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The Two of Us
Paul McDermott & Richard Fidler
Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 March 1998
Paul McDermott 35, hosts Good News Week on ABC-TV and is a breakfast presenter on Triple J. Richard Fidler, 33 , wrote the award winning CD-ROM Real Wild Child and is the presenter of ABC's Race Around the World. With Tim Ferguson, they formed the Doug Anthony Allstars, a comedy trio which enjoyed almost 10 years of international success and notoriety before an acrimonious split in 1994. Neither has exchanged a word with Ferguson since the group broke up.
Paul:
Before I met Richard, I'd seen the Allstars busking on the streets of Canberra. Hated them. I hated them vehemently. I didn't like their stuff at all.Then we were both performing at the same cabaret club and Richard and I got talking afterwards. We discussed working together. A few weeks later the third member of the group, Robert, was ill and Richard asked me to fill in. I ended up staying.
We always had disagreements about the best way to handle things, the right music. Richard and I always had difficulties. I argue sensibly, with God and right on my side. Richard argues in a belligerent way and is closed off to suggestions. I'm very forgiving and he seems to hold on to pain.
Actually, I'm considered a monster.
While we were in the group, we lost track of friendship. You think: if the friendship is affected we'll give up because friendship is more important. But then you think, no, money - money is more important.
Any attempt to share our feelings or be honest was an invitation to be mercilessly attacked by the other two. The comedy was always black. Richard probably suffered more because he was more honest. Nobody could afford to slip up - it was survival of the fittest. It was always a battle of wills. He would accuse me of being domineering and controlling. But you've got to come up with the material and the last thing you want is a committee. These things work better as a dictatorship.
But I didn't always get my way. It took us a year to do Commies For Christ - one of our most successful songs - because Richard didn't like rap. Is he obstinate? I didn't say that. Let's say he has strong will power.
He's an incredibly tenacious person - incredible will to achieve, which I admire. When the group broke up, he wasn't going to do performance stuff because it wasn't so much his forte as ours. He saw himself as having a serious job. Well, now he's developed this whole CD-ROM thing and is holding down jobs in television.
Quite a severe shock. I was probably cramping his style all those years.
I think he was pretty unhappy in the middle years of the group. I was part of the problem. I think I let him down. I was probably nasty, even vindictive and cruel, but we came through it - the fact that we've still retained the friendship is so valuable.
A cathartic thing happened in Barcelona. We'd been there for the post-Olympics entertainment and we were at the airport along with half a million other people desperately trying to get home. I was so incredibly tired and angry. What triggered it was Richard going off to buy a paper while I struggled up the escalator with everyone's luggage. I lost my temper. I said I couldn't stand it any more, we were at loggerheads all the time. I was very , very aggressive. Richard was noble and listened to me. We sat, surrounded by all this hullabaloo and people and luggage, and talked for an hour at least. There might even have been a bit of crying.
Will I know him for the rest of my life? I have no idea.
Richard: We met at Cafe Boom Boom, a cabaret venue in Canberra. Paul was in a group called Gigantic Fly, parodying 30s films, very clever. My first impression was that he had a beautiful singing voice. He was also spiky which was good. He had really abrasive moments in his performance.
We were very young. Tim was a bit of an explosive hippie in those days. Robert and I would stand there and smile a lot. When Paul joined, he changed the dynamic. He would come out with the worst possible thing that was in the back of everybody's mind. A really nasty, poisonous thought. I really enjoyed that. Once his mother was in the audience and Paul was doing a song called Mummy Dearest about crawling back inside your mother's womb. It was spectacularly visceral and offensive.
At first, I was happy to sing along and play guitar and play the straight man. Then the group moved to Melbourne and the audiences just weren't responding - we had to do something to provoke them. We started being a lot more vicious. I realised I wasn't as good at abuse as Tim and Paul - it made more sense for me to be the victim. I became Mr Stupid who was just naturally happy.
Paul being Mr Grumpy is pretty much for real. I've never known anybody to have such prolonged periods of grumpiness. He has a whole series of laws in his head and he can get very angry if you break one - and it's so easy. Not leaving enough milk for his tea would be one.
He is a bully, yes. He accuses people of his own worst sins. He could be bullying because he needed to show leadership in a situation where we were letting things slide. Other times it would be just his need to maintain authority and, often, to insist on his artistic prerogative. In retrospect, that was reasonable because he was the main artistic engine in the group. Not that I had been a picnic to work with either. My faults were, well, laziness and thoughtlessness, I suppose.
