Off the Cuff and on the Air
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Off the cuff and on the air
JENNY TABAKOFF
Page 7 Monday, 15 September 1997
THE GUIDE The Sydney Morning Herald
The Good News Week panellists manage to discuss current events in such a knowing way, you'd swear they had a script. JENNY TABAKOFF finds out the hard way that they don't.
WHEN the call comes from the ABC, of course, you feel flattered. Then self-doubt sets in, and by 4.30pm on Thursday, when you arrive at Gore Hill, you are pretty sure you know nothing about that week's news and absolutely certain that you aren't funny.
And as this show is Good News Week, which is all about being funny and knowledgeable about current affairs, that is not a winning combination. Every week there is at least one panellist on GNW who is scared out of his or her wits. A few weeks ago it was me. The rest of the line-up comprised
regular team captains Mikey Robins and Julie McCrossin; frequent guests Amanda Keller, of Triple M, and Melbourne comedian Greg Fleet; and American comic Barry Diamond. All right, it was his first time, too - but he is funny for a living.
The show goes to air on Friday nights, but is recorded the previous evening. I am whisked into make-up, where McCrossin and Keller are already under the firm control of make-up artists. The ABC digs into its vast treasure trove to lend me a pair of suitable earrings.
Between applications of lip gloss, McCrossin says she has grown to find this make-up session "very relaxing". Like everyone else, she rolls up at 4.30pm, having watched Ten's Sunday-morning news round-up, Sunday on Nine and other news shows during the week, and having read her dose of Who Weekly and the tabloids.
Paul McDermott's opening and linking spiels are pre-scripted, but for the panellists there is no rehearsal, no pre-scripted jokes. It's becoming painfully clear that this is going to be seat-of-the-pants TV.
The girls are very reassuring - nice of them, considering I am on the opposing team. Amanda recalls her earlier GNW appearances: "The first time I didn't do anything. Second time, I didn't say much but was saved by the editing. The third time I said a few things but was cut back in the editing. . ."
So what should a first-time guest do? "Talk, no matter what," says Keller,"because they tape for about 45 minutes and the show is cut back. Err onthe side of verbal diarrhoea because they can always cut things out."Suitably glamorous, we adjourn to the production office, where coffee and
bowls of nuts and lollies have been laid out. I ask McCrossin whether womenguests are different from the men.
"I think women are generally - with exceptions - less competitive as a reflex, and less willing, as a reflex, to jump over the top of another," she replies.
Keller warns: "I think women, by nature, sit back and wait for others to talk."
The message: don't feel squashed. Some guests (who shall remain nameless)have just sat there and done nothing but giggle.
Everyone agrees that Mikey Robins, my team captain, is good, damned good. Fast, funny and knowledgeable, but able to stand back and let his team-mates get a word in if they feel up to it.
Robins wanders in, introduces himself, and advises me to think of the show "as a dinner party".
At that moment, food magically appears for the cast and crew: chicken curry and salads. We tuck in and toss around likely news stories with Greg Fleet, our other team-mate. Robins nominates his favourite story of the week: the one about "the chicken of death". Apparently, six people died in
an attempt to recover a hen that had fallen down a well. "The chicken was still alive," Robins adds.
The chicken of death? How had I missed that one in a week of dutifulnews-reading? More panic.
Steve Johnston, one of the writers, says it's more important "to have anattitude to the news rather than know all the answers". Does that mean guests should prepare some jokes? Johnston looks shocked. "You can't prepare for this show, because you never know what you're going to see and
you never know the direction it's going to go in."
Anyway, the best things happen spontaneously: "That's when the show comes alive," Johnston says.
I ask Paul McDermott what makes a good guest.
"Being complimentary to me often helps," he says.
About half an hour before things are due to start, when the audience is buzzing outside the studio, Ted Robinson, GNW's executive producer, leadsthe teams onto the set to tell us which camera to look at - "if you feel confident enough".
"Don't be afraid to jump in," he says. "An amusing wrong answer is as interesting to me as a right, dull answer."
Robinson gives us a few clues about what to expect. Our "odd one out" question will involve pictures of Pauline Hanson, Air Supply, a cartoon koala and Ung Huot, the one-time Australian Telecom engineer who has justbeen named as first Cambodian prime minister. And the props for our
last-round story will be a Mars bar, an old $100 note and "a vast expanse of nothing".
We head into the corridor to ponder all this. Robins advises us to think like cryptic-crossword compilers, and nudges us towards the thought that the odd-one-out question might have something to do with people who are more popular in Asia than they are in Australia. As for the second, we all
think this has something to do with future Mars astronauts being trained in Antarctica.
It gets no further than that, and we are herded onto the set once again for the show to begin.
Fifty minutes has never passed so quickly. What is surprising is the sheer physicality of the other panellists (Fleet jumps on to the desk and picks up his chair at various stages) and their confidence. Several times I find myself soundlessly opening and shutting my mouth, trying to find a moment
when I can interject. But I manage to say a few things and hear people laugh, which seems somehow amazing. No wonder actors talk about applause as a drug.
Afterwards, over a rowdy coffee backstage, Ted Robinson issues a congratulations: "You kept up."
I tell Mikey Robins that it was fun, but nothing like a dinner party. "You should have dinner at my place," he replies.
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