Charles Firth
At the 2009 Australian Power Shift Conference
Birth nameCharles Henry Danger Burgmann Firth
Born (1975-09-21) 21 September 1975
Sydney, Australia
MediumPrint & television
Years active1999–present
GenresSatirical comedy
Notable works and rolesCNNNN (2002–2003), The Chaser's War on Everything (2006–2007), Manic Times
Websitewww.chaser.com.au

Charles Henry Danger Burgmann Firth (born 21 September 1975) is an Australian comedian, best known as a founding member of The Chaser.

Early life

He is the brother of Verity Firth, who was a Minister for the Labor Government of New South Wales.[1] Firth attended Sydney Grammar School, where along with Chaser colleagues Dominic Knight and Chas Licciardello he ran the satirical school magazine The Tiger.[2]

University years

Firth went on to attend the University of Sydney where he completed an Arts degree in political science, edited the Honi Soit student newspaper, and in 1997 broke through a plate glass window during a University Senate meeting to protest the introduction of full fee paying places at the university. While attending, Charles was also the subject of a reality-TV style documentary called Uni, by film-maker Simon Target, centred on the lives of students at the University of Sydney. Fellow Chaser Andrew Hansen was also a subject. It was aired on the ABC in 1996.[3][4]

Comedy career

Charles' first arrest was notably during the filming of the first film in The Matrix franchise, after he was caught naked, jumping on Keanu Reeves' motorcycle. Reeves was later quoted saying "It was the craziest proclamation of love I've ever received."[5]

On CNNNN, broadcast in 2003 and 2004, he played a role as host of the fictional segment "The Firth Factor", parodying journalistic styles used by the American Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly's prime time show The O'Reilly Factor.

By 2006, Firth had moved to the United States. He periodically appeared on The Chaser's War on Everything in a segment about American culture entitled "Firth in the USA".

During this time Firth also researched and wrote his first book, American Hoax. This involved creating a number of fictional stereotypical American characters on both the progressive-left and conservative-right sides of American politics. The characters included liberal ad-man Bertrand Newton, conservative scholar Dr Andrew O'Keefe, conservative economist Edward McGuire, working class bartender Darryl Summers, and female Iraqi-immigrant poet Khorin al-Ghrant. The book explored the efforts of these characters (all played by Firth) to try to interact with real-world political groups and individuals. American Hoax was released in November 2006.[6]

Firth went to Adelaide in July 2007 to present at the Festival of Ideas with fellow Chaser Julian Morrow, where his performance included asking the audience to SMS their questions to him, throwing lollies to the audience, and "defacing" three Wikipedia articles.[7]

Firth worked on a new weekly print magazine and news website, which was launched in mid-August 2007 called The Manic Times.[8] The newspaper has since ceased production and that company is now called "Manic Studios"[9] producing web video for the Australian, and more recently, American Union movements in partnership with The Republic.[10] Firth remains actively involved as a writer, performer and producer.

Firth was the executive producer on a daily news satire program on ABC2 called The Roast[11]

He generated controversy among the Westboro Baptist Church when he began to openly "flirt" with Fred Phelps's son while interviewing him for The Chaser's War on Everything at a Westboro picket. When Phelps junior began to walk away, Firth followed him and continued to openly "flirt" with him, persisting despite being called a "fag-ass pervert" by the rest of the picketers.[12]

In 2008, Firth created a one-hour television special for SBS on the then up-and-coming US election, titled 'Mr. Firth Goes To Washington'. It aired on Tuesday, 4 November at 8:30pm. A blog was also posted for this mockumentary at the SBS website.[13]

Firth co-hosted Episode 50 – "The Chaser Special" – of the Macquarie Radio Network's podcast "Radio Ha Ha" on 10 November 2006. Outtakes from this episode were run in Episode 51 – "The Belated 50th Episode Special" the following week, on 17 November 2006

In 2020, Firth began working with fellow Chasers Dominic Knight and Andrew Hansen on a new podcast project, "The Chaser Report". Initially started as a satire of the weekly COVID news cycle.[14]

In 2023, Firth presented a comedy show entitled Wankernomics with fellow comedian James Schloeffel from satirical website The Shovel. The show was presented as the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival and Melbourne International Comedy Festival. They described their show as delivering "a 60-minute MBA that you can add to your LinkedIn profile later".[15][16][17]

Personal life

Firth is married to Amanda Tattersall, Founding Director of the Sydney Alliance and co-founder of getup.org.au, a community organiser and author of Power in Coalition a book on building coalitions between unions and community organisations[18] They have two sons.

Firth is known to have played in an amateur cricket team, "The Mighty Dicks", with Chris Taylor and Julian Morrow.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Mitchell, Alex (7 May 2006). "I'm not going anywhere". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 2. Retrieved 15 April 2007.
  2. ↑ Idato, Michael (16 September 2004). "Cutting to The Chaser". Melbourne: The Age. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
  3. ↑ "Uni". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 18 January 2009. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
  4. ↑ Carman, Marina (5 November 1997). "University life in the '90s". Green Left Weekly. Archived from the original on 20 September 2006. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  5. ↑ https://chaser.com.au/keanu-reeves
  6. ↑ "American Hoax". Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  7. ↑ "Chasers War on Wikipedia". 11 July 2007. Retrieved 4 September 2007.
  8. ↑ Represent - July 13th | represent radio
  9. ↑ Manic Times Archived 4 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ "The Republic - 02 8989 5796". Archived from the original on 6 October 2017. Retrieved 4 November 2019.
  11. ↑ "THE ROAST - ABC TV". www.abc.net.au. Archived from the original on 14 April 2013.
  12. ↑ "Charles Firth "flirting" with a Westboro Baptist Church member". YouTube. 28 January 2008. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 28 January 2008.
  13. ↑ Firth, Charles (4 November 2008). "Mr. Firth Goes To Washington Blog". Special Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 13 November 2008.
  14. ↑ "Podcasts | The Chaser". chaser.com.au. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  15. ↑ "Wankernomics: Solutionising The Corporate World". Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  16. ↑ "Comedy reviews: Charles Firth & James Schloeffel: Wankernomics, Danny Bhoy, MICF". 15 April 2023. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  17. ↑ "WANKERNOMICS – SOLUTIONISING THE CORPORATE WORLD". Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  18. ↑ http://powerincoalition.com/
  19. ↑ "Radio Chaser". Triple M. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
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