Paul is a very complex man. He's incredibly loyal - even though he might behave dreadfully to you to your face, then you hear stories of him coming to your defence. But he's also very unforgiving if he suspects you of disloyalty.
Once, I remember, we were painting backdrops in this theatre - he was doing the bulk of the work and I was going along in my own slow, plodding way - and we were talking, for hours. I felt really happy at the end, when we'd finished. It was like we'd reminded ourselves of why we'd liked each other in the first place.
Somebody said we were like an old married couple who know each other very well and always bicker. Well, that's true in a way.
When we were touring, we'd spend months on end sharing a Tarago stinking of Big Macs and beer and personal body odour. We were living like a triple-headed hydra confined in our roles both on and off stage. Here were so many rows and periods when we couldn't talk to each other. Paul's changed a lot since the group broke up. Mr Nasty could take a rest and this sweet guy emerged. Anyway, the animosity got less and less, gradually the toxicity leached out of the system. It has been a very pleasant time, resuming a friendship.
Paul has two modes of being. Very gregarious or painfully shy. He's happiest when he's been painting successfully (if the painting's bad then he's terrible) and when he's in party mode. He is truly sensational then. He's a very, very good dancer and if he's poured a few drinks down his ridiculous neck and lost his head, he can actually be quite pleasant.
Will I know him for the rest of my life? Absolutely. For sure.
Interview by Jan Wheatley
'BEAT' magazine
NO BLOND BOMBSHELL
And incidentally Paul McDermott will not be a blond when he returns to television next month. He was snapped on Bondi Beach over the Christmas break with his spiky dark hair peroxided but as for doing the that way, he says: "Oh, God, no. That was just for me.
"I tried it once at art school and managed to severely damage my head and look disgusting. I never wanted to do it again but I did it as a bit of a joke.
"I didn't think anyone would actually see it. I didn't think it was of any import. I was quite disgusted when I was photographed on the beach by some snooping paparazzi who was probably after James and Kate and got me accidentally in their lens. I think there are more important issues in the world."
The Daily Telegraph Mar 4 1999
If moving from the ABC to commercial television is making Paul McDermott nervous, he's certainty not showing it. He's late for a script read-through with the writers and senior team of Good News Week which this year has a new home at Channel 10 and a new primetime slot.
But as soon as he walks into the room at GNW's impressive new digs at Fox Studios, he switches on like a power tool . . . and stays that way.
Playful, disarmingly charming, but ever ready to take the Mickey out of anything that moves, McDermott's language is liberally Peppered with the "f" word as he recounts his hectic morning battling with dry ice that didn't behave during the filming of promotions for the show.
An army of cold pizzas (a tradition at GNW meetings), soft drinks of the leaded sugary variety, and a table made up of the show's writers, directors, producers and executive producer Ted Robinson, have been waiting for him.
McDermott trades friendly insults with the writers about his hair colour, which has been reported about in the media (he was Photographed on Bondi Beach over summer with his spiky hairdo a startling peroxide blond - it's now a dark mahogany).
The team of seven full-time writers and one part-time writer is an eclectic mix of souls from a myriad of different backgrounds including science, media and stand-up comedy.
They work individually, sometimes being assisted different topics to work on, and digest an average of six newspapers per day, numerous magazines and watch at least two hours of news and current affairs.
Head writer Ian Simmons believes the move to Ten won't alter the foundations of the show.
"lt'll have the same satirical edge, the same topical edge and will be just as dirty, nasty and cheap as always," he says.
The writers are anxious to hear McDermott-who is regarded as one of the most impressive young talents on Australian television today - read through the 30 pages of gags, which will later be culled to about 20 at the ensuing script meetings.
Fellow GNW stars Mikey Robins and Julie McCrossin aren't in attendance at the pizza read-through. That's not how things are done at GNW (which is bad luck for Mikey).
While McDermott will attend two read-throughs for each show, he also meets with the writers daily to constantly refine the script for each show.
Executive producer Ted Robinson insists this attention to detail gives the show its spine.
"A lot of Paul's linking stuff is pre thought about and scripted," he says.
"So if the guest's ad-lib stuff isn't working as well, we've got a good script to back it up."
