Comedy's Press Gangsters
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COMEDY'S PRESS GANGSTERS
EMMA TOM
Monday 05/05/1997
THE GUIDE Sydney Morning Herald
It's been a hard day's week for Paul McDermott and Mikey Robins, stars of their own breakfast radio show and evening TV program. EMMA TOM finds out what it takes to be fat, foppish and funny around the clock.
THE first problem is making the inflatable sheep look more like a sheep and less like a goat. Under normal circumstances (if the words 'aerodynamic sex toy' and 'normal circumstances' can sit in such close proximity) it probably wouldn't matter if ones blow-up lamb lacks realism. But on Good News Week the props given as clues to contestants in the game Strange But True have to make at least a little sense. Gratuitous sexual innuendoes they might be, but accurate sexual innuendoes, dammit.
From the host's seat on the set of the ABC game show, Paul McDermott gazes unhappily into the sheep's pathetic plastic attempts at anatomical correctness.
The flu has him by the throat, the anti-flu medication he took before the rehearsal has him by the brain and the idea of using Science Week as a theme for Good News Week suddenly has him worried. A lipsticked sheep's identity crisis is the last thing he needs. 'And what's this?' he asks of the red plastic explosion off the top of the toy's head. 'It makes it look like a cockerel. 'This is the ugly reality of having simultaneous careers on television as well as on radio on Triple J's breakfast program. Well, it's McDermott's ugly reality, anyway. When his partner in both mediums, Mikey Robins, rolls in only an hour or so before filming starts, he has a beer in his hand and seems as relaxed and comfortable as it is possible to be in the budget-struck ABC.
THE contrast in their demeanours couldn't be further apart, but it's totally appropriate given the role-playing that forms the basis of their comic relationship. McDermott is the bitter and twisted one. His humour is not as aggressive as it once was, but still remains rooted in ridicule and abuse. His manner, like his looks and his clothes, is sharp. Robins, as he will describe himself in tonight's GNW promo, is 'the fat yobbo'. His jokes are more good-natured and have a higher belch content. He's all extravagant hair tosses and has an infectious, high-pitched and slightly hysterical giggle. The couple abuse each other as well as their audiences, but despite their loathing of the 'male bonding' tag, their performing relationship is, by necessity, one of trust.
'I think it's as archaic to call the (Triple J) breakfast show male bonding as it would be to call the afternoon show a knitting circle,' Robins says. 'It just happens that there are two women doing drive and two-and-a-half men on breakfast.
'But it's not uncommon to open the mike and not know what you're going to talk about so in the end it boils down to trust, and that's the great thing about this year. Within a very short period of time I've reached the point where I can turn the mike on and know that Paul's going to be there.' He also knows McDermott's going to be there from 9.30 till 10.30 three mornings a week when the pair, in company with The Sandman (who can be heard on the show on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), work out with a personal trainer at a Sydney gymnasium. This oh-so-boyish ritual seems to
cause both performers considerable embarrassment and is a topic that should not be pursued for too long if you do not wish to be repeatedly called a f--ing bitch by McDermott. Its also about as far as youíre likely to get into their private lives.
Despite the obvious strength of both their on and off-air (not to mention their intra-gym) rapport, McDermott and Robins were not properly introduced until GNW went into pre- production in February last year.
McDermott grew up in Canberra, the son of a public servant, and went to art school before making his name in the ultra aggro, ultra politically incorrect comedy trio The Doug Anthony All-Stars. The Dougs performed around Australia and in London from 1984, but separated about three years
ago due to 'differences of opinion about direction'. McDermott cut his teeth in radio after joining Angela Catterns on Triple J's afternoon show last year.
Robins grew up in Newcastle and completed a double major in Drama and English at Newcastle University before joining the Castanet Club until 1989. After a brief flirtation with stand-up and sketch comedy writing, he and Helen Razer took over Triple J's breakfast spot five years ago.
The unlikely team proved an extremely successful combination until Razer announced late last year she was going to host the afternoon program with comedian Judith Lucy.
'Helen couldn't handle the hours anymore,' Robins says of the split. 'I felt like staying and me and monkey butt here seemed to be getting on well so we thought we'd give it a burl.'
Triple J's network manager, Ed Breslin, says that while the gender split was not part of any master plan, teaming two women seemed to be a positive move because women on radio were generally partnered with men or used as sidekicks.
Breslin says the breakfast show has maintained the same number of female listeners as last year and the afternoon show, called The Ladies Lounge, has actually gained male listeners, adding that he sees 'blue sky' ahead in the futures of both shifts.
'The Ladies Lounge got off to a rocky start . . . but within a very short time the chemistry just kicked in. It had been some time since Judith had done that amount of radio and Helen had to work out exactly how things operated now she was no longer part of the Mikey team. 'Now they are making what I would call extremely brave radio in terms of the level of irreverence that they can instil into communicating interesting information. The boys were less of a surprise. They probably only took about two days to find their feet.'
GNW, meanwhile, also seems to be standing tall. The rowdy program, which is a raunchier version of an English show called Have I Got News For You, chews over then spits out some of the more humorous offerings from the week's news in a parlour game format.
