Grahame Bond - Aunty Jack

Aunty Jack

In 1971 Peter Weir wrote and directed his first short feature film, a surreal black comedy called Homesdale, with an ensemble cast that included rising actress Kate Fitzpatrick. In the film Bond played Mister Kevin, the first incarnation of the popular Aunty Jack Show character Kev Kavanagh. Soon after Homedsale Bond and Weir were asked to create a children's radio series for the ABC, to replace the long-running Argonauts Club. It was for this series that Bond created the gravel-voiced tranvestite character Aunty Jack, who was based on an uncle whom he had disliked as a child.

In 1972 Bond, O'Donoghue, Weir and Atherden were commissioned by the new head of ABC TV comedy, Maurice Murphy, to create a new short sketch comedy series, The Aunty Jack Show, based around the Aunty Jack character; it premiered in early 1972 with Bond, O'Donoghue, Sandra McGregor, John Derum (Series 1) and Garry McDonald (Series 2) as the main performing team. Despite a rash of early complaints—notably about Aunty Jack's gender identity, her frequent use of the word "bloody" and her habit of punching everyone – The Aunty Jack Show soon found a loyal audience and became one of the most popular comedy series in ABC history.

As well as writing many sketches and co-writing all the original music with Rory O'Donoghue, Bond played many recurring and occasional characters including Aunty Jack, rock'n'roll butcher Kev Kavanagh and nervous folk singer Errol. Two series of Aunty Jack were made in 1972–73 and 1973–74 and in March 1975 Bond revived Aunty Jack for a special that launched colour TV broadcasting on the ABC. The Aunty Jack team also undertook a successful concert tour during 1974 and, boosted by the popularity of the show, the Aunty Jack theme song (Australia's first picture disc single) went to #1 on the Australian pop chart, followed by a successful LP based on the show, Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong.

Following Aunty Jack, Bond did considerable work in TV, radio and theatre. His TV credits include the Aunty Jack spinoffs Wollongong the Brave (1974), Flash Nick from Jindavick (1974) and the ill-fated The Off Show (1977). On radio, Bond, O'Donoghue and McDonald continued their partnership with the weekly comedy program Nude Radio, which aired on the ABC's newly-established rock radio station 2JJ (Double Jay) in Sydney during 1975. Bond's theatrical credits include the popular Shakespearean parody Boys Own McBeth, which toured Australia and the United States in the late 1970s. In the 1980s he wrote and directed the comedy musical Captain Bloody for the Elizabethan Theatre Trust.

Although the series made him a star and Aunty Jack is now widely acknowledged as one of the milestones in Australian comedy, the Aunty Jack character became something of a burden for Bond; his TV career after Aunty Jack was also increasingly hampered by conflicts with conservative elements in the ABC, particularly after the departure of Maurice Murphy, who had consistently championed and protected Bond and his colleagues from management interference.

These problems culminated in a controversial incident in 1977 which led Bond and O'Donoghue to sever their association with ABC-TV. On the night of the first episode of Bond and O'Donoghue's new sketch series The Off Show, the ABC's newly appointed head of comedy Alan Bateman ordered the program to be pulled from the schedule half an hour before it was due to go to air, and he then destroyed the tape, reportedly because he was offended by a Bill Harding-penned religious parody sketch entitled "Leave It To Jesus". The remaining episodes of the series were subsequently screened as The Of Show. The only surviving artefact of the erased program is the theme song for the "Leave It To Jesus" sketch, which was released in 2006 as a bonus track on the CD reissue of Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong.

Although Bond returned to the ABC briefly in 1985 to host a short-lived comedy series, News Free Zone, his unhappiness over the presumed loss of several episodes of Aunty Jack, combined with The Off Show incident, effectively ended his relationship with the ABC. As a result, the ABC was for many years unable to release The Aunty Jack Show to home video because Bond and O'Donoghue refused to agree to the licencing of their music rights over the series. Fortunately, the missing episodes were relocated in the early 2000s, Bond and O'Donoghue reconciled with the ABC, and the complete, restored series of The Aunty Jack Show and Wollongong the Brave were released on DVD in 2005/2006.

In 1990, Bond opened his own advertising agency, Bond Strohfeldt, with clients including Daihatsu, Bridgestone, Virgin and Disney. He sold the business in 1996 in order to travel. His journeys included trekking in Nepal, canoeing in Kakadu, cycling from Hanoi to Saigon, and archaeological excavations in Jordan, Cyprus and Syria. In the early 2000s Bond filmed a documentary in Papua New Guinea titled The Big Chief.

In the 1990s Bond hosted the Channel Seven game show Whose House is it Anyway, and was a presenter on the popular Seven lifestyle series Better Homes and Gardens for six years.

Internationally, he is best known for his recurring role as The Ancient One in the first two seasons of the Beastmaster television series in 1999 and 2000. In 1977, he appeared as Aunty Jack on British television in Not The Aunty Jack Show for London Weekend Television.

On 30 March 2006 he and Rory O'Donoghue undertook a national tour of their new stage show The Aunty Jack Show and Tell, to promote the release of the Aunty Jack DVDs.

Robert Askin's retirement from politics was greeted on This Day Tonight by the cast of The Aunty Jack Show, with a reworded version of "Farewell, Aunty Jack":

In October 2011, Bond released the book Jack of All Trades Mistress of One he had written himself.

Farewell Robin A,

We think you've had your day

Though you're four foot three

You don't do much for me

You're short, round and fat

A pudden in a hat,

There's a scream as you plummet away.