Paul Articles

I Couldn't Live Without...

Paul McDermott, 35, host of Good News Week, wants to repay a karmic debt, says salads haven't suffered enough and

reveals the reason why he won't fry fish at 10 am.

Food.

I do like a lot of food. It's an essential, like shelter and warmth. But I don't eat fruit and I don't eat vegetables- they're boring.

They've suffered no pain in death. Animals are good to eat because you know they've gone through a bit to be served. I think

that's always a good thing. I find it hard to buy salads for that reason- you're paying for something that someone has just pulled

out of the ground. Whereas with an animal, you know someone's chased it around and expended a bit of energy catching it.

The Constant fear of Death.

It's a great motivator. If you're always conscious that you're going to die, then you've got to achieve things before that happens.

I've committed so many sins that I believe that they're going to catch up with me. I've done so many offensive things on stage,

especially about tumors and cancers, that I'm sure there's going to be some yin and yang balance, which doesn't sit well with

me, as I'm a lapsed Catholic. I think you should be able to get away with murder with Catholicism- and just atone in that last

brief moment with your priest in three or four words, "Please forgive me father" and boompf, okay. But another aspect of my

nature believes I've accrued a karmic debt and I'm concerned about that. I've got a weird lump on my chest at the moment...

The news.

Following the News is part of the job, unfortunately. no news is good news, it's a very grim world. Except for the end of the

TV news on a Friday night- when there's a romp through the parklands or something like that. I rang up and complained once.

There was an air crash followed up by "now we'll leave you with something pleasant". it was so depressing in contrast to the

loss of 365 lives, it seemed like a cruel joke. That's the good news; the commercial station's 30-second gift to the Australian

people.

Warmth.

If I'd been warm in the last few days, I probably wouldn't have the flu now, which is upsetting me. Onkaparinga, oh I love

those blankets. They're good blankets. They bring back good childhood memories of being wrapped up in one at the drive-in

late at night. I'd do an endorsement for Onkaparinga any day.

Shelter.

Another essential. I need large shelter. When I was younger I could do with little shelter, but now I'm an old man and I need

room to wander. Over time, I've accumulated a fair amount of rubbish in my life and that's going to stay in the shelter as well

because it'd be pretty hard to live without all that rubbish.

The Publicity Machine.

The relentless monster the voracious creature that is, of course, the publicity machine. I love it. I get to have chats in the wee

hours when I should be in bed coping with my flu. But I probably wouldn't exist without it, in one sense, which is why I

couldn't live without it. One hand clapping in the woods- that's me without the publicity machine- or a tree falling in the woods,

or any of those Buddhist images. But I'm sorry, I hate it. Some things I won't do. Those morning programs where they want

me to come and cook some fish or something. Besides, I'd probably burn down the studio if I went anywhere near a cooker.

I'd be dangerous - stupid. Why anyone at home sitting on a couch at 10 in the morning would be interested in how I prepare

salmon...God knows.

Now For The News

Now in it's third glorious year, Good News Week has hit the ground running. Host Paul McDermott reflects on his days in the

taste-free comedy trio the Doug Anthony Allstars and on what a difference TV has made.

In the days of DAAS you were considered quite the wild man. How has TV tempered you?

I just think I am older, more mature, wiser. The whole thing with the Allstars was three different characters, and my role was

portraying angry, bitter, upset, tortured, etc.

You're not saying you're not any of those things any more?

No, but they're toned down. I've got to be the generous host now, spin-the-wheel sort of thing. I'm basing myself on MikeBrady now. I'm the disciplinarian.

How has TV tempered you?

It hasn't really yet. I'm waiting for the big temptation to come from one of the stations with money.

Haven't you turned down commercial offers to do Good News Week?

Once more, these are just lies, lies thrown up by the ABC to make me seem popular. Certainly with Good News Week

there's been talk about poaching it from the ABC. And when I first finished with the Allstars, some execs from some of the

other stations saw me and were very interested in grabbing me for some new World's Wackiest Video Moments-type

program. At the time I had dreadlocks and didn't quite fit in with their image. Also, when they were asking me to do things, I

couldn't get this cynicism out of my voice.

Good News Week seems to be a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Having said that, are there plans to fix

anything on the show this year?

Yeah. We're going to get a wheel.

Tell me you're joking.

No, I'm not. We're going for the wheel this year. It's been too long. Also, I think we're going to play for some people at home.

The show is working well at the moment and we will be including some new games from time to time, but essentially we're not

going to do anything too radical. Apart from the dancing girls.

You've done jokes about Diana's death and the two missing American divers. Is this cutting edge humor or bad

taste?

It depends on your point of view. I've always thought that jokes do have a point and that they're purposeful and there's nothing

in them that is just intended to be offensive. It's hard to say whether they're cutting edge or not, because at the moment we

don't have much political satire on TV in Australia. We might seem cutting edge, but it'd be good to get more programs up that

actually attack what's happening within this country at the moment.

You're not happy with the state of political satire?

It's fairly poor. There's us, there's The Panel. They're doing a little bit at the top, which is good, but there's always room for

more.

Are you trying to be informative as well as funny?

Yes, totally. In a program like Good News Week, you can't just discuss issues that have some intristic comedy value. You

have to go for stories that are not funny and make them funny. That is really what the show is trying to do more than anything

else. If a story has inherent humor it is quite easy to make fun of it, but when it doesn't, that's when it's good, that's when the

comedy can be educational or informative... or even funny.

Will the announcement of a federal election be good for ratings?

Oh yeah! By jingo, by crikey! Of course!

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy

They say no news is good news, but Paul McDermott would probably disagree. To him, all news has positive possibilities. The

late-breaking story is music to his ears, and the more improbable it is, the better. As the incomparable compére of the ABC's

Good News Week, McDermott spends a lot of time sifting through the triumphs, tragedies and hilarious cock-ups that make

headlines, and turning them into laughing matters.

To McDermott and his team of co-writers, no cows are sacred, and no story is too controversial to touch. Take, for instance,

the untimely demise of Diana, Princess of Wales. McDermott was performing live in Brisbane soon after Diana's funeral, but

felt obliged to tackle the story.

"You have to do it, you have to get out there," he says. "It's one of the biggest stories of the year, so if we avoided mentioning

it, it would be like 'They're scared to touch that story'. I think any story is okay to talk about, as long as you find a good way

to talk about it. We were talking about the press involvement with it, that aspect of it, rather than the actual death of Di. There

is a lot to criticise and parody and be satirical and ironic about when it comes to the way the press did hound and harass her all

over the world."

McDermott and the Good News Week crew have just made their first joint foray into the record stores of Australia.

Unplugged: The Good News Week Tapes, Volume 1 is a selection of the main man's monologues, both from GNW and the

odd live show he performs. Moving through everything from Thredbo to Tamagotchis, and featuring a hilarious round-up of the

year that was, the CD is a great collection of insightful sledging and top one-liners. Initially, though, it wasn't even planned to

put it into the shops.

"Originally the CD was just going to be a bit of a family and friends thing," McDermott explains. "We were just doing it as a fun

end-of-the-year thing to put in the Christmas stockings of the people who'd worked on the show. It ended up with a bit of a

head of steam, so now we have product.

"I think it's quite a good document of the year, because quite a lot did happen last year. And a lot's going to happen this

year..."

To keep on top of all the news that's fit to ridicule, the GNW team have quite a behind-the-scenes organisation. Basically,

they're equipped with their own newsroom, getting stories as they break via the Internet or the more traditional wire services

like AAP and Reuters. It's a little different to your average television newsroom, however.

"It does get fairly hectic, but instead of people writing articles about these events they have to write comedy about them," says

McDermott. "That creates a different atmosphere."

There are still deadline pressures, of course, and there can be some serious adrenaline surges when big stories come through at

the last minute.