For team leaders Robins and McCrossin, ad-libbing is their strength and for them to have detailed knowledge of the script would make the show too contrived and lacking in edginess.
The read-through runs reasonably smoothly this day, considering it's the first time in the year the writing team has met with McDermott. There's some laughter at the genuinely funny bits and some groans at the gags that still need work.
"This had better get better or we'll only last six shows," McDermott jokes.
Or is he? Having made a career out of satire, on first meeting McDermott it's hard to discover the real person.
The Daily Telegraph Mar 18 1999
You Want The Good News?
For an Alternative world view, ex-Doug Anthony Allstar Paul McDermott is your man.
By Di Webster.
In an episode of the Doug Anthony Allstars' anarchic televised comedy show, D.A.A.S Kapital, Tim Ferguson asked Doug-Mate Paul McDermott to describe his life. "My Life" wailed McDermott, "Is a cumulus cloud that rains misery over the flooded fields of my tragic memory… My life is like a young virgin girl, unsoiled, trying to find a youth hostel in Marakech but accidentally stumbling into a Turkish bordello, bathhouse and opium den. I hate my life! I hate my life!" The audience thought he was joking.
"I never feel really too stable," confesses McDermott, 33, comedian, singer, painter, writer, and razor sharp compere of Good News Week ABCTV's newest satire, in which two competing teams of celebrities attempt to wittily deconstruct the week's news. "I always feel agitated, permanently agitated."
It's a state that has worked for him, both during his eight-year stint with the Allstars and since they disbanded at the end of 1994. In the past six months he has written and starred in Mosh, a frenetic mix of dance, song and acerbic McDermott monologues set against a rave party and based, he says, on "My drug-addled observations when I've been abusing substances". Mosh has just finished its run at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and may tour nationally later in the year. Critiques of the show have ranged from "Often Hilarious" to "an
Ugly… grubby, cheap piece of undergraduate cabaret".
McDermott is also painting a series of small landscapes in oils for an exhibition and working on a film script and an album of his own compositions. "I always feel I've got to rid myself of something," He says "I don't know what it is but I hate having it stored inside me. I hate having ideas or thoughts crusting up my skull."
McDermott is sitting uncharacteristically still on the end of a futon bed in the loft of his Melbourne warehouse home. Amid the clutter on a desk at one end of the room is a box of assorted glass eyes he brought in India, a cross-sectioned plastic medical torso and a container of paintbrushes. A display of antique wooden skulls, also from India, sits on a chest. Though McDermott spends most of his time in Sydney these days where Good News Week is taped, this room is him: artistic, macabre, witty and, on good days, bathed in sunlight.
Good Days? "I'm getting to be a grumpy old man," he smirks "I can't do anything lately without complaining about it. I'm not sure if that’s mellowing or just a different outlet for the bitterness."
The second eldest - Paul is one minute younger than his twin Sharon - of John, a retired senior public servant, and housewife Betty's six children, he traces his angst back to stifling school days at Canberra's Marist College. The School's Priority, he says, was "to make a good football team so that you could impress other Catholic schools in the area with your brute strength and machismo". His interest in art, he says, "might as well have been witchcraft". Every year at school "felt like a step deeper and deeper into a limbo or abyss".
After completing Year 12 and spending two years abroad, McDermott enrolled in a Canberra art school and hit his stride. "That was the first time in my life I actually felt like I was alive." He says. In '85, while performing street theatre with a group of art students called Gigantic Fly, McDermott met Tim Ferguson (The first Doug to turn TV frontman now hosting the Nine Network game show Don't Forget Your Toothbrush) and Richard Fidler who, with Robert Piper, were doing comedy routines around Canberra as the Doug Anthony Allstars, allegedly named after the former Country Party leader. Piper left to live overseas, the Allstars asked McDermott to Join and one of Australia's most successful comedy exports - Eight international festivals including hit seasons at the Edinburgh Festival - was born. "The primary reason for joining the Allstars was monetary," says McDermott "I'd been stealing canvas from the bins around the art school."
