The Monkeys teams up with Bombora Film & Music Co. to release Mambo: Art Irritates Life

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Mambo - Reg Mombassa (1).jpgThe Monkeys has joined forces with Bombora Film & Music Co. and writer/director Paul Clarke to create a one-hour ABC documentary special, Mambo: Art Irritates Life, telling the story of how a group of comical and contrarian troublemakers and misfits became Australia’s most popular art collective of the 80s and 90s.

Back in the days when artwork could get you into trouble, Mambo began in a garage in inner Sydney, and 15 years later their brand of piss-taking and irreverent humour made it the obvious choice to represent Australia on the world stage at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Founder Dare Jennings, a teenager from the south western plains of New South Wales, first hitchhiked to Sydney to set up a screen-printing studio for t-shirts and posters, calling it Phantom.

Phantom became a music recording label, releasing independent local acts at the centre of a riotous rock scene, largely ignored by the big record companies. It was in the early 1980’s that Jennings realised he could combine the irreverent artworks produced by artist friends and musicians, with surf wear to release his first run of board shorts under the name Mambo. The board shorts were a hit and Mambo was born.

Says Scott Nowell, script editor and producer of the documentary and co-founder / ECD, The Monkeys: “We are children of the 70s and 80s, and for us Mambo came into being at a pivotal time in our pubescent lives. Growing up on the Northern Beaches, I can remember my first pair of Mambo shorts and how quickly Mambo captured that larrikin voice, sticking it up the big surf brands then taking on much bigger targets with humour and a violent lack of respect. Looking back, it’s hard to overstate how important that became to us as a nation.”

At the time, Mambo was well known for its irreverent humour and also depicted a fresh take on the Australian surf industry. The country was also open to new ideas and taking on the world.

Says Nowell: “We went from Keating’s creative nation to little Johnny and the Cronulla riots. Over those decades the Mambo voice remained steadfastly politically incorrect and we have beer monsters, farting dogs and Australian Jesus entrenched forever in our culture as a result.”

Says Paul Clarke, writer and director: “When you really get to think about it, there probably hasn’t been a good doco about the 80s in Australia, featuring that sense of excitement generated by all the ratbags in art and music rattling the establishment cage, and really enjoying themselves so hopefully that’s what we’ve made. It was great fun to write and direct in collaboration with our friends The Monkeys – they have wonderfully silly ideas including a printed t-shirt titles and end credits… the artists at Mambo really related to them.”

The Monkeys senior creative Scott Dettrick, a former Mambo art director and production designer on the documentary, was also instrumental in getting Mambo: Art Irritates Life off the ground.

Says Nowell: “Early on we hired Scott Dettrick. He had been working as an art director at Mambo for 10 years and came to us with the idea to tell the story of Mambo’s impact on Australian popular culture.

“The idea immediately connected, and not long after we met with writer/director Paul Clarke from Bombora Films and pitched him to produce a documentary outlining the social history of the 80s and 90s as told through the lens of Mambo, Australia’s modern art movement that we all wore on our backs.”

Mambo: Art Irritates Life is set to air on The ABC, Tuesday 8th November at 9:30pm.

Writer & Director: Paul Clarke

Producer & Script Editor: Scott Nowell

Production Company: Bombora Film & Music Co.

Executive Producer: Jo-anne McGowan

Line Producer: Katherine Hristoforidis

Editor: Antoinette Ford 

Production Designer: Scott Dettrick

Art Director: Wayne Golding 

Associate Producer: Sonia Borg 

Narrator: Celia Pacquola