Comedy Company
Larger-than-life Comedy Company favourite Mark Mitchell and his iconic alter ego Con ‘the Fruiterer’ Dikaletus agree: a hearty sense of humour is the secret to their respective happy and enduring marriages.
Mark, 62, and his wife Di, 60, a former actress and dancer- turned-special needs teacher, have just celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary and, in what some might see as a spooky coincidence, Con and Marika have notched up an identical marital milestone!
New Idea reunited the happy couples at Mark and Di’s favourite stomping ground – Pino’s Fine Produce at Melbourne’s Prahran Market – where they answered some burning questions about life, love and wedded bliss…
MARK AND DI
Where did you first meet?
Mark: On a film shoot in 1984. Di and I were playing a married couple in a black comedy called Run For Your Life. It was love at first sight. I proposed the same day we met and Di said yes.
How did you propose?
Di: Accidentally!
Mark: We’d been discussing love and marriage, as we were playing husband and wife in a movie. I said to Di I doubted I’d ever marry in real life and she challenged me to propose. I did. We’ve been happily together ever since.
What was your wedding like?
Di: Beautiful… In a garden in Malvern, Victoria, at 6pm on a Thursday – just to inconvenience our family and friends.
What do you most love about your spouse?
Di: [Laughs] That he’s more like a girlfriend than a husband. I could never marry a man!
Mark: I try to be manly, for goodness sake!
Di: But that potpourri won’t make itself.
What are your secrets to a happy marriage? Di: Laughter, great company and having no common interests.
Mark: Having your own interests and a good sense of humour.
CON AND MARIKA
Where did you first meet?
Con: We was on the ship coming to Australia from Greece. It was called Chundris. Marika says a perfect name for that ship. Every day it was rocking and rolling. We spent every day leaning over the side feeding them fishes. One day I looked up and seen this big, bewdiful green face looking at me – it was Marika, and we fed the fishes together.
When did you realise you were in love?
Marika: The day we met. Con looked so helpless, which I now realise is more useless.
Con: A man needs someone to shade him in the summer and warm him in winter. Marika is the whole world to me – well, she’s the same shape, anyway!
What was your wedding like?
Con: Perfect – 80 guests, food for 200 and not a scrap left. Very romantical, with sugared almonds and Marika’s mother Chlamydia crying his eyes out.
How did you celebrate your recent wedding anniversary?
Con: I think I give Marika a bewdiful new whippert snippert.
Marika: That was my birthday present. I used to give Con a sugared almond to jog his memory, but he eats it without a second thought.
Con: That’s not true – I always think I want a second sugared almond.
What do you most love about your better half?
Con: Everything about Marika, I love.
Marika: I’m still thinking…
For the full story, see this week’s New Idea – Out now.
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