WHEN Judith Lucy was a child, her father announced he'd bought ''the most incredible surprise'' for her - but it would take a fortnight to arrive. Delirious with excitement, her mind ran wild, imagining everything from a Mr Potato Head to the board game Cluedo.
Day and night, she begged her father for hints but to no avail. The anticipation was almost too much to bear.
Finally, the big day came and she was given what every little girl dreams of: a colossal, ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary.
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Judith Lucy prepares for her very own Thorn Birds moment in her new show, in which she traces her spiritual journey from wannabe Catholic nun to atheist to 'something in between'. Within a decade, she had left the Catholic Church, her world view profoundly changed by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and feminist authors. But as a child, she says, Lucy was ''a total goody goody; completely unquestioning and with no sense of curiosity''.
Her impeccable manners impressed her teachers, prompting one to make her flower girl at her wedding. She practised her liturgical dance routines in her room and prayed to her statue each night.
In episode six, Lucy has an 'ommm' moment and travels to practice her new mediation skills ... with varying degrees of success. ''Although mum said I was a 'good girl' for doing what I'd been told,'' she writes in her memoir The Lucy Family Alphabet, ''there must have been a part of dad that thought, 'Sweet Jesus! Is she retarded?'''
Today, Lucy is one of Australia's most popular comedians, with a best-selling book and dozens of TV, radio and film credits to her name - and now Spiritual Journey, a six-part series on ABC1. In it, she dives headlong into the big issues: why are we here and what happens when we die?
While she takes a broad look at ''what's on offer for the spiritually curious'', it's also a deeply personal show, tracing her path from wannabe Catholic nun to atheist, to ''something in between''. But is there a term for this in-between state?
''A seeker,'' she replies, instantly frowning at its ring of earnestness. ''Actually, seeker-slash-wanker is a better term. Let's go with that.''
Unfortunately, the term ''spiritual journey'' has been hijacked by such unappealing types as hippies, women who wear lots of mauve and disciples of Oprah Winfrey. Lucy's razor wit, however, ensures this is not a TV version of Elizabeth Gilbert's mega-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love.
''I read it for research and that made me want to do this series even more,'' she says, ''or at least write my own version called Drink, Smoke, Pass Out.
''I thought, 'There's got to be a book about spirituality out there in which the protagonist is not a willowy blonde who lives in a New York loft and who goes to Italy for four months, eats whatever she likes and doesn't exercise. If I did that, I'd be fat, miserable and constipated. I wouldn't be having a good time at all. I'd just be thinking, 'Where's the Nu-Lax?'
''And it drove me crazy that she had to promise herself she'd be celibate for a year. I've often been celibate for a year, without having to make any promises.''
Each episode is sprinkled with jokes, of course, most are at her own expense. But Lucy also proves to be a skilled interviewer, her genuine curiosity drawing the most from her subjects, from former footballer Brett Kirk to female Aboriginal elders in Alice Springs and Buddhists in India. More importantly, she knows how to listen: a rare trait in those who make a living from talking.
''I think people will be really surprised when they see Jude's serious side,'' producer Todd Abbott says. ''Everyone knows she's a funny woman - and there are certainly lots of laughs - but when she sits down to talk to people, she turns into a natural interviewer.''
One such interview is with Sister Rebecca McCabe, a Catholic nun in her early 40s. McCabe speaks frankly about the challenges of her role, including the pain of falling in love under a vow of celibacy. She and Lucy bonded instantly, with Lucy saying afterwards she felt like she'd made a friend.
''We've caught up quite a few times since then,'' she says. ''What I love about Rebecca and the other nuns is that we have these fascinating conversations about religion and spirituality. They're real feminists; they really question the church and they love to bitch about some of the priests.''
Growing up, Lucy experienced the 1970s brand of ''groovy'' Catholicism, with its guitar-playing priests and macrame wall hangings. She also got a taste of the fire-and-brimstone mentality of yore, thanks to her adoptive Irish Catholic family.
''My grandmother considered alcohol to be the demon drink,'' she says. '''Joyful' is not a word I would use to describe her and mum was a bit the same. There was no joy at all in her Catholicism: going to mass was a chore; making fish fingers on a Friday was a chore.''
Still, Lucy was captivated by a nun who spoke at her school about her vocation. Inspired, she ran home to tell her brother, Niall. ''I told him how she walked miles to her school bus stop every day,'' she says, ''and whenever she did this walk, she'd ask herself, 'Should I become a nun?' At the end of her schooling, she decided the answer was, 'Yes'.''