"In the early stages we used to rely more on song parodies," recalls Richard Fidler, 31, who became the willing fall guy for much of the group's subsequent cruel humour. What did McDermott bring to the group? "The Voice of an angel" says Fidler, "and a personal hygiene problem." For Fidler, who now lives in Sydney and produces entertainment CD-ROMs, a highlight of MOSH "was to see that Paul has finally got himself a costume without sleeves in it"
"There definitely is a 'Paul Smell' but you come to love it when you know him pretty well," laughs comedian Wendy Harmer, 40, who shared a house with McDermott in Melbourne (with few fights over the shower, it seems.) in the mid-'80's. Harmer describes McDermott, whose MOSH monologue includes references to bestiality, masturbation, social diseases, cancer and drugs, as "incredibly sweet natured. He always makes beautiful home-made birthday cards with his drawings on them and writes you poetry and sends lovely letter when he's away."
Ted Robinson, who as the former head of ABC-TV comedy invited the Allstars to appear on 1989's The Big Gig, has smelled the smell and seen the complexity. "He's paranoid, he's a fascist, but he's also capable of being warm and generous." Adds Robinson, "if he's not being suicidal. There's an intensity about everything he does. No wonder he pulls the birds."
"I'm in love every 25 seconds of every day." Says the currently single McDermott. Not that love takes away his edge. "There's a permanent part of myself that is reserved for being upset and depressed. I don't think I necessarily take that out on the people I'm with."
He's occasionally tried to block those shadows. "Drugs are good forms of escape but they have their own agitations," says the comic, "whether it's stomach cramps or a sudden concern that your respiratory system is failing or your kidneys have fallen out your back.
"Sleeping is good," he adds, "But even then I have bad dreams." Woody Allen-esque angst aside, "He was always the one who would say 'I love your hair' or 'that's a great frock'" says Harmer "What more do you want from a fella?"
We Won't Bite.
New Woman - November 2000
Good News Week host Paul McDermott has no problem dishing out his own acerbic humour, but what happens when the tables are turned? 'I find it strange being interviewed,' he confesses nervously. 'Actually, I hate it.' Relaz, Paul, this won't hurt a bit (well, not much...)
How do you like being known as the 'thinking women's crumpet'?
It's offensive, but I just don't believe it. I don't feel like a crumpet at all. It's a bit too late, isn't it? I'm a haggard old man.
Don't be so self-deprecating, Paul, you look fine from where we standing. What do you see when you look in the mirror?
I think I'm too fat and my cheeks are puffy. Only kidding, I'm just being a woman!
Funny. When was the last time someone outwitted you?
My greengrocer does it all the time. 'That'll be another 20 cents please.' I'm conned left, right and centre by small businesses all around Australia.
How did you feel after the Doug Anthony All Stars disbanded?
I went to Thailand and sought solace in pills and alcohol.
So, what's next for you?
People are such a burden. I think I'll become a hermit. I haven't done that yet. I might put a few books out - art-oriented ones.
You mean, coffee table books?
Ooooh (sharp intake of breath). Not that type.
Do you plan to have kids sometime?
I'm not planning any. I'm not very good with kids?
Is that because you're still a bit of kid yourself?
That could be the reason, My attitude is totally different toward most people's and if everyone felt like me, we'd be dead within a generation. I'm afraid of passing on aspects of my dark nature...
If they were making a film about your life, who would you want to play you?
The Hunchback of Notre Dame or the Elephant Man.
If you were interviewing you, what question would you ask you?
I'd ask if I want to go for a drink
Right then let's go. Your shout.
See Paul on Good News Week, Saturdays at 9:30pm on Ten)
No more Mr Nasty Guy
9/11/00 Sydney Telegraph
The man who created an art form out of being mean and nasty has decided enough is enough. Contemplating early retirement, he thinks it may even be time to try being nice.
Paul McDermott is unemployed.He also suspects he is dying.
"I’m feeling like a Charles Dickens character, in a little garret, coughing myself to death." Says the flu sodden host of Good News week, which is officially no more.
He is not a bit surprised that the end of the show and his own demise ("Consumed bu phlegm") have co-incided.
"Most family’s break up during vacation" he says gloomily.
"Disasters usually happen at that moment when you take time off, because you store up all those things you can’t look at or can’t talk about.
You just keep it all at bay while you contemplate the tasks you have to do and then, ponce it’s all over, you fall apart."
Good News week is a victim of Ten’s tough line on ratings. The last episode of the five-year-old show has been taped and will air later in the month.
Meanwhile Ten has compiled a clips show of highlights, outtakes and behind the scenes goings-on which will be broadcast on Tuesday night. While many high points get a second airing- McDermott’s extremely threatening version of the Britney Spears song Oops I did it again springs to mind-the 38 year old is disappointed the retrospective does not include anything from the years Good News week was produced for the ABC.
