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GALLERY: The Castanet Club celebrated in film

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It was described as “twelve people playing tennis, all of them serving at once”.

It boasted comedy greats like Mikey Robins, Glenn Butcher, Maynard, Steve Abbott, Warren Coleman, Johnny Goodman, Angela Moore, John Doyle, Stephen Clarke, and Therese Kenyon.

And, it was all born right here in Newcastle.

The Castanet Club is the subject of Glenn Dormand’s latest installment of the stories of our town series.

The 26-minute film is the seventh in a series created by former TV personality Chit Chat von Loopin Stab and Tony Whittaker of Carnivore Films.

The colourful collection documents the group’s irreverent mix of comedy, theatre, music and dance. 

“To witness a concert was to be bombarded with joy. This joy started an hour before the show and stopped you getting to sleep hours after the show finished,” Dormand says.

“It was more than a band, more than a club it was an ethos, an art movement, a theatre movement, a fashion movement, and a musical uprising. 

“In the golden age of Pub Rock, while INXS, Cold Chisel and Midnight Oil toured their biggest albums, this group of local artists, actors and musicians formed what was essentially an old school vaudeville troupe and started packing the Workers Club, The Palais, The Cambridge, The 16 Footers and every other beer barn in Newcastle and eventually Sydney.”

Dormand says what this group achieved in their nine years together would impact the landscape of Australian entertainment for the next 20 years. 

“The rise of Triple J, Sandman and Flacco, Young Einstein, Good News Week, Channel [V], Play School, Sale of the Century, Full Frontal, Happy Feet, Roy and HG, Fast Forward, The Fat, Kath and Kim, and even Mambo T-shirts are in some way connected to this remarkable group of humans.”

His first contact with the group, he admits, was while underage drinking at 15.

“For me Newcastle in the 80s was grey and sooty. Stepping into that club was like stepping through a portal to 50’s Vegas, 60’s London, a school fete and all the television of my childhood. 

“It was fluorescent, dark, witty, theatrical, generous, and joyously daggy.

“I proudly admit that the vision I had for my band Machine Gun Fellatio was 100% ripped off from The Castanet ethos, with just a little more nudity added.”

The Castanet Club Story will be released online at Stories of our Town on Thursday 21 October.

“To make this film after all this time and to hang out with the people I consider my heroes was beyond a labour of love.”

“The Castanet Club Story is such an important story to this city and I’m so glad to add it to the Stories of Our Town series.”

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