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HOME KATE'S BIT | "THE GREAT DIVIDE" 
Why are all those people saying such things about Kate Langbroek? Meaghan Shaw talks to The Panel�s most controversial member� Some little-known facts about Kate Langbroek: she took off her top on Chances; she has appeared in a TAC ad; she was brought up as a Jehovah�s Witness; and she has drunk her own urine. Some well-known facts about Kate Langbroek: she is a member of 3RRR�s breakfast team; she writes a regular column for a free Melbourne weekly; she writes for Neighbours; and she has polarised viewers with her appearances on The Panel. Why Langbroek has single-handedly boosted the coffers of Australia Post by inspiring Green Guide letter-writers to support/ malign her appearances on The Panel remains a mystery to her. �I don�t know. It�s just sort of surprising that you can engender such a strong reaction from people,� she says. �You would think that there are other people more worthy of targeting than myself, but for some reason my very being offends people in the leafy eastern suburbs.� A steady stream of letters comes into Green Guide each week. When Langbroek is on The Panel, the writers are evenly divided between support (she�s �witty and incisive�) and criticism (she�s �unfunny� and �ill-informed�). When she�s not on the show, they still persist, either calling for her return or suggesting a permanent departure. Not since Sam Newman first appeared on The Footy Show has the paper received such constant comment one person. Despite Langbroek�s media experience � more on that later � she appears ill-at-ease being interviewed: her madly-tapping foot hints at nervousness and she lacks the ready-made, well-worn responses of a seasoned media performer. It seems the viewers invective has caught her off guard and, uncharacteristically, she has no sassy response. Perhaps it is because she doesn�t lool like your typical woman newsreader, lottery-caller ot game-show sidekick? �Maybe,� Langbroek agrees. �I think television does present these highly sanitised images, but it seems odd to think that it comes down to something as trite as that. But yeah, I don�t know. I don�t know. I wake up with myself, I live with myself quite happily�� Could it be that people don�t like a funny woman? �I don�t want to think that,� Langbroek says. �I don�t know.� Or maybe, like Judith Lucy, who initially copped some flak before winning over television audiences, you�ve got to earn your stripes? �Yeah, that�s right,� Langbroek nods in agreement. Being called �ill-informed� has upset her the most (she does produce the Triple-R news bulletin each day), but she�s learning to take less notice of what people think. �When I read the first letter I went really (draws in breath) �ooh�, and now I just read it and� it�s almost like they�re talking about someone I don�t know,� she says. �That was so harsh (being called ill-informed) but it didn�t hurt me because, for the first time, I read something and went, �That�s not right: that�s stupid�. Many things I may be, but ill-informed is not one of them.� Many of her supportive letters have come from Triple-R listeners who feel that, after three-and-a-half years on the breakfast show, they know her and appreciate her whimsical style of newsreading. Her other supporters are her fellow radio-show hosts, Chris Hatzis and Dave O�Neil, as well as regular guest Breakfasters, Leigh Paatsch and Mark O�Toole. Perhaps feeling more comfortable with them around to trade banter with, she urges me to join their table. Hatzis suggests the Langbroek backlash may come from the fact that Kate doesn�t tell jokes; rather she makes observations. She agrees: �I don�t really tell jokes. I�m not like a comedian� but conversation is good, talking is good.� Despite the rapid-fire rapport that has developed between Rob Sitch, Tom Gleisner and Santo Cilauro over the years, Langbroek says does not feel she has to muscle her way into the chatter. Neither does she feel any pressure to subscribe to the same point of view as the rest of the panellists. �They have me on the show, I think, because I�m not the same as them and they presumably, are not the same as each other.� Langbroek grew up in Queensland, where she studied journalism at the Queensland Institute of Technology before coming to Melbourne to study acting at the Victorian College of the Arts. She got kicked out after a year (�Who knows why� [maybe] because I wasn�t any good?�) but that didn�t stop her getting a couple of small parts on Neighbours, some theatre work, a TAC commercial (she was the blonde girlfriend in the van questioning why the police weren�t out catching burglars) and Chances.  �I tell you what, that show (Chances) was on Tuesday at 11 o�clock and was supposedly rating 2s, but you take your top off on that show and you realise exactly how many people watch it,� she says. She got into writing for TV when an actor friend asked her to help script an episode of The Col�n Carpenter Show. She has since written for All Together Now, Bob Morrison, Shark Bay (for which she was nominated for an AWGIE), Us and Them (which is still in the vault at Channel 9), Medivac, Neighbours and Full Frontal (�although I didn�t really write for Full Frontal, I just went in one day a week and did good office�). She admits she has a lot to answer for. Langbroek got involved at 3RRR when she and her friend Fiona Scott-Norman started doing the kitsch F&K Show. It was on this show they drank their own chilled urine in champagne glasses with cocktail umbrellas because �someone�s got to do it�. Six months later, and undeterred by her drinking habits, Hatzis asked Langbroek to read the news on the breakfast show � a role she once had at the community radio stationer 4EB in Queensland. Last year, she started writing a column for a weekly paper, spent a month doing Crud on Triple-M, did some work with Steve Bedwell on thecomedychannel [aren�t Steve Bedwell and comedy mutually exclusive?- SM], and appeared on Tim Ferguson�s late-night variety pilot, Girl Friday. More recently, she helped with Jon Safran�s two half-hour documentaries for the ABC, and competed on Battle Of The Sexes with Franklin Ajaye. It�s been a busy year for someone who has no �five-year plan� or set ambitions, and who has �drifted from one thing to the other�. But she must have �made it� because, to her horror, she�s now being offered $1000 to drink with the punters at Jack�s Bar at the Crown Casino for an hour*. �That�s just trading on perceived celebrity in the most foul way,� she says, recoiling in disgust. The Panel thing came out of the blue and she now finds herself talking about �her career�. �I never actually thought what I did form a career,� she says. �There�s certainly (been) an increasing profile� but I don�t always that�s necessarily a good thing. It�s not necessarily something I�ve sought.� Is she enjoying it then? �Yeah�� she answers hesitantly. �Yeah�� Then with more conviction: �Yeah�� And finally, as though she�s convinced herself: �Yeah�� But I don�t know if I believe her. The Age, 20/8/98 * - The following week some Crown nazi denied she�d been made the offer, and the week after that, Kate�s agent said that Kate had been offered. There�s been no further response from Crown. As one would expect. |
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