"It’s pretty appalling" he says. "You know, the things you do, you don’t own. I’ve always found that curious. You produce something and then, stupidly, you think it’s yours. Then you find there’s some contract somewhere that says it’s not actually yours, there’s some corporation that owns it."
McDermott is going through what might be called a blue period. It’s not that he’s bitter about the end of Good News week- he is ready to do something else.
But the former member of the ferociously satirical Doug Anthony AllStars is worried about the viability of anything he would be remotely interested in doing, given the way television seems to be going.
"I don’t think there’s room for satire with reality TV and I think that’s where we’re heading now." He says
This Mac the knife fears reality TV is immune to satire. "It’s already satire" he says
"You could not get more satirical that Search for a Supermodel. Can you imagine it? I was watching that, trying to imagine the guy-or whoever, I assume it was a man-trying to sell the concept. Unbelievable"
He is horrified by the mock suggestion that Ten might be trying to lure him back in the new year to host their latest reality TV outing, Big Brother, based on a Britich model of sticking a bunch of people together in a house and filming everything that goes on.
"No no! I mean that’s too scary for words" he says, after a shocked coughing fit.
"It’s just the concept-creating these tiny microcosms where people are just chosen for their incompatibility with other people, you know
Creating an environment where disaster is only a heartbeat away."
The nastiness of it all has led him to decide that whatever he does next in television-if anything- will be for the forces of niceness.
"I’ve been evil for too long now" he laughs "I want to do something for positive energy, rather than the evil sarcasticness and bile that we’ve been churning out for five years"
Whether television will let him is another matter.
"If you were sensib;le at the moment, you’d be doing a reality TV show so I don’t know what the other options are, really" he reflects
"But I like working in the …um…in the television, um…industry…"he says slowly, before laughing at his own lack of conviction.
"Do I? Yeah. No, I think so. I think I’ll still be doing it. I just need to basically get over this flu and have a bit of a rest"
From Allstar to Week-spot
Paul McDermott, the story so far.
Cleo, January 2000
Paul McDermott
Claim to fame:
Silver suits, a sharp tongue-and bringing us Good News Week.What was your first job? I worked in a bank and it made me aware that I didn’t ever want a nine-to-five lifestyle. I couldn’t cope with the authoritarian aspect either.
The best thing about this job? I’m petty happy with what I’m doing. It’s better than spending the day down a coal mine.
What would you rather be doing? Sitting in a rattan chair, overlooking a stretch of ocean-just away from people.
If you could change yourself… I’d like to be a nice person, to not be as aggressive, grumpy, upset, distraught and evil.
Who inspires you? Benny Hill and Mary Tyler Moore-the finest programs ever made.
What’s Next? I want to go on a journey of happiness over the next year. I just want to some quiet for a little while-everything’s too loud right now.
Your Obsession? I love creating things, like the show. The last thing I did was a hand-made book. I also like painting and drawing.
Best Advice? Don’t open that door.
Motto? Life tires you out.
Former Good News Week host Paul McDermott is to receive funding for a short film drama he plans to write and direct.
McDermott's drama, The Scree was one of five projects to be supported by the NSW Young filmmakers Fund.
The announcement was made by Rose Byrne, whose performance in Goddess of 1967 won her the best actress award at this year's Venice Film Festival.
McDermott was expected to attend yesterday's announcement but didn't show up.
The Scree, to be produced by Justine Kerrigan, is the story of five strange friends who discover a mysterious island, which is filled with bizarre vegetation and deadly creatures.
Daily Telegraph, 29/11/00
DESIRE:
Desire is everything-whether it's to get something, get somewhere, do something, achieve something, eat something, have sex with something. It's a motivational force. The progression to fulfillment is extraordinary: thatbetween-world feeling, sort of crossing over, not just in regard to sexual sort of things, but in regard to anything-art or politics, science sometimes. It's just that once it's achieved, there's nothing. That moment of desire between the thought and achieving the thought-that's a good moment. That's a beautiful moment.
--Paul McDermott
Paul's new wise crack... by Cathy McQueen..
City weekly 7th December 2000
Tales of the city
Paul McDermott Comedian, writer and Good News Week host.
