Welcome to Part Four of my chat with Australian Chaser ‘Goliath’ (AKA my old pal Matt Parkinson), which began as a conversation about his Winning The Lot on Sale of the Century back in 1992, but which has ended up drifting into all sorts of interesting areas…

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SH: Now we haven’t mentioned where AI fits into all this yet, but we may not have time today. But boy, oh boy, that’s a whole other discussion; ethical and moral and all those sorts of things. It’s interesting but also arguably quite scary.

MP: Yeah. I’m not too worried about AI’s impact on something like The Chase – or quiz in general – because, as I say, I think the fascination comes with watching the little looks on the person’s face as they’re trying to remember the name of the thing that they know. “Oh, it’s in there somewhere… I can’t get it out…”

SH: Yes, and always playing along at home and pitting yourself against the contestants. That’s one reason quiz shows endure; because we all like to pit ourselves against the people on the screen.

MP: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

SH: But it’s interesting to hear you talk about that new credential you had after Winning The Lot on Sale of the Century in 1992, because I felt a bit the same after I won. You’ve got this new qualification, almost: I remember a comedian introducing me to another comedian by saying “This is Stephen Hall. He’s got a great big brain”. So that became part of my reputation. And I don’t know if you’ve had this too… but the number of times I’ve heard people say, “Oh, you’ll know this, Mr. Quiz Show Winner”… and it’s embarrassing when you don’t!

MP: Yes, it is embarrassing. But also, sometimes it’s more that I’m not in the mood, I’m not prepared. I need preparation to go into my “I’m going to remember everything” mode. It’s quite an intense space to be in. And if I’m not in the mood, and people do that to me; “You’ll know this! What’s the -“, I’ll just say, “Sorry, it’s my day off”, or something like that. Because I know that otherwise, it’s going to get to me. On a good day, if I’m on, if I’ve done my prep, I’ll be able to answer that question. But right now, “it’s Thursday night, and I’m watching the footy, so leave me alone”, kind of thing.

SH: Yep, sure.

MP: One of the things I’ve been doing recently is thinking about how I came to be A Person Who Remembers. And I’m pretty sure that part of it is from doing school plays as a kid, and realising, ‘oh, all you have to do is remember the words’. If you can remember the words, then you get the part, you get the attention, you get to hang out and have fun and do that cool thing.

SH: Right.

MP: And I think that might have been what started me off really being serious about, okay, ‘I’m going to take a paragraph of text and memorise it word for word, and then say it out loud and over and over until I’ve got it down word perfect’. And then you reap a tangible reward, because you you get to go out there and do the performance.

SH: I guess I’m the same. I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms. But when you write a comedy routine, and you memorise it, and you drill it, and you drill it, and you drill it, and then you go out there and do it. Yeah, you do reap the reward, don’t you? And it feels good.

MP: Yeah, it feels good. I have a nephew who’s a builder, and runs quite big commercial building sites for private houses. And so he runs quite a big crew sometimes. Now, my nephew – Nate is his name – he’s a rememberer, he’s a remembering person. He will remember numbers and measurements and how things go and where things are meant to be and who’s in charge of that… And he was saying to me that he’s become aware that he’s a rememberer, from working with some guy who’s got to make a repeated measurement which is 700 mil and he’s got to do it 12 times. And that guy might keep yelling out to Nate, “What’s that measurement again?” He might ask him three or four times while he’s doing it. And Nate will be like, “Come on, man – you’re the guy doing it. It’s 700 mil! How many times I have to tell you that?” Because that dude has not had that moment in his life to go like, ‘I will train myself to remember things’. He’s just never bothered to do it. I’m sure he could, if he just crossed that little line and went, ‘I’m going to be a person who remembers things’. I think anyone can do it. But I think a lot of people just don’t, because they always rely on having a Nate – or someone – around who will remember for them.

SH: A reference; he’s a walking reference book.

MP: Yeah, yeah – that’s right. ‘Why should I remember? Because you’re going to be right there.’

SH: ‘…And I’ll just be able to ask you, so why should I bother remembering?’

MP: Yeah. And I think at that point, I realized, ‘oh, right – that’s one of the things the Sale win did for me’. I went like, ‘Oh, I’m one of those people’.

SH: … who remembers things for the sake of remembering?

MP: Yeah.

SH: But also, there is fun to be had in acquiring new knowledge and interesting facts.

MP: Yeah.

SH: When I used to run pub trivia nights and had to write 40 questions each week, whenever I found a fantastic new fact, I would think ‘Oh, this is a beauty! I can’t wait to share this with everyone!’ It’s like writing a joke. I’ve always thought hearing a fun new little fact or a bit of knowledge is a similar kind of dopamine hit to hearing a gag, you know?

MP: Yes.

SH: That’s my view.

MP: Something about the way the set-up and the tag go together is like how the parts of a fact fit together to make that a very specific bit of time and space in the universe; that theme, those words, that idea.

SH: The Satisfying Surprise! Yes.

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Ah yes, The Satisfying Surprise – a key tenet of comedy writing. Just like that one “leave ’em wanting more”.

…And in an effort to leave YOU wanting more, that’s where I’m ending this week’s instalment of my chat with Matt. Be sure to join me back here same time next week, for the penultimate chapter of this very enjoyable discussion. See yez then!

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