"When Thredbo happened, we weren't sure whether we should cover that in the first week," McDermott recalls, "because it

had only just happened. Other things have happened just as we've gone to air, and we've missed them. But you forget that a

lot of people aren't as up-to-the-minute as you are with what's happening, so we sometimes do stories that are in the papers

but haven't actually broken until a few days after we've done them. Sometimes it seems like we have the gift of prophecy.

"Sometimes things come in right at the last moment and you have to put something together to crowbar them into the show."

Can that be exciting, or is it a headache?

"No, I think it's great. One thing about this show, it would be a fantastic thing to go completely live with it, but the problem with

that is we'd probably leave ourselves wide open to a lot of litigation cases. The guests tend to get a bit excited and sometimes

go on about, say, media magnates, and people they really shouldn't go on about. So we've got to pre-record a bit so that sort

of thing doesn't go to air. We normally record on a Thursday, but ideally it'd be great to go live to air like we used to do with

The Big Gig. Even if something was happening right at that minute, you could be talking about it. That's always a fantastic

feeling, but it's just a bit dangerous."

As a Doug Anthony Allstar, of course, McDermott was always outspoken on media issues anyway. He's always had a healthy

disregard for the way the news is presented to the public.

"I've always been very cynical about the news, and the thing is with something like Good News Week, at least you know from

the start it's entertainment with news in it. I think when you're watching some of the commercial stations, you're not quite sure if

you're getting entertainment or news, and you're not even aware of the editorial bias, that most of those programs put a spin on

their stories."

While McDermott believes it's possible to get a reasonably well-rounded version of what's going on in the world - chiefly by

perusing a good selection of newspapers - he's still not about to believe everything he reads.

"I think you've got to be aware that any news you're getting is always filtered and controlled at some point, but we're probablymore open and honest than a lot of countries."

Especially when you're able to give the Government shit on ABC TV?

"Well, on any network you can give the Government shit, but the others tend not to, for whatever reason. To be fair with the

ABC, it gave the Labor government a fair trot for its money when it was in, too. It's fairly indiscriminate, in the way the barbs

fly. I think it's important to have a news service that keeps a close eye on things."

Not to mention comedians who keep a close eye on them.

Sacred Cow Boy

Going from "the bitter one" in the Doug Anthony Allstars to the sardonic breakfast DJ on Triple J to current-affairs satirist on

ABC-TV's Good News Week, Paul McDermott is a man not averse to being in your face with a variety of media. Now

McDermott, 35, has made it to CD with Paul McDermott Unplugged: The Good News Week Tapes Vol 1, a selection of his

monologues from the 1997 season plus his choir-backed version of the Hunters & Collectors song "Throw Your Arms

Around Me", from the New Year's Eve show. Despite his laidback air during an interview at Virgin's Sydney office, the sparks

still fly, as he lets on go at the Spice Girls Live In Istanbul ("Every time there was a close-up, there was just this look of

unadulterated terror in their eyes") and kids ("I hate children. What use are they? They just fill a void in other people's lives.

Then they reach 14 or 15 and they make you miserable",) Meanwhile, this just in:

Were you a news and current-affairs junkie before Good News Week?

No. When I started Good News Week, I thought, "Oh, I'd better start reading the paper." It had been a while. I'd rejected all

that - I stopped watching the news because it was far too entertainment based.

You've attacked a lot of things on the show, including the Stuart Diver story. Is nothing sacred?

I think we waited a little while on that one, but then Mr Miller got involved, so there was an angle that gave us a lot of ground

to play with. On the other hand, with something like John Denver, if he goes down on Thursday, then Friday morning, whack!

We're there. At least Good News Week actually says that it's entertainment, but it's probably more newsworthy than a lot of

the news that's going out on commercial stations.

What do you think of The Panel going for the same market as Good News Week?

So what? I know a lot of other people were concerned, just because of the number of phone calls I got after their first show. I

think there's a need in this country to have as many news-based satirical programs as we can. There's a lot to laugh at out there

and I don't think half an hour on a Friday covers it. There's plenty to go around.

What, if anything, did breakfast radio teach you?

That there's no worth in getting up early, no matter what job you do. I loved working with Mikey and the Sandman, but

whether you're collecting garbage, baking bread, or ripping open the bellies of pigs, you can always do it a bit later in the day.

Hot Seat: Paul McDermott

For a show that was about to be axed, the ABC's Good News Week has done well. Now back for a third season, there's

also been a book and an album, Paul McDermott Unplugged, The Good News Week Tapes Vol: 1. We put the 35-year-old

Good News Week host in the Hot Seat.

TV WEEK: Have you got any nicknames?

PAUL: Yes - Mr Stinky, Uncle Pooh-Pooh, The Generator. Mr Grumpy is another one.

TVW: Wendy Harmer once shared a house with you. She said, "There is definitely a Paul smell".

PAUL: There's a Wendy smell as well. With the Allstars (the comedy trio the Doug Anthony Allstars), we had this

sense-o-round idea - see them, hear them, smell them. It certainly worked in small venues. We never washed our costumes.

My costume took on a life of its own. But those days are gone. I haven't been accused of having a bad odour for years.

TVW: Do you still tell lies to journalists?

PAUL: It's a bit harder when you're doing the solo thing. In the Allstars, we'd cover for each other. We have deceived TV

Week in the past, and I feel bad about that. You once had two pages of absolute crap about us being in Ab Fab.

TVW: Then there was the Batman movie (the Allstars said they were drinking buddies of Jack Nicholson and were going to

appear in the second Batman movie).

PAUL: That was a gem. It was like lightening striking twice. My other favorite was telling the UK press that Doug Anthony

was the assassinated Prime Minister of Australia, our Nelson Mandela, killed in office on November 11, 1975. That got

printed in The Times, The Guardian and The Independent. There were so many of 'em (lies), and we were caught out only a

few times.

TVW: The Good News Week album features your monologues from the show as well as you singing a version of Hunters &

Collectors' Throw Your Arms Around Me.

PAUL: We used to do that song overseas with the Allstars and pretend it was our song, because no one knew who the

Hunnas were.

TVW: Your Good News Week buddy Mikey Robins says you're "so nasty when he talks and so beautiful when he sings",

and Tom Jones said you had a great voice. Will you ever do your own serious album?

PAUL: I'd like to have time to explore those avenues. I like singing, but I haven't had the time to put together something

substantial that I'd want to put out.

TVW: After the Allstars, Tim Ferguson joined the Nine Network. Are you open to commercial offers?

PAUL: I would say if you got your own way with a commercial station, it would almost be worthwhile, but not to go over as a

gelding. Approaches have been made, but I wouldn't compromised what I have at the ABC, which is a fantastic forum for free

speech and ideas.

TVW: What are the chances of an Allstars re-formation (the third member, Richard Fidler, hosts Race Around The World on

the ABC and Mouthing Off on Foxtel's thecomedychannel)?

PAUL: None whatsoever. It's not like a band, which can get back together after 10 years and play songs people made love

to. Very few people make love to comedy albums, so there's not that same nostalgic value.

TVW: On the album you joke about Princess Di and Stuart Diver. Is there any subject you won't touch?

PAUL: Not really. I think you should be able to talk about anything.

TVW: Do you like being the bad boy?

PAUL: I don't think I am. I'd like to be the happy boy!

TVW: You once said "I always fell agitated, permanently agitated".

PAUL: I'm in a happy state now. No, I still feel agitated, cynical and annoyed, but I'm not sure at what. I suspect I'll feel like

this my whole life.

TVW: What was the last CD you bought?

PAUL: The Boogie Nights soundtrack.

TVW: Do you like being recognised?

PAUL: It doesn't happen and I don't know why, It's always been that way. In the Allstars, we'd be sitting three abreast on a

plane and people would lean over me to get Tim and Rich's signatures and then say, "Where's Paul?"

TVW: What does your twin sister, Sharon, do?

PAUL: She's a primary school teacher and she recently became a storyteller.

TVW: Have you got any tattoos?