Niall listened patiently, then told his sister it was the most preposterous story he'd ever heard. ''If she asked herself, 'Should I become a prostitute?' that many times,'' he scoffed, ''she'd now be pursuing a very different type of calling.''
In her later high school years, doubt crept in. Once, she questioned a priest about the church's stance on abortion. He responded by explaining that ''even if a woman has been brutally raped, it's still out of the question'', she says, then concluded by putting his tongue down her throat.
Her first semester at university, in which she studied the Marxist notion of religion as the opiate of the masses, was the nail in the coffin of her Catholicism. Determined to have fun, she adopted a new philosophy: ''Let's meet some boys, take some drugs and get drunk!'' she says, throwing her hands in the air.
''I was falling over in public a lot and drinking until I lost consciousness, which isn't as attractive as you might think.
''Although for years, I wondered, 'Where are all the men?' And as much fun as that was - and even though my life plan was essentially to drink myself to death - I thought, 'Maybe this is not the answer'.''
She turned to yoga to improve her physical health, which sparked her interest in meditation, then the Eastern religious philosophies that underpin them.
Like most who meditate regularly, she became aware of the endless self-criticism that looped through her brain, interrupted only by ruminations about the past and worries about the future. In other words, she was rarely ''in the moment''.
''One of my legacies from Catholicism,'' she explains, ''is that if I've really f----d up, I go over it and over it and over it and over it. It's almost as if I feel that if I suffer enough and keep putting myself through the wringer, then I can do my penance and finally let it go.''
In the series, Lucy enrols in a 10-day silent meditation retreat. It's nowhere near as relaxing as it sounds: participants are segregated by gender and must rise at 4am, maintaining the same physical pose for hours. Four days in, she was in agony. ''My lower back was going and I was thinking, 'I have to leave so I can get some medical attention'. But by day nine and day 10, that just lifted and the hours went like that,'' she says, snapping her fingers.
''I don't doubt that I was in as much physical discomfort but I wasn't fixating on the pain.''
These days, Lucy meditates at least half an hour a day. Her sunny St Kilda weatherboard terrace, however, bears none of the cliches one associates with meditation: no lotus flowers, Buddha statues or giant photographs of rainforests.
Instead, there's a wall of books, a coffee table with a stack of rented DVDs and a comfortable, well-worn couch.
''Yoga and meditation have become an important part of my life, even if that does make some people want to puke,'' she says. ''But the point is that I'm happier than I used to be.
''And if I'm interested in this then chances are some other people might be.
''So let's look at this stuff in a way that doesn't make people vomit.''
She leans forward, keen to make a point: ''I want to emphasise that I'm still very fond of a drink. I don't want people to think that yoga and alcohol can't go hand-in-hand or that I've become some New Age teetotaller.''
Neither has she lost her ability to tell a great yarn. When I arrive, she's wrapping up a phone conversation about a one-night stand with the guy who played Skippy Handelman, the dorky neighbour of the Keaton clan in Family Ties. ''It's true,'' she says, laughing. ''He was performing in Australia and I was one of the support acts. I was a fairly late bloomer; I'd probably only slept with two other men by that point but yes, Skippy and I tripped the light fantastic. Short of sleeping with Gopher from The Love Boat, I can't think of anything more embarrassing.''
It doesn't take long for another family anecdote, this one about her parents' dress sense. As Lucy explains - and the flashbacks in the program illustrate - her father generally wore more make-up than a flight attendant while her mother teamed bulky sanitary napkins with white, skin-tight pants.
Undoubtedly the funniest of the scripted segments, directed by Tony Martin, is the ''support group'' for commercial radio refugees. With cameos from Lucy's former co-host Kaz Cooke, Myf Warhurst, Cal Wilson, Peter Grace and others, most of the jaw-dropping stories they tell are true. It will be hard for viewers to discern the made-up tales, though, given Cooke's re-telling of the infamous ''celebrity sperm'' idea. (As Lucy explained in her sell-out live show I Failed!, the aim was to ''get a celebrity, such as Guy Sebastian, to donate his sperm to 2Day FM and the woman who won the competition would get to impregnate herself.'')
Would she ever consider a return to -
''No,'' Lucy says, cutting me off before I can utter the dreaded phrase ''commercial radio''.
''I think that ship has sailed. And I don't think that TV or radio of a commercial kind would go near me with a barge pole now. I really need to grab the ABC and clutch it to my bosom for all I'm worth.''
Judith Lucy's Spiritual Journey begins 9.30pm on July 27 on ABC1.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/odyssey-of-a-divine-comedy-20110713-1hcnm.html#ixzz1S3e3DHTX
1 comment:
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