got up on stage as part of a bet, and the audience mistook his nervousness for a comedic character. Flacco's trademark curl of hair on a pale bald head was originally Livingston's actual hair, until actual baldness forced him to use hairpieces. [1]
In 2009, a portrait by Paul Jackson of Livingston in character as Flacco won the Packing Room Prize as part of the Archibald Prize. [2]
Flacco was an outsider whose observations of people took on an almost alien quality. He had a completely bald head with a single stylised (thick) strand of hair in a coil, and was frequently seen in a suit. He made quick observations often interspersed with incorrect movie, theatre or cultural quotes.
Dom Romeo: ...so I remember episodes of DAAS Kapital when he'd say things like "I could have been a container". That's a dumb mis-remembering of "I coulda been a contender" from On the Waterfront , but because it's from On the Waterfront a 'container' makes perfect sense. Paul Livingston: I know, and it's one of my favourite quotes, actually. I'm glad you liked that one. Flacco does have the appearance of knowledge. He seems to know something, but at the same time, appear completely dumb. That is something that I picked up off the Doug Anthony Allstars, too, because they do their shows and they'd be throwing in names like Nietzche [ sic ] and stuff like that and people would suddenly think they're intelligent because you've mentioned certain people and a lot of it is just playing at it, a lot of it is just that 'trickster' character who's pretending to be something that they're not. In Flacco's case, one second he's pretending he's really intelligent, and in the next, he's pretending he's really dumb. He's probably really both of those things. [3]
Flacco first appeared on television in 1988 on Andrew Denton's Blah Blah Blah and came to prominence the following year on The Big Gig , as an alien who engaged in observational humour. He reprised the role, also as an alien in DAAS Kapital , a sitcom featuring fellow Big Gig alumni the Doug Anthony All Stars (DAAS).
His appearances on Good News Week paired him with the Sandman (played by Steve Abbott), and the two characters appeared together frequently live and on television. [1]
In 2007, Flacco made regular appearances on the ABC1 show The Sideshow alongside Abbott and Paul McDermott, with Gordon Farrer of The Sydney Morning Herald calling the show a "living link to an earlier era of Australian culture", due to the presence of Flacco, the Sandman and former DAAS member McDermott as comedians of the 1990s. [4]
A holographic video display featuring Flacco sat at the Black Mountain Tower in Canberra during the 1990s in their now-removed "Making Connections" exhibition.
Dream of the Endless is a fictional anthropomorphic personification who first appeared in the first issue of The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. One of the seven Endless, who are inconceivably powerful beings older and greater than gods, Dream is both lord and personification of all dreams and stories, and all that is not in reality. He has taken many names, including Morpheus, Oneiros, Kai'ckul, and the Sandman, and his appearance can change depending on the person who is seeing him. Dream was named the sixth-greatest comic book character by Empire. He was also named fifteenth in IGN's 100 Top Comic Book Heroes list.
Lucifer Morningstar, formerly known as Samael, is a character who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. He is an adaptation of Lucifer—the Biblical fallen angel and devil of Christianity—and is one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe. Though various versions of the Devil have been presented by DC Comics, this interpretation by Neil Gaiman debuted in The Sandman #4 in 1989. Lucifer appears primarily as a supporting character in The Sandman and as the protagonist of the spin-off Lucifer.
Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys or Greys, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequent subjects of close encounters and alien abduction claims. The details of such claims vary widely. That said, Greys are typically described as being human-like with small bodies, smooth, grey-colored skin; enlarged, hairless heads; and large, black eyes. The Barney and Betty Hill abduction claim, which purportedly took place in New Hampshire in 1961, popularized Grey aliens. Precursor figures have been described in science fiction and similar descriptions appeared in early accounts of the 1948 Aztec UFO hoax and later accounts of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident.
Gordon Greig Pickhaver is an Australian actor, comedian and writer, who forms one half of the satirical sports comedy duo Roy and HG as the excitable sports announcer HG Nelson. The award-winning duo teamed up in 1986 for the Triple J radio comedy program This Sporting Life, and were broadcast nationwide for 22 years, leading to several successful television spinoffs.
Paul Anthony Michael McDermott is an Australian entertainer, best known both for Good News Week and for his role as a member of the musical comedy group the Doug Anthony All Stars. He has frequently appeared at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and taken part in its two major televised productions, the Comedy Festival Gala and the Great Debate. McDermott has also performed and written numerous shows as a solo performer and authored children’s books and newspaper articles and directed short animated films.