PAUL: No. I think the whole tattooing thing is a bit funny.

TVW: What next?

PAUL: With the Good News Week team, we're going to do a Saturday night program mid-year. Instead of looking at the

weeks events, it will be a bit of a pop culture overview. It could be interesting.

News Boy Delivers

Paul McDermott was never a teacher's pet but the irreverent, outspoken comedian was, once, quiet and subdued.

Back in his Canberra childhood, teachers moved the "slow and stupid" (his words) Adelaide born boy to the back of the

classroom.

There he sat meekly until they discovered that he was short-sighted. How was he supposed to learn when he could not see

anything through the dark from the back of the room?

That planted the seed of the cynical, nasty streak which has put him on the celebrity map as a comic icon. His angelic singing

voice provides a good counterpoint.

So, is he nasty in reality? "Hideous," he says. "Canberra breeds nastiness."

Doctors deduced that his poor sight was the result of reading "by the light of the moon" so he stopped reading completely at

the age of 10.

What was he reading? "Hard core pornography, of course," he jokes.

No, what was he reading, really? "Myths and fables."

The now 35-year-old former Doug Anthony Allstar ringleader has almost become respectable after a year of hosting the

ABC's Good News Week. He quit the Triple J breakfast team last year to try to get more sleep.

Good News Week is a ritualistic Friday night purge of gloom created by a week's worth of news, current affairs, gossip and

nonsense.

McDermott has released a compact disk of the monologues which open Good News Week, Paul McDermott Unplugged-

The Good News Week Tapes Vol 1. Later this year he will be doing a variety show for the ABC when Roy and HG take abreak.

McDermott's Good News Week monologues are written by a team headed by Ian Simmons.

"Without them I'm nothing, a hollow shell, they fill me up," he says.

McDermott says Good News Week is an important news show.

"We are just entertainment and we usually have more truth (than the news)," he says.

"Most of the news services are more entertainment based than anything else.

"It's becoming more shallow - fire, explosion, car accident around the corner, watch us in the next four seconds and we'll showyou a cat up a tree."

His regular panelists - comedians Mikey Robins and Julie McCrossin - are joined by four guests who range from Tasmanianpoet Margaret

Scott and Sir James Killen to Richard Fidler and Kate Fischer.

One of McDermott's favorite episodes from last year was when Good News Week scooped Fischer's engagement to James

Packer.

In defending the Packer family from insult, she made a fatal slip of the tongue in calling Kerry Packer her future father-in-law.

"It actually felt like we were making the news," McDermott says.

Prince Edward is a fan of McDermott's. He attended a DAAS concert in Canada and afterwards went up to McDermott to

shake his hand.

"I didn't know who he was," McDermott says.

"He was saying: 'I love your work'.

"I was thinking 'Nice blue eyes, shame about the bald patch.

"He had about six bodyguards and someone came up to me when he walked away and asked: 'Do you know who that was?'"

"I missed my chance."

The Bad Boy Of Good News

Paul McDermott paints miniature landscapes and still lifes. They're realistic, bordering on the surreal, perhaps on account of his

mild color blindness. He'd like to find the time to finish his series of oils depicting the body organs of Christ and another series

based on the lives of saints. And he'd like to paint something monumental, on the scale of the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. If

only he had time.

McDermott enjoys the insular, solitary nature of painting. He does not exhibit his work. As he describes his pictures to me, he

leans forward in his seat, crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks down at the floor. In a small voice, he tells me he

paints cows, too. And skulls.

McDermott, 35, hosts the ABC's Good News Week, possibly the funniest show on television. Each week, he and his panelists

rake over recent current affairs, serving the news back to us with a satiric twist. While the backbone of this glorified parlor

game is its posse of writers, McDermott sets the tone as ringleader, simultaneously upping the energy levels and keeping the

craziness in order. It's a job he seems made for: part suave host, part naughty schoolboy, part gifted ad-libber, part

disciplinarian.

For a man previously best known as the nastiest piece of work in the Doug Anthony All-Stars trio, the Good News gig is a

more mellow role. In contrast to the nihilism of the AllStars, the humor bristles with impassioned social comment, with some of

the sharpest lines reserved for topics such as Wik and the republic. But McDermott sees GNW as continuing a process that

began with the vicious, anti-establishment satire of the AllStars. He is no longer a "huge, evil, monstrosity", but he is still

provoking people. The show attracts about 750,000 viewers nationally. From tonight, the GNW gang will do a second

expanded program while Roy and HG are in England.

McDermott is a complex figure who defies categories; an end-of-the-millennium Renaissance guy. Publicly brash, privately

shy, his output is prolific: a TV show, music (he has an absolutely beautiful singing voice), the paintings, writing, a morning radio

stint. Despite having worked in comedy for more than a decade, he says it is not something he is really passionate about.

"Apart from the viciousness 1 have never showed any aptitude for it. I was just really nasty and that seemed to be funny ... so I

have just had to adapt."

Away from the camera, McDermott is intense, intellectually rigorous and quietly spoken. The contrast to the aggression of his

former AllStar character is startling. Good News Week producer Ted Robinson describes him as a conundrum, a man with a

mania to create who becomes morose and unhappy when not doing so. McDermott's friend Tony Ayres - they met at art

school - speaks of his perverse sense of humor and fascination for the grotesque. "You'll always find him around the edge of

good taste."

On a Wednesday night at the ABC studios in Sydney's Gore Hill, McDermott wanders around in a black suit and chunky

patent leather shoes. He chats idly to a few people, then runs on stage to warm up the audience before Good News Week

filming begins. His oversized shoes make him look like an angry clown. He's in comic autopilot, poking fun at old people and

the dress sense of audience members.

The show kicks off. Jokes about Indonesia, Northern Ireland, the GS'F and Brooke Shields' brush with the law. The only

problem is while the audience love the quips about bottoms and breasts, they don't seem to be getting the hard-edged political

satire. Remarks McDermott in frustration: "The clapping you are great at ... It's just understanding the humor you're sort of

lacking."

The next morning, we talk over a pot of tea. McDermott has a wicked half-smile, which functions on television as a form of

visual punctuation. In conversation, it surfaces when he is saying one thing but perhaps thinking of something more interesting.

He seems wary about revealing too much. After telling me his parents' Christian names he observes, "I think that is the first time

1 have ever mentioned their names in an interview. I feel like I am dragging them into the horrible conspiracy of my life."

McDermott grew up in Canberra in a large Catholic family. He has a twin sister and four other siblings. His father, John, rose

to the position of assistant tax commissioner. His other, Betty, was a homemaker and to children". Paul went to a Marist

Brothers school. He wasn't the sporty type, lost interest in school and retreated into himself. He had no social skills and hated

small talk.

After HSC he went to Canberra School of Art, where Tony Ayres remembers him as a shy man who performed in an

over-the-top cabaret group and loved to party. During one visit back to his parents' place, McDermott took a phone message

on a pad containing minutes from a meeting about the Australia Card. While he'd been spraypainting No Australia Card graffiti

around town, it turned out his dad was one of the architects of the scheme.

In his final year at college, McDermott saw the All-Stars perform. He hated the act ("sweaty parody songs, busking on the

street corner") but liked its members, Richard Fidler and Tim Ferguson. He joined the group and at first performed as a shy

retreating type who sang Charles Aznavour songs an aspect, he says, of his own personality. But the act needed something

edgier. McDermott turned angry.

The All-Stars were foul-mouthed, cartoonish minstrels who invaded the audience's personal space and joked about everything

from domestic violence to getting cancer. When McDermott joined the group, his parents were dismayed. John McDermott

only saw one live performance, but Betty loyally went along whenever they were in town. The trio played to huge crowds at

six Edinburgh Festivals, appeared regularly on British television, did two series on the ABC and performed at the opening of

the Barcelona Olympics. There are still Web sites devoted to them today.