I was raised in a place born of compromise: the dinky-di, Legoland town that serves as our nation’s capital and sits like an uncomfortable sibling between two feuding brothers. For this reason, it has always been impossible for me to see Sydney as an individual city. I can never view it in isolation. Its life is dependant on its relationship with Melbourne. They’re fused together, spinning through time and space, caught in each other’s bitter embrace. They exhibit the petty jealousies of the spoilt children of a wealthy family: gifted with a surplus of talents, yet incapable of realising and admiring the good in each other.
As a child growing up in that place between places I was trapped, envious of those two horizons. On one side, the European city of low-hanging cloud, flat, grey days and sumptuous conversation. On the other, east coast hedonism, body conscious consumerism and the vacuous beauty of Sydney. It was in the latter I made my home.
But it was not my first home nor my first choice. Fleeing Canberra, with it’s blackhole-like-ability to keep you within it’s sad orbit, was no small feat. The choice was only ever one of two, and after close to a quarter of a century of wondering I made an informed decision and escaped to Melbourne.
The next 10 years saw me living in a number of different cities but Sydney was never one of them.
The five years ago, the colourful lure that dragged me to Sydney was work. And, if truth be known, I was not eager for the transition. I’d manages to avoid the place for a good many years and certainly had no interest in living there. I was transient, had no fixed abode and was running out of money. I thought if I must live in another city then I would like to live by the sea. I found a cramped bedsit with a faulty shower, a collapsing roof, a cockroach plague and a single beautiful window. A window that perfectly divided sky and sea and made every day a vision. That is what Sydney has become to me- an ocean. Sand, surf, sun and eternal summer. I have no idea what is behind me for I rarely venture into the city. Everything I desire is infront of me. I’m content to rise each morning where the land frays into the ocean with my back to the endless sprawl of streets and witness the sea.
And only occasionally do I hear the distant murmurs of two feuding brothers.
Vogue, October 2000
Paul McDermott
The comic, singer and author of The Forgetting of Wisdom reveals his animal instincts with a love of Milo and Otis, pus an enduring facination for all things Shetland.
What is your greatest fear? Honesty
Who inspires you? John Howard has inspired me to revolution
If you could have anything in the world, what would it be? A second liver
What motivates you? The desire to return to sleep
What is your favourite book? Modern Methods of Amputation, The Philasophical Society of America, 1945 (Translated from Portugeuse)
What is the greatest myth about fame? That any good can come of it
Who would you least like to sit next to on a long flight? Myself (I’ve heard all of my Shetland Pony stories before)
What do you admire most about women? I object to gender-specific questions and consider attributing particular characteristics to women offensive. That being said: cooking, cleaning and child-bearing
What is your most treasured possesion? My bone saw
What is your first thought in the morning? What’s the use of getting up?
How would you spend your last $100? On a merry descent into hell
How would you most like to be remembered? As a Shetand pony at a County fair
Where is your favourite place? Anywhere away from Mr Monster
Any regrets? Prior to this questionaire, none
What is the most romantic film ever made? Milo and Otis’ seminal classic and Pasolini’s perverse epic Salo watched simultaneously.
January Elle 2001
Top odds on the Logies loser
Speculation is mounting as to who will be handed the poisoned chalice that comes with hosting the Annual Logie awards.
Following Andrew Denton's success in the past two years, chances are the Nine Network will again look outside it's stable for a host for the April 22 telecast. A decision is expected early next month, and according to a Nine deep throat, the only certainty is the host "wont be [former 60 minutes reporter] Jeff McMullin"
Choosing the host is a collaborative process between Nine and TV WEEK although as broadcaster, Nine would have the casting vote.
So who will it be? After picking the brains of square eyed insiders. Confidential provides the form and chances of the usual suspects and a few dark horse.
Andrew Denton (8/1): Announcing he was leaving the Triple M breakfast slot, only to have a change of mind a few months later, is one reason why Denton's name is still being thrown around. He's the man for the job, but it would take some convincing to get him on board a third time.
Roy and HG (8/1): Like Denton, Slaven and Nelson have no network allegiance and would suit Nine's approach to out sourcing a host. But alter egos, John Doyle and Greig Pickhaver rarely make a dud move and this one does carry risk. Remember Greg Evans?
Paul McDermott (15/1) A bit too Ten and perhaps a bit too angry to host such a warm and fuzzy affair. And then there's the question of McDermott's singing. (rofl-FR)
Glenn Robbins (15/1): Funny enough to handle the gig, but the bad blood between Nine and The Panel could be his undoing.
