The original Chaser team are getting the band back together for the first time in over a decade to launch the 100th – and final – edition of The Chaser newspaper. The launch will take place via a live show being held on Thursday June 23rd in the Cell Block Theatre of Sydney’s National Art School.
Julian Morrow, Dominic Knight, Craig Reucassel, Charles Firth, Chris Taylor, Chas Licciardello, and Andrew Hansen will be coming together for “The Museum of Chaser”, a Q+A event.
Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald, Charles Firth said “Looking back, there were so many gags where you go, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t tell that today, that’s very edgy.’”
In particular, Firth says that death was a topic that the team had a particularly “reckless” attitude towards. “It was a very youthful approach.”
Since the paper was first published in 1999, a lot has changed about the world. Hindsight, as always, however, is 2020.
“There’s a lot of sensitivities that we take into consideration now that are completely correct,” he said. “There are gags there which are ableist and things like that, which … we didn’t think of 20 years ago. But nowadays, you go, ‘Oh, that was wrong’.”
While this might be the end for The Chaser newspaper, it’s certainly not the end of the group itself.
The original team (minus Julian Morrow) got together for an episode of The Chaser Report: Election Edition podcast after the most recent election saw the ousting of Scott Morrison. Speaking about that particular reunion, Knight explained: “Charles was like Antony Green, except Charles was drunk and had no data.”
The Chaser Report podcast has adopted a live format, with episodes being recorded in front of an audience at the Harold Park Hotel, Glebe in Sydney’s inner west. The show, dubbed The Chaser Report – Live! has been commissioned for an initial run of four episodes that will wrap up in July.