In 1994, the All-Stars broke up, just as fame beckoned in the form of a television series on Britain's Channel 4. Suddenly

McDermott no longer had the group as an outlet for his music, writing, performance and painting. Over the next two years, he

wrote two film scripts, created Mosh, a musical for the Irvine Welsh generation, and got together with Robinson to shop

around ideas for a television show. One of them was Good News Week.

Robinson, who has worked with him on and off since 1990, describes their relationship as "slightly prickly." While

acknowledging he often gets annoyed at things, McDermott does not regard himself as a particularly angry person. "I know I

tend to scare people," he reflects. "I don't really understand why that is. They tell me years later that I was really scary when

they first met me ... I don't know if it was a fear of physical violence, because I was never physically violent. There was just, I

suppose, something off-putting about my manner."

As a comic he enjoys finding the point at which humor becomes unacceptable. Comedy, he believes, should be thought

provoking and promote dialogue. it is implicitly tied to the tragedy of the human condition, and it is always momentary. There is

no comic equivalent of a "Guernica" or a "John The Baptist" - an awesome piece of artwork that has transcended generations.

When the All-Stars broke up, they were sick of the sight of each other. The relationship toxic. Last week, a reunion of sorts

was scheduled. For the first time in four years, the three were going to lunch.

All are involved in a variety of projects. But McDermott has pushed this to the limits. Last year, says Robinson, he was burning

the candle at both ends and in the middle - writing or painting until late at night, getting up at 4am to do a Sydney breakfast

radio show (now cut back to one day a week) and squeezing in a TV job. His music has been less prominent. Robinson

suggests he has a curious love-hate relationship with his singing voice.

In the end, perhaps his paintings offer the best insight into Paul McDermott. "They are fairly dark and very detailed," says Tony

Ayres. "They are flights of fantasy and there's something tormented about them as well. Something twisted and beautiful at the

same time."

Johanna Sweet and Rod Quantock will be guest panellists.

Sympathy For The Devil

Paul McDermott is satirist, comedian, cabaret performer all rolled into one. Fast, smart, witty and cruel. How did the Good

News Week host, paralysed by shyness as a child, come to be so -- overt?

The name of a saint, the singing voice of an angel, the mind of a sinner. It's not easy being Paul McDermott- but it's far less

easy being Paul McDermott's audience.

A freezing midwinter's night in Sydney. In a draughty ABC-TV studio, the taping of Good News Week is getting underway.

McDermott bounds onstage and surveys us through gleaming eyes, the fox loose in the hen-house. We make tasty morsels- a

bouncy Clairol-ad hairstyle here, a lurid sweater there and, over in this corner, a sweet smiling adolescent boy. Paydirt. "Are

you old enough to have pubic hair yet?" McDermott demands. "You don't even know what 'fucking' means." His victim makes

the mistake of protesting. Our host grows silky at the prospect of forthcoming humiliation. "Oh, you do know!" he says." Stand

up and tell the audience, then."

Another comic would warm up with a more soothing routine, invite people to observe the absurdities of life, perhaps. Pick on

someone their own size. McDermott is not that comic. "If the audience don't like it they can go away" is how he sums up his

performance philosophy. Tonight, taunting and jeering-"Tell us! Come on, you're so clever, you know everything"- he gives the

impression he's not going to relent. And he doesn't, until the boy begs, "Please don't make me do it."

The warm-up didn't make it to air, but it goes a long way towards explaining the 36-year-old McDermott's steadily growing

cult appeal. In a wasteland of homogenised entertainment he represents the unknown. He will say the things you were thinking

five seconds before. He might not stick to the script. "Dangerous" is the word used most often when describing his style.

"He'll get right out there and risk a great deal," says Wendy Harmer, who worked with him on The Big Gig. "It's fascinating to

watch, in a scary way." Similarly, comedian Mark Trevorrow [aka Bob Downe], who has been a fan of McDermott's since he

first saw him perform with the Doug Anthony Allstars, admires his capacity to push the envelope. "It's such a skill," Trevorrow

says," to be so rude to everybody and still have them like you." Trevorrow lauds the "true spirit of cabaret" behind

McDermott's antics, saying that "the room decides what will happen". It works, Harmer muses, because, "obviously people

can see the twinkle in Paul's eye. They wouldn't stand for it if he was really awful."

Audiences do seem to adore McDermott. Every arch of his eyebrow, every mocking remark is greeted with rapturous

applause. Women- and plenty of men- declare him a big old sex bomb. Fifteen-year-old girls dedicate websites to him and

wave placards saying, "We love U Paul".["You spelt 'you' wrong, he retorts] Advertisers want him to sell their products,

directors send him film scripts to consider, other TV shows are trying to create their own version of him.

Not long ago, few observers would have predicted such a rosy future. McDermott established himself as a talent to watch in

the late 1980s, but when the Allstars had their much-publicised split in 1994, it was the other two, Tim Ferguson and Richard

Fidler, perceived as the 'user-friendly Dougs', who were being courted. Ted Robinson, the producer of Good News Week,

recalls trying unsuccessfully to 'sell' McDermott, whom he describes as an engine-room of ideas, as a compere to commercial

television management for a year or so. "Too edgy", Robinson says. "Paul has a natural bent to want to shock, and television is

a conservative medium."

In the end, Robinson created Good News Week- based on a satirical current affairs show in the UK- a knowing blend of

current affairs and pop culture that capitalises on McDermott's freewheeling schtick. The show made a sluggish start, then

picked up steam to the point where, when the hugely popular Channel Nine Show, with Roy and HG, took a break, the GNW

team was chosen to replace it with Good News Weekend, a variation on the weekly program.

McDermott casts himself as part of a group effort- Mikey Robins and Julie McCrossin complete the onstage team- but there's

no doubt he is the one the audience screams loudest for. His popularity has resulted is some interesting offers recently, a major

political party asked him to run for office. He turned them down. "It's stupid to build a party on personalities," he says, looking

faintly embarrassed when the subject is raised. "I've done too many evil things in my past and they would come up. No way.

Why would you do it? For Christ's sake....." A minute later, he has thought of a reason: "If you were a conservative politician it

would make sex more interesting. Oranges up your arse, big plastic bag over your head, dangling from and electrical beam-

that's living!"

McDermott's monster act is convincing. "What's Paul like?" I've been asking his friends and colleagues, with growing

trepidation, the answer before we meet. Here are some of the answers: 'smart', 'thoughtful', 'sweet', 'hard to get to know',

'complex'. Most people who know him concur that he has long, dour periods and can be prickly. Wendy Harmer weighs in

with this reassuring bit of advice: "He's only scary if he thinks you're bullshitting him."

"Paul's something of a contradiction," says filmmaker Tony Ayres, who went to art school with him in Canberra. "He's got that

confident public persona, but underneath he's an incredibly shy person who takes a long time to make friends." When he does

befriend someone, however, it's a commitment. Gerald Jones, another artschool friend and Canberra resident, says that though

they move in different circles, McDermott has stayed in touch and when they meet, "He's genuinely interested in what I do."

A few days after the taping, McDermott takes time out from his frantic schedule to meet me at his local, the Bondi Icebergs

bar, a place where grizzled guys drink beer and play cards and nobody recognises him. Away from the cameras. lights and

audience action, he appears smaller and quieter. Also a lot less matte. "On TV you've got no wrinkles," I note.

"And now, heaps wrinkles," he replies amiably. "It's amazing the amount of blusher, rouge and foundation they paint on to

make you look lifelike for the cameras. That's the thing about television and performance, it's an illusion. If you didn't wear

makeup it'd be pretty scary, like those mornings when you drop acid and your pupils are enlarged because you're accepting so

much information[that] you see a landscape completely different from what you normally see. Very tricky for everyone at

home."

He is immediately likable, lively without being overbearing and, unexpectedly for the star of the show, attentive. Almost any

query will send him off on a riff which twists and turns through myriad subjects. This is highly entertaining and has the added

bonus, from his point of view, of deflecting inquiries until he has worked out a way to answer them.