Rove McManus (20/1): Industry types agree he's cut out for the job but needs to shake the trainer wheels before he can ride Denton's pushbike.
Bert Newton (25/1) Sadly a sentimental favourite without a chance. Still one of the funniest men on television.
Sydney Telegraph, 18/12/00
Interview found on the
FHM website
So, tell me about the new world comedy... er, the world comedy show...
So who did you get for the show?
Oh God, it's so long ago.
Focus!
Where's the Special K gone? The demons! The demons! Stop them! I heard some interesting
stuff about K the other day. Did you know your brain flatlines on K? They did MRIs and there's
no activity in the brain. That's why people keep having near-death experiences on it. Anyway,
there's lots of people on the show, I wish I'd done my research. Sean Hughes does a bit of a
turn, and he's fantastic of course. Phil Jupitus, who's a British comedian. There's Judith Lucy
who of course you know. Laura Kightlinger, a US comedian. Brent Butt, from Canada. And Lano
and Woodley of course.
What's the difference between senses of humour around the world?
Well, let's start with the "A"s. I think Albanians just aren't funny. They just aren't a funny people.
All the tragedy that's happened there in the last couple of years hasn't produced any good
humour. Normally tragedy and comedy go hand in hand, so you'd think the Albanians would be
up there. But they're not. Now the Americans, I think they've recently discovered the concept of
satire and irony, which had been sadly lacking from their comedy, as evidenced by the program
Diff'rent Strokes, which always had a moral imperative to head towards. Americans are losing
that now. The old Seinfeld show and The Simpsons are heavy on the irony, heavy on the satire,
which is what we in the colonies have always liked. I think there is a breed of American
comedians, and Canadians I suppose, but Canadians have probably always had it, that are
heavy on the satire. And it's great I think, because if you go back 10 years there was a very
different style of stand up coming from America, and I think that's why people keep asking this
question about the different styles of comedy, but I think we're merging now into a more
international... I think there's differences, but they're not so terrifying that you can't laugh at what
a person from one country or another country are talking abut. Did I make any sense at all then?
Mostly, I suppose. What else have you been working on?
A couple of things. I'm doing a short film; I got some money last year to do that, a gothic horror
sort of story. It's got lots of special effects in it. Very cheaply done, though. Actually, you've got
think a bit more 1890s special effects because the budget's so small. I'm also bringing out a
couple of gothic horror children's stories. Everyone seems to laugh at that, I don't know why.
Everytime I say it, everyone thinks I'm lying to them.
Are you?
Am I lying or am I bringing them out? Yeah, I'm bringing them out. Out of the cupboard. It's
something I've wanted to do for a long time, to terrify the shit out of kids. Enough of this
politically correct children's literature, that's all so twee and "aren't people good" and so on. I
miss Grimm's tales and Edgar Allan Poe and shit like that. I think it's time the kids got a damn
good fright before they go to bed. Nightmares aren't necessarily bad things. You've got to have
the yin with the yang, you've got to have the balance in the universe, you can't have God without
Satan.
So you're putting the Satan back in kid's books?
Well, yeah. Enough of the goddesses dancing, you know? I've got a book company, I've spent
the last couple of months setting up Cannibal Books. Books For Kids.
Super. Do you ever miss working on GNW?
No, I'm trying to wipe it from my mind. Yeah, I do, I certainly miss the ability to comment on
weekly events, and have a forum for discussion on those ideas with people I like being around.
At the moment I'm reduced to watching the TV and talking back to it at home. Basically
muttering at the television set. The comedy that was once refined for television has become a
torrent of expletives now. "Fucking short-arse bastard John Howard", is basically what the
comedy is reduced to.
You usually take every opportunity to sing on your programs – is there any singing on
the World Comedy Tour?
No, they wouldn't let me.
You could put a clause in your contract...
Yes, "He must sing." That would be a bit desperate, wouldn't it? I did sing a song about Phil
Jupitus...
What did you rhyme with "Jupitus"?
Well, it went... [sings] "Fly me to the moon, let me float among the stars, let me know what life
is like on Jupitus's arse." I thought it was quite nice.
The World Comedy Tour will show on August 1 and 29 on thecomedychannel, 9pm. Interview by
Tim Keen.