Keeping an eye on current affairs can be a laugh or cry business. Mark Humphries prefers to find the funny side.
He is joining forces with fellow satirists Charles Firth (The Chaser), James Schloeffel (The Shovel) and musical comedy aficionado Gabbi Bolt to dissect the "best and worst bits of 2023", live on stage, for The War on 2023.
The annual comedy gala event is a razor-sharp wrap of the year's headlines featuring a non-stop barrage of one-liners, satirical sketches, musical numbers and the best headlines from The Chaser and The Shovel.
Best known for his viral political sketches, Humphries is the resident satirist on ABC's 7.30. He was the host of the quiz show Pointless on Network 10, and has also made appearances on Celebrity Letters and Numbers, The Cook Up, Show Me The Movie, and Hughesy We Have A Problem. He presented a weekly comedy segment on ABC News' The World in 2018 and has been a regular on ABC's Insiders since 2016.
He also created the Audible Original series Riot Act, co-authored the book On Politics and Stuff and won Celebrity Mastermind in 2020.
Humphries can't wait to share The War on 2023 with an audience, including in Newcastle.
"You might think you've created something entertaining but you don't know until opening night - and then you're frantically re-writing for the second show," he said, laughing.
"But I'd like to think that after all these years that we know what we're doing."
A new addition to this year's show is the "Defo Award".
"We will recognise exceptional achievement in defamation suits that backfire against people, so we'll be handing out awards to Ben Roberts-Smith and Lachlan Murdoch - we want to acknowledge the great work that they've done in the defamation space this year," Humphries said.
The show has an Australian focus but former US president Donald Trump will "make a small appearance".
"It's fascinating to me that the more legal peril he gets in, the stronger his support seems to be," Humphries said.
"I feel like seven years ago we went through some collective wormhole, and we've gone off whatever trajectory we were on ... the fact that Trump became president is proof to me of parallel universes, and the fact that he continues to be a viable option as a future president makes me think this is a simulation, surely."
As for former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, Humphries says he's the gift that keeps giving.
"The discovery of the multiple ministeries that he secretly appointed himself to - just when you thought we'd had all the comedy, there was a little bonus, an end credit scene just as you are leaving the theatre, like 'Oh hang on, there's more'," he said.
"And even this week it was revealed that the Morrison government had spent millions on unusable face masks during Covid, again, a little postscript.
"I've yet to do a deep dive into how or why Morrison ended up in Israel with Boris Johnson, wearing a flak jacket, but it was like a poor man's Avengers."
And he encourages Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to "attract more weirdos into the Labor Party and let them loose ... they are all very well behaved and it's not conducive to the line of work that I'm in".