McDermott did not set out to be a comic. It was something he began doing as a way to put himself through art school. Being

part of the cabaret theatre of the Allstars was also a way to consolidate his interests: writing, singing, dancing and drawing [he

painted the backdrops for many of the gigs]. He became one of the trio almost by accident when another member left and

was, for a while, the shy one. Mr Grumpy, as his Allstars character was known, developed because "nobody else wanted to

be the monster, wanted to be hated in that sort of sense." He was the one who would encourage the sadistic games the trio

became known for, or the one who would single out audience members for abuse. It was challenging for both audience and

performers- anything could happen- but at times even he was suprised by the frenzy that erupted.

"With the Dougs, we used to have a game where we'd get everybody to slap the person next to them," he says. "You'd get this

domino effect, people would forget they were at a comedy venue and their goal became to win this farcical, belittling race that

achieved nothing! They'd slap their loved ones, their friends, people they didn't know, and you'd be thinking, "Why are they

doing this?" and at the same time you'd be shouting, 'Come on! Faster! Harder!' It's a weird thing, a good-bad schism."

When people came up later and showed him bruises he had engineered, he would apologise only to find that they didn't mind

at all. "What interested me," he says, "was the way people kept coming back for more." Where does the persona end and the

person begin? McDermott will frankly concede that he can behave like a prize arsehole- he has turned friends into "demented

messes" with his irrational moods and made several enemies along the way- but he stresses that the stage act is just that, a

piece of theatre which exposes the hypocrisy of accepted social veneers by ripping them away. "It's like painting pictures of the

devil, exploring that terrain," he offers as explanation. The skill lies in knowing when to stop and how to control it, what he calls

"the magician's trick" of performance. Asking if he feels any moral compunction over upsetting people is, to him, missing the

point; even on the one occasion his parents came to see the Allstars he didn't tone it down.

You could construe all this as a power trip and in a sense it is. McDermott has a way of turning things around to his advantage.

But another way to see the act is as a form of rebellion, a revenge on the sort of guy he was supposed to be. McDermott, who

grew up in the suburbs of Canberra, the oldest son in an Irish Catholic family, and a twin to boot- his sister, Sharon, was born

a minute before him- was a misfit at the all-boys Marist Brothers high school he attended. A "backwardly quiet" student,

paralysed by shyness- he recalls only losing his maths book and being too terrified to tell any one for the whole year- he was

hopeless at the things that mattered, like rugby league. His teachers regarded him as an imbecile and he had few friends. There

was a point where he couldn't imagine anyone ever liking him.

He relates this without self-pity, although the way he hops up from the table and busies himself with nothing in particular

suggests it has left a few scars. What did he think would happen to him? "I hoped I would die young," he replies and seems

only to be half joking.

To add to it, there was this growing distance from Catholicism. He rails against the "duplicitous" nature of a Church which

preaches tolerance on the one hand and condemns all non-believers to burn in the eternal fires of damnation on the other. The

Catholics he grew up with, he says, were "insular and hideously racist" and his early religious teaching left him with a mistrust of

orthodoxy that's a constant in his work and his conversation.

By channeling his alienation into performance he has made it work for him. But what's notable about McDermott is that while

other comics trade on their outsider status, playing endearing eccentrics, he has inhabited a less empathetic role. As Mr

Grumpy, he was the alpha male, the sexual predator, the football hooligan. The scabrous-compere drag he puts on for Good

News Week is another guise; it gives him leave to hurl invective at anyone who doesn't agree with his version of the world.

Like religion, and the media, which he relentlessly critiques, masculinity is a departure point and a reference: "It's the

attraction-repulsion thing," he says.

When I remark that the harshness of his characters is a male prerogative, that a woman would have a harder time getting away

with that, he agrees, though he thinks more should try:" It would be good to see women taking on that powerful role." For a

group of "fey lads", as McDermott describes the Allstars, posturing as aggressors was cathartic, like "squeezing the cancer out

of the body."

He sounds a little nostalgic as he talks about the group whose split, triggered by Tim Ferguson's decision to quit London where

the Allstars were performing and return to Melbourne to be with his young family, is still the subject of speculation. Rumours

that the break was acrimonious were fuelled by an article in the Good Weekend magazine earlier this year which stated that

McDermott and Richard Fidler have not spoken to Ferguson since. More recently though, Ferguson appeared on Good News

Week. McDermott is willing to talk on the topic, although he chooses his words with care. The break came at the wrong time,

he says," We were working towards our own series with [UK's] Channel Four and they were interested. Richard and I

thought coming back to perform in Australia would mean going to a commercial station, which was the next logical step, and

that would have been an incredible compromise of what we did." His friends say that McDermott, who invested a lot of himself

in the Allstars, was depressed for a long time after they split. "No, not depressed," McDermott corrects. "I was probably

sullen for a while, but I'd always expected it to happen." He does remember feeling "mute" afterwards, as if all the known

avenues of expression had been cut off.

Do he and Ferguson have a good relationship these days? "We have an OK relationship," he says evenly. "We send each

other flowers on our birthdays."

Tim Ferguson, who is in Sydney to play Frankn'Furter in a production of the Rocky Horror Show, did not return calls, but in

the Sun-Herald he was quoted as saying that he left the Allstars because they were just, "touring England, in a van, going from

gig to gig, town to town, making money but never arriving anywhere in a professional sense."

Says McDermott, "He believes that because he wants to believe that. We were playing 3000-seat venues and we were on TV

the whole time. But I wrote all the material so maybe it wasn't as artistically enriching an experience for Tim." With a flash of

feeling he adds, "I don't feel comfortable talking about this, but it would be better to make no money and like what you did

than to be in the cesspool of comedy hell."

Richard Fidler, who is currently hosting the program Race Around The World, declined to be interviewed.

If he's not being a compere, or writing songs, or hurling himself into the surf at Bondi, McDermott spends his time painting.

One evening he shows me through the flat he shares with his girlfriend, Jo, an academic, and about a thousand of his paintings;

miniature surrealist landscapes, grotesque cartoons in the manner of Raw comic books sketched in Texta on the backs of

envelopes, tortured renderings of devils and saints. A half-finished drawing of a foot sits on an easel. Dotted about the place

are books he has made- he is an obsessive paper collector- and the various other projects he's working on, among them ideas

for scripts and shows.

He says he needs to produce things, that he can never just sit still. "Maybe because I'm not going to produce anything else," he

cracks. Meaning? "Well, children," he says firmly; kids would be for him a way to "pass on all your insecurities". Is he a

workaholic? He doesn't like the word, he prefers to say that he has a lot of things to do.

What will he do next? "That's always the dilemma, isn't it?" he responds. Comedy is a transient business. He has plans but they

are not linear. "There are books I want to write or...whatever," McDermott says. "I fall into everything." For all his talent and

all the productivity, he seems to still be working out a direction to go in. Ted Robinson, who gives Good News Week another

year, predicts that McDermott will possibly move on to feature films. "I will say this about Paul's life," Robinson says. "I think

he needs to make some choices soon about what to do."

He won't give up performing yet, he loves it too much. Talking earlier about its allure, McDermott made it sound like the

activity which allowed him the most freedom while supplying him with a protective cover for the things he holds precious.

"Anything that you do- painting or writing- there's no response in the world that's going to make you happy with it if you're not

happy with it," he says. "You can show a piece of it to someone and they say, 'Oh, I love that,' but that's got no value, it

doesn't mean that much. Performing is the opposite; you can go out there and do something appalling and people love it."

Doesn't that make him feel like a fraud? He laughs. "Occasionally, yeah, yeah, of course I do. What's so traumatic about that?"

On The Table

Bacchanalian romps, ecstasy, Daryl Somers and the finer points of table tennis. Andrew Denton catches up with Paul

McDermott

Andrew Denton: at 38, his best table tennis days are behind him, but he's still capable of upsetting opponents with intimidating

lobs and back-handed compliments. Dreams of playing Christopher Skase. In Australia.