AFTER last year's ABC budget cuts, it was announced that GNW would be trashed, but within a matter of weeks the decision was reversed. McDermott and Robins say this was due to a 'public furore'. These days the show averages about a million viewers and, according to the executive producer, Ted Robinson, has often run a neck-and-neck second in the ratings to the popular Burke's Backyard on Nine. A test will be its performance against the new series of JAG on Seven.
'The satire is getting a younger energy about it,' says Robinson. 'It might piss off a lot of traditional ABC viewers who are used to 10-year-old British sitcoms starring Dame Judi Dench, but we're dragging to the ABC a whole new audience who don't usually turn on.'
Still, budget-related uncertainty throughout the national broadcaster means no-one wants to talk too long or too hard about the future. 'Who knows if Good News Week will be on next year, who knows if Triple J will even exist?' asks Robins, who is on a yearly contract for both. 'We'll wait
and see what happens with the budget."
OF all the days in the working week, none is quite as horrendous as the last two, during which Robins and McDermott film GNW on Thursday night and then have to be up, about and at least partly coherent at Triple J at 5.30 the next morning.
McDermott arrives at ABC-TV's Gore Hill studios at 3.30 pm dressed in tie-dyed blue sloppy joe with black bar code, black jeans and heavily soled shiny black shoes. A bloke with a pony tail vacuums the set as McDermott runs through his opening and closing monologues. There's a line about Don Burke sticking his head into a celebrity gardener's maidenhair and McDermott is so out-of-it with the flu he's convinced he'll stuff up and say 'maidenhead'.
Minus people, the fully lit set looks like it's just been stood up on a big date. When stand-ins play the guests for the full camera rehearsal (a work experience girl called Emily fills in for Professor Ian Plimer from the infamous 'Noah's Ark' case), it becomes even more surreal. 'Does anyone else feel sick and light-headed?' asks McDermott, after the rehearsal winds up.
'Only after the read-through,' says director Ted Robinson. Robinson wants McDermott to cut back his opening monologue. 'It's six-and-half-minutes on a read-through, which means six minutes with laughs,' he says, dryly recycling an old joke.
Robins arrives at 5.30 pm and relaxes in what looks suspiciously like a dentist's chair out the back in make-up. He points out a zit that has been successfully disguised by the make-up artist and inspects his grey hairs, noting that he's looking more and more like a member of The Godfather's Corleone family every day. Just the look for a DJ on a youth radio network, he says.
Two of tonight's guests, comedian Adam Spencer and Julius Sumner Miller Fellow Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, arrive and are given copies of the quality publications they will be quizzed on during the Magazine Mastermind segment. Spencer's is Bathroom Yearbook and Kruszelnicki's is Australian
Bowhunter.
Then comes the team briefings. While contestants are not given theanswers, Ted Robinson does offer hints so they don't have to ad libcompletely cold. They are also given the Strange But True clues, in thecase of Julie McCrossin's team, a bread board of oysters, a tube of personal lubricant and the sheep which has had its red bow taped flat to its head and black fluffy curls drawn over its plastic hide with a texta. By 7 pm the studio guests are seated and by 7.30 pm the show is off and mostly running. Spencer brilliantly guesses that the Strange But True clues refer to the story that 10 per cent of rams are gay, Kruszelnicki good-naturedly ignores everyone who tells him to shut up, Robins insinuates that no-one else but him can 'get a root', climatologist Professor Ann Henderson-Seller doesn't hit McDermott for calling her the most qualified weather girl in the world, and the other team captain, McCrossin, manages not to kill Professor Ian Plimer for saying that if God existed She must
have been a woman because there were so many stuff-ups. McDermott stumbles over many of his lines, which then have to be reshot, but tonight's excitable audience even find this amusing. It's like live TV Bloopers. 'Sorry,' McDermott says after missing another take. ìI had a vision of them having sex [he gestures towards two oldies from the Central Coast who come every week] and it threw me.'
Filming for the show and the promos doesn't wind up until after 9 pm and Robins and McDermott hang out in the corridor outside the crowded green room calculating how much sleep they will be able to cram. Robins reckons about five hours. A good night.
Eight hours later the couple are back at work in the Dr Who-ish setting of the ABC radio studios in Ultimo. Robins eats a salad sandwich with beetroot and McDermott consumes something square and greasy with eggs and bacon as they trawl mechanically through the papers searching for material.
McDermott's regulation toilet-brush hair cut looks slept on and out of whack but even at this hour he's dressed in a matching suit jacket and pants. Robins wears green corduroy with an inviting front zip. Newsreader Samantha Wills walks in and Robins cottons on to the fact that she's still in her party frock and party boots and hasn't been home. This generates almost as much on- and off-air banter as an article they find on the lost art of napkin folding.
Phone calls come straight through to the studio and, to his credit, Robins answers a great many without resorting to the directive ìf---- off'. Someone rings up and says that he's just seen a photo of Robins and he's not that fat. Someone else rings and calls him 'napkin boy'. Robins begins answering the phone with 'Triple Mî in a 'non stop blocks of rock' voice.
By the time the sandwiches and coffee are gone, by the time they've run out of banter on the all-meat restaurant in Melbourne, by the time Sandman has told the world about the way his girlfriend, Virginia, runs her finger around his nostrils, the show is over.
It's the end of another working week and Robins says he's ready for a drink.
It's 9 am.
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