The Doug Anthony All Stars were an Australian musical comedy group who initially performed together between 1984 and 1994. The group were an acoustic trio, originally comprising Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson on main vocals and Richard Fidler on guitar and backing vocals. The group reformed in 2014, with Paul Livingston replacing Fidler on guitar.
The Big Gig was a popular Australian television sketch comedy music/variety series based on the British TV series Saturday Live. It was produced and broadcast on ABC TV in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was produced and directed by Ted Robinson, who started his career as the director of the second series of the acclaimed The Aunty Jack Show in the early 1970s, and Neil Wilson.
Good News Week is an Australian satirical panel game show hosted by Paul McDermott that aired from 19 April 1996 to 27 May 2000, and 11 February 2008 to 28 April 2012. The show's initial run aired on ABC until being bought by Network Ten in 1999. The show was revived for its second run when the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike caused many of Network Ten's imported US programs to cease production.
Mark Trevorrow is an Australian comedian, television host and media personality. In the early 1980s he had two Top 20 hits as part of Globos with Wendy De Waal, and in 1984, he debuted "Bob Downe", who went on to become his best-known character. After being very successful at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987, Trevorrow split his time touring between England and Australia. He has appeared extensively on television, released four albums, and written a book.
DAAS Kapital is an Australian television comedy series written by and starring comedy trio the Doug Anthony All Stars with supporting cast members Paul Livingston, Michael Petroni, Bob Downe and Khym Lam. The title is a reference to the trio's acronym "DAAS" and Karl Marx's economic treatise Das Kapital.
Richard Fidler is an Australian radio presenter and writer, best known for his hour-long interview program, Conversations with Richard Fidler on ABC's Radio National, and as a former member of the Australian comedy group the Doug Anthony All Stars. Conversations consists of in-depth interviews with local and international guests from all walks of life, and has been very popular as a podcast.
DAAS Icon is the first and only studio album recorded and released by Australian comedy trio, the Doug Anthony All Stars. Released in 1990, it features the singles "I Want to Spill the Blood of a Hippy" and "Bottle". Icon went on to become the highest-selling independent album in Australia, but was banned in the UK due to a reference to the IRA in the song "KRSNA". This was later overturned by a British court.
Timothy Dorcen Langbene Ferguson is an Australian comedian, film director, screenwriter, author and screenwriting teacher.
Andrew Joseph Lewis was the original bassist of Australian band The Whitlams. He first played in Canberra, Australia in a duo called In Limbo, playing Everly Brothers and other songs from the 1950s and 60s with two acoustic guitars and close harmonies. In October 1985, he joined Canberra band, The Plunderers, on keyboards, guitar and harmony vocals. He left The Plunderers in April 1987, leaving a small legacy of recordings with the band, most noticeably a version of The Velvet Underground's "Stephanie Says" and the original version of Stevie Plunder's "Where Are You?". In 1992, he formed The Whitlams but left them in late 1995, and went to Melbourne to join The Gadflys. He battled a gambling addiction and committed suicide in February 2000, aged 33, after losing an entire week's pay in a poker machine.
The Lab were an Australian electronic band formed by keyboardist Paul McDermott, vocalist Yolanda Podolski and bass guitarist and vocalist Warwick Factor. They issued two extended plays, Ultra (1992) and Terminal (1994), and a studio album, Labyrinth before disbanding in 1998. McDermott, as Paul Mac, also performed in a techno-dance duo Itch-E and Scratch-E from 1991. Factor, as Warwick Hornby, joined the Whitlams in 1999, while Podolski undertook an operatic career.
Michael Petroni is an Australian screenwriter and director.
The Sideshow was a one-hour Australian television comedy/variety series that was broadcast on ABC TV in 2007. The show was a mixture of stand-up comedy, sketches, live music, circus acts, cabaret and burlesque. Hosted by Paul McDermott, The Sideshow regularly featured performances and sketches by Claire Hooper, Flacco, The Umbilical Brothers, and Tripod.
James Kevin Hocking otherwise known as Jimi the Human is an Australian musician. He has been a member of hard rock groups, The Angels (1988) and The Screaming Jets. As a solo artist he has fronted various backing bands playing hard rock, electric and acoustic blues by providing lead guitar, vocals, mandolin and keyboards. In 2005 he won the Solo/Duo category at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee.
Khym Lam is a Singaporean-born Australian actress.
The Endless are a family of cosmic beings who appear in American comic books published by DC Comics. The members of the family are: Death, Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction and Dream.