Paul McDermott: The good news is this guy can play. The bad news is he doesn't have the time. Ping-pong's loss is Australian

comedy's gain. Plenty of media exposure hasn't ruined the 36-year-old's playing style or warmed his ice-cruel demeanour.

Dreams of being left alone.

Did the Doug Anthony All Stars (DAAS) make a lot of money out of busking?

In Canberra we'd start around midday and we'd go for an hour at least. And so it was when people finished their shopping on

Saturdays they'd see us play, people came to expect it...

So you were like the bourgeoisie of buskers, you only played one day a week?

Totally.

That would have to be the worst worst busking ethic I've heard. You're meant to be struggling, with the arse completely out of

your pants, desperate for the next dollar coin and yet, the three of you would swan up in a stretch busker's limo.

We didn't need the money, of course. We were on TEAS (student support), Richard (Fidler) was at home.

You were bludging off the government, whose government would that have been? Malcolm Fraser's?

No, it was after that. We bludged off Hawkie.

Hawkie's government, that'd be right.

He was good for buskers, Hawkie.

Have you ever eaten fire? Did you ever do any of that stuff?

No, I never did that, never did any juggling.

Not even peckish?

Not even peckish for a fire.

What about mime? Walking against the wind?

No, no.

Do you hate mime?

I do, I loathe mime. I loathe juggling and I loathe other necessary circus skills.

When did you guys start writing songs?

When I sort of came along and joined.

Do you remember the first song you wrote?

Yep. The first song we wrote was Cadillac of Jesus. Because I'd just joined. I felt a bit rude saying "This group would be really

good if you just wrote original things and didn't do parodies." So I suggested to Tim (Ferguson) that we write a song called Cadillac of Jesus.

I always figured you guys and TISM had the best song titles in Australia.

I think TISM still do, they have very good ones.

'I Shit Me' was a good title... Did you just start with a title and just go from there?

Oh no, there was always an idea, a concept that sort of backed it. Sometimes you'd just start with a thought and build it from

there. I can't even remember now, there are so many. Come On Kids, Commit Suicide was one of my favourite songs.

What was the gist of that one?

The chorus went "come on kids commit suicide, come on kids commit suicide, take a journey on a one-way ride, come on

kids commit suicide" - which I think says it all basically.

You were quite hostile to your audience. Did anyone ever have a go at you?

I remember one guy who had his arm in a cast. He was pinching women in the audience and then looking at them, as if to say,

"How could I do that when my arm's in a cast?" I went through the crowd and, this is one of the only times when I'm been

vindictive with this sort of stuff, hitting people as I went though. I really slugged this guy. I hit him in the head, really hard, open

handed. Later, he swung his cast at me and apparently it just missed.

I remember talking to Sean from Corky and the Juicepigs about the time they went to Ottowa and I think the first thing he said

was, "Welcome to Ottowa - land of the legless women." As soon as he said, he looked down to see a row of amputees and

quadriplegics sitting in the front row. Did you ever have an occasion like that where you just got into it and realised that

wherever you were and whatever you were doing were never going to meet?

An occasion? An occasion? There are those moments when you faux pas your way into the great abyss. We were doing a

parody of a Lionel Richie song 'Hello, is it me you're looking for', the video of which featured a blind girl moulding clay into the

shape of his head. At one point she was actually reading braille with the bedside light on. We did it once at this community hall

and, of course, there's a girl right in front of me who was completely blind. I think everyone would've noticed, it's impossible to

miss something like that. Richard didn't notice at all. Tim knew, I knew, the whole fucking audience knew, but Richard started

strumming away with the song and we were committed. She was the only one who laughed.

I was watching Mouthing Off the other night and, this is relevant to you, the subject was polygamy. Sue-Ann Post said to

Richard, "When you were on tour, was it tour rules? You slept around, surely?" Richard just fell apart and said, "Let's move

on..." Which leads to my next question: Tour Rules?

Tour Rules? Yes, what about them? They're unspoken outside the van.

Well, you're not in the van anymore. You're long past the van, you're now in the vanguarde. So what were the tour rules?

Tour rules are whatever happens on tour stays on tour, like, you know, Tour of Duty. It's like we're all in Vietnam, or the War

of the Roses or whatever... the Crusades.

Fair enough. I'll throw some phrases at you and tap once for yes and twice for no. Bacchanalian romp? Yes, yes. There were

bacchanalian romps, yes.

No, you're just making that up.

No, well, I admit I don't know what you'd imagine to be bacchanalian, but yes, there were bacchanalian romps.

Sex with more than one person a year?

Yes, sex with more than one person a year and more than one person in a room. There were...[pauses] ... there were things

[pauses] ...you'd sort of ... [pauses again] ...Hmm... what happens on tour stays on tour. I mean it was one of those things, it

was quite good fun. There was an atmosphere of frivolity during festivals and so on.

Not frivolity, how debauched did it get?

It got pretty debauched.

Yeah? Because it seems to me, and this is why I've always envied you the touring life, much as I know it's also a dog's life, the

great thing about being three handsome young lads who are the centre of attention is that basically you must pull the chicks.

Yeah, well, you pull a lot of people. I mean, you know, let's not be gender specific.

If that's what you want...

The trouble with it was, and this is being completely honest, we didn't take advantage of it - well, full advantage of it. I wish we

were a bit less aware of ourselves, a bit more demonic or something. We were three middle-class, bourgeois boys from

Canberra. At the time I found it very difficult to justify things, I found myself in situations where I'd be talking my way out of

sex.

What was the justification for that?

Well, there is no justification for it! I didn't feel comfortable in a situation where someone had only just met me and we were

engaging in sexual activity. I just felt uncomfortable.

So you just had a problem with the concept of a one-night stand?

Yes, yes.

Unusual. No, it's not all that unusual.

No, I don't think it's unusual. It just felt wrong.

I remember interviewing you just as DAAS were on the break-up tour and I got a really strong impression you couldn't wait

for it to be over.

It was made tougher because of the emotional traumas that were accompanying the break-up.

There was kind of a Beatlemania aspect to it after a while, wasn't there?

It was really stupid. What tended to happen was a lot of people down the front would ruin it for everyone else because they

weren't laughing at the jokes, they were just screaming.

But you treated them well, I remember they would hand you cameras backstage and...

We'd take photographs. We'd take off bits and pieces of our clothing and photograph each other, often Richard, Tim and

myself pretending to engage in some sort of homosexual activity.

And then give them back their cameras?

Yes. You could imagine them getting home with the prints and in amongst happy little shots of their girlfriends slicing the cake

for their 14th birthday party there'd be these very grotesque shots of what appeared to be three very sweaty sweaty men, all in

their underwear, groping and kissing each other.

Is it true that you and Richard haven't spoken to Tim since the Doug's split up? I find that hard to believe.

No, we've spoken to Tim. I see Rich every week but I haven't seen Tim for a while. I think that there's a need, specially a

journalistic need, to get to the "bottom of the story". We've had a lot of people trying to mine for dirt and it just isn't there.

Well, the story they want is for you to say, "Gee, isn't it terrible what happened to Tim. I'm glad I didn't do that." That's the

story they want.

I know but it's just not there. We haven't spoken a lot, but I have spoken to him. We don't have a bad relationship, it's just that

he's in Melbourne and Richard and I are in Sydney. I've got friends in Melbourne I haven't spoken to for a long time but

they're still my friends. It doesn't change. I'm just not a very good pick-up-the-phone type of friend.

You've come out like no other public figure and asked what's the big deal, why is everyone so upset about ecstasy?

Oh yes, the drug dialogue. Such terrible things. Drugs can't be terrible things if they make our athletes faster!

Do you think ecstasy is a good thing?

I don't know if the long term effects of it are positive. I mean it used to be prescribed to get marriages back on the road. I

don't know anything that can be used excessively. I've seen the damaging effects of "Ecky" on people but at the same time, if

we're allowing things like the wholesale abuse of alcohol on every front, it doesn't make any sense to attack a drug that doesn't

actually make anyone violent.

Good News Week, does it feel like a big success to you?

No , not really. I can never judge these things because I'm in the middle of it. But I don't have an attitude towards its success

or failure.

Why were they going to axe it?

They were going to axe it primarily, I think, because they needed fresh blood in the papers to say to the government and the

Australian people the ABC is doing something about the budget cuts. And I think they chose those programs because they

knew that there'd be an outcry, and so they would motivate the public to some degree.

So when the axing was announced, was that the best thing that had happened to the unit? Did it galvanise everyone?

Not really, I didn't give a rat's, the only thing that embarrassed me was that my name was associated with it for the first time. It

had always been Good News Week but then in the papers it became Paul McDermott's Good News Week. Suddenly it was

my tumour that was going to be cut out of the ABC, when a lot of other people belonged to that tumour as well. It was

ownership which I'd never had.

I get the impression the place you're happiest is when you're by yourself.

Yes, well, yes.

You've said you get angry with yourself. What are you so angry about?

I don't know. Other's see me as someone with a charmed existence. I should be an extraordinarily joyous person but I'm still

going through life with a knitted eyebrow.

Why the knitted eyebrow?

I don't know.

Do you have a problem with your own existence?

I think so. I sometimes have a real dislike for life. I like being alive and at the same time I don't. I wouldn't change it, the

options aren't better.

What is it that you hate about yourself?

I look around and find ugliness everywhere. I try to look for beautiful things but end up dwelling on the ugliness. The other day

I was staring at this incredibly rich-looking woman. She was dripping with gold, which distracted me from the Dorian Gray

image of her head: hideous folds of flesh, wealthy flesh. Now that day, the birds were singing, the sky was blue and the clouds

were floating by. I found myself looking at the woman instead. I think that is an aspect of me - I want to look at beauty

everywhere but I just seem to focus on the little grain of filth.

Is singing a beautiful thing for you?

Yes, I love singing.

Spike Milligan once beautifully described comedy as the bright glimmer on the dark water.

That makes sense to me.

You're on the dark water.

Yeah, and I've got no reason to be.

Does it annoy you that you're down but have no right to be?

Yes. I look at people and think their lives are far more miserable than mine. I've got everything I want, basically. People say,

"You must be ecstatic having the show." It's like, no, I'm not. I never thought, "Ooh, this is something I want."

I understand on the grapevine that the commercial networks are interested in you.

I've just heard it as a rumour. What's the point of going to commercial stations if they're just going to fuck you over? Put you

into a vehicle that you're not right for?

I don't want to get into your pronouncements on Tim's career, but I think that even he would be the first to admit that it hasn't

worked out at Nine as he'd hoped.

He's still one of the best performers I've ever seen in a live situation. He's untouchable, a very handsome man and if anything, I

think Nine has been so stupid with what they've done. I don't think Tim's been foolish but I just think they have been stupid to

have such an extraordinary talent and not be able to do something with him.

You are only a few years younger than Peter Costello. It seems to me you don't have a game plan, how do you manage it from

here? The commercials will come knocking.

I'm a bit wary of the commercials because I have seen how they have treated people who are similar to me and I'm not that

keen on it. I would prefer to continue working on the ABC unless I was given free license, but even then you can still be

incredibly compromised.

How fucked is the ABC right now?

Pretty fucked, and I think there are plans to strip away the last of its dignity in the next few years. I've got this horrible feeling

they're going to try to make it like Channel 4 in Britain, where it's all out-sourced programs and the ABC will basically become

a group of people in a room you come to with ideas, ask for $400,000 dollars to do a particular show, and they say okay or

no. It would mean no local production. Sell it all off, make a lot of short-term money and then have nothing in the future.

Australian television will be dead.

You weren't at the Logies this year. The Logies being acceptance of television credibility. Why weren't you there and what will

you be doing next year?

I can't honestly see the point in the Logies. I really find it turgid television.

You saw Daryl Somers struggling with the opening song and dance number?

Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, but wasn't that the saddest, in the 400 year history of television, wasn't that the most tragic moment

ever?

Wasn't this the 40th anniversary of television in Australia? I felt we should hand back the technology when I saw that. But Paul

you have a duty, the torch is just this tiny sputter now, you can sing, you can dance, you can work a room, you do great jokes,

...maybe there is no place for you at the Logies.

Yes, I don't think the Logies is my sort of world. I do think it's sad when you look at how well they do it in the States, hosts

like David Letterman and Billy Crystal, really good performers backed by a really good team of writers. It's unfair to watch us

as the little colonial backwater which really respects every other nation's televisual feast of award-giving ceremonies and we try

and do this pale, derivative evil thing with talentless lacklustre mongrels and it's just not going to work. I'm sorry. I really felt for

Daryl, because I hate seeing people die in such a visually potent way.

Did you watch the whole thing?

Oh, I couldn't. I went to Xena the Warrior Princess. No, I don't know what else was on that night. No, we went back to the

Playstation, to Lara Croft and Tomb Raider. The weird thing was, we found Daryl Somers at the end, in the last catacomb,

there he was!

So Far, So Good For Paul

Birthday festivities are not the only thing keeping Good News Week in the news, writes Colin Vickery

Will Good News Week switch from the ABC to one of the commercial stations? That's the rumor as the hit comedy panel

show prepares to celebrate its 100th episode.

Hosted by former Doug Anthony Allstar Paul McDermott, GNW is one of Aunty's highest rating shows. It has blossomed

from a teen cult success into a program with widespread appeal to all age groups.

That popularity hasn't gone unnoticed by the commercial stations. Channels Nine and Ten are both keen to poach the show.

Ten has already had serious discussions with McDermott and his team.

While McDermott is coy about any details of a move, he believes GNW could easily make the transition to commercial TV.

"It doesn't matter what the channel number is," he says. "The show would work any where because it's good television.

The potential problem, he believes, is that commercial stations would be tempted to change the program in some way.

"I would have no qualms about going to another channel, as long as they had a 'we won't touch it' attitude." he says. "The real

fear for me would be that all of a sudden we'd start giving away cars or having bountiful beauties in tight-fitting Lycra costumes

draping themselves over whitegoods.

"You have to retain the show's integrity. As soon as you lose the integrity, you lose the show."

Staying at the ABC has some drawbacks, McDermott says. Despite the fact the team has total control over the show's

content, there is uncertainty about the future.

"The ABC is in a lot of pain because of the budget cuts," McDermott says. "A lot of brilliant people have been shafted over the

past couple of years.

"Now that Mr Howard has a mandate, there's no telling what atrocities will be committed in the name of saving a few pennies."

When McDermott started hosting GNW in 1996, his motives were purely financial after an acrimonious split with Allstars'

members Tim Ferguson and Richard Fidler left him nearly broke.

"I thought it was a good concept, but I'd never done any presenting before," he says.

"At the start I was pretty shocking and probably more aggressive than the ABC was used to. I was still the dirty, feral

ex-Allstar who said f... every other word during a routine.

The program will celebrate its 100th episode with a one-hour special from the Sydney Opera House. Margaret Scott, Johanna

Sweet and Rod Quantock will be guest panellists.

News Boy

The demons which drive Paul McDermott make him the sharpest wit in the country. By Samantha Trenoweth.

At least two people live under Paul McDermott’s pale skin. Everyone says so. Good News Week Executive Producer, Ted

Robinson, who has also worked with McDermott on the likes of The Big Gig and DAAS Kapital, says "there’s almost a mask

there - a professional Paul McDermott, who is the performer - and that’s a long way from the other guy who’d rather sit alone

all day and do his miniature paintings. There’s a paradox between Paul the performer and Paul the private person, and the

private person is intensely private."

My first acquaintance with Paul McDermott is in an Oxford Street bar. He and his girlfriend are drinking lethal cocktails with

mutual friends. We are introduced. He shakes my hand. His hand is cold. In the instant our eyes meet, less trusting souls might

suspect he is assessing whether they warrant his further attention. If that is the case, I don’t pass muster. Apart from his friend,

the filmmaker and writer Tony Ayres, none of our group does. He joins us for dinner but sits, mostly silent and brooding,

staring darkly out through a row of glass doors to the sea.

Paul McDermott claims he doesn’t suffer from depression. Ted Robinson begs to differ. "I think there’s a certain brooding that

produces a lot of the comedy he comes up with and that brooding comes out of a depression. It’s not a morose or

self-defeating depression. His depression precipitates an anger which makes him want to get out there and say something. It’s

productive depression."

My second meeting with Paul McDermott takes place on the set of Good News Weekend at the ABC’s studios at Gore Hill.

I’m here to observe the comic in his natural habitat and - while I’m about it, the show’s producer wonders - would I mind

sitting in on the panel for Amanda Keller at rehearsal?

I sit beside a subdued McDermott who runs through the show’s scripted component quickly and professionally, polishing

jokes with senior scriptwriter, Ian Simmons, discussing timing with floor manager, Hilary Firth. He stops neither to introduce

himself nor acknowledge the Amanda Keller impersonator on the shamefaced losing team. (Well, you try recognising a

hummed rendition of Slade’s "Come On Feel The Noise."

When he is displeased, McDermott’s eye sockets retreat inward and upward until they are very nearly eclipsed by his arched

brunette brows. This, he admits, is not an unusual occurrence.

"I don’t get depressed," he insists. "I’ve seen people get clinically depressed and I don’t get depressed like that. I get annoyed

with things rather than depressed by them. I have a lot of nicknames and one of them’s Mr Grumpy. On a bad day, anything

can set me off. If the tea’s not hot, I can seethe for quite some time. Absolutely inconsequential, meaningless things make me

incredibly angry. I get irritated and grumpy and talk about it for hours."

During this particular run through, he asks for tea which is thankfully freshly brewed and steaming. The crew is, however,

preparing a pilot for the new weekend show’s first airing, rehearsal is running half an hour late and nervous tension on the set is

palpable.

This is just the style of situation in which, Robinson believes, McDermott’s finer qualities come to the fore.

"He can get very precious and uptight about small things," he admits, "but, in the final analysis, when there’s work to be done,

he’s indefatigable. For all his wanting to appear a hedonist, I’ve seldom met other people with such a strong work ethic.

Nothing will stop him. He just ploughs through."

McDermott does indeed plough through the rehearsal, before disappearing silently to a dressing room. An hour later, the

studio audience has filed in, the set is lit up like a Christmas tree and quite another Paul McDermott paces the stage, delivering

comic jousts with faultless timing, flirting simultaneously with an elderly woman in the second row and a shy troupe of

schoolboys up the back, seducing the crowd with an affable mix of bravado and self-deprecating humour.

Does he turn Paul-McDermott-funnyman on for television?

"It’s a conscious decision to do that sometimes," he’ll later grin. "I have different personae which are fairly obvious to people

who know me. It just seems like that’s the job. That’s what you do."

Paul McDermott’s earliest memory is of horses.

"Horses in a field. Horses running over a sand dune. A large expanse of blue sky and horses coming over this dune. I saw them

through the window, standing up in my crib. That’s my earliest memory. It was in Adelaide, at West Beach. I think I was one."

McDermott lived in Adelaide until he was three. Another memory is of going "for drives as kids and someone would point out

the house where an architect chopped up his lover and put him in the freezer. That sort of thing.?

By the time he was four, the McDermott family had settled in Canberra, where his father was the Assistant Commissioner for

Taxation. Summer holidays usually meant a long family trek back to Adelaide to visit relatives and friends.

"We’d be driving across the Hay Plain. There was often a locust plague, which seemed very Biblical. Scraping locusts off the

front of the old Holden. It was always around Christmas, blistering heat, ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’ on the radio for 12

hours. Dad would drive on through the night. He’d never stop. Our bladders would be bursting. You just didn’t stop on the

Hay Plain."

With him in the back of the car were two brothers and three sisters - one of the sisters his twin. The family also took in

fluctuating combinations of budgerigars, cockatoos, goldfish, dogs, cats and tadpoles. "We kept tadpoles alive to the frog

stage," he boasts.

His family was Catholic and McDermott likens his religious upbringing to circumcision. "It’s there," he says. "Once it’s done,

it’s done. You look down and you’re still a Catholic. It’s been such a huge aspect of your life that you can’t get away from it.

Some days, I think I’m an atheist but other days, it comes back. I think, ‘I could just say a quick prayer - even though I know

it’s meaningless - and call on God or Satan to pull me out of this jam.’"

McDermott’s other childhood memory is of "this hideously deformed, ugly 12-year-old with my glasses and my very thin

body." He wasn’t articulate, he persists. Nor was he particularly clever.

"I used aggressive dialogue to get out of fights because I couldn’t defend myself physically, but I was never a class anything. I

was just a very quiet, introverted student. I’m sure the people I was at school with have forgotten I was there. There are other

comedians who, from the earliest age, that’s what they did - they told jokes, they made people laugh, they pulled funny faces. I

always found that sort of behaviour fairly offensive. I didn’t like those people. I don’t like some of them now."

The wild optimism and intrigue of the Whitlam years excepted, growing up in Canberra in the 60’s and 70’s was an eerily

isolating experience.

McDermott recalls that, at the time, the national capital "had the highest incidence of incest, divorce, deaths from heroin abuse.

Canberra was a very weird space. I think that was because it was a weir man-made construct. It wasn’t a natural place to put

a city. The Aborigines would go to Canberra only once every seven years for the Bogong moth plague. They’d eat the moths

then get out of there because, if you stayed too long, you’d all go mad. In our wisdom, of course, we decided to make it the

seat of parliament. So, if you want to justify the insanity of Canberra, there’s a precedent in Aboriginal lore."

In Canberra, McDermott also encountered the same insular, European/Australian ideals that had been passed on by a land of

homesick immigrants for generations. His family was not newly arrived here but he, like most of his generation, was "spoonfed

images, from an early age, of the old country. At school, it was always, ‘Look at this basilica in Rome. That’s architecture.

Nothing here is architecturally interesting. Look at this painting by Da Vinci. That’s beautiful. Nothing around here is beautiful.

Look at the green rolling hills in this photograph. That’s what a landscape should be. None of this dry, blue-grey eucalyptus

and red earth.’ All the literary references were to other countries - to America, to England, to Europe. All our story books

were about twee little things - robins whistling and swallows swooping and running through fields of green. Then you’d go

outside and everything would be dead and burnt. And this was about 200 years of white settlement."

So, like a great many of his peers, McDermott wasted no time, after high school, in saving all the money he could and boarding

a plane for Europe. "I hated Australia," he recalls. "I hated the mateship, sporty aspect of every person I knew. I hated the

crassness and the bravado and the heat." It was not until he’d seen the "old countries" first hand that he began to appreciate

some of the fundamental qualities of the land in which he’d been born.

"When I first came back," he remembers, "I found I could look at a gum tree and see it as a beautiful tree, not a sickly fuckin’

fir or a pissy little Italian evergreen. There was something better about it. I came back and saw the sky above us as this

immense, incredibly beautiful expanse of blue. It was paler than the European sky, but fuck ‘em, it’s our sky."

Back in Canberra, under that big blue sky, he decided to forsake academia for a stint at art school, not because he’d been

inspired by the European masters or because he wanted to capture some aspect of his native landscape - "there was no longer

motivation to it" - but because he simply "liked the physical aspect of drawing and painting. I enjoyed doing it."

His parents were, at least temporarily, disappointed. McDermott suspects they had hoped their son would "take a far more

disciplined course in life." He guesses they had their sights set on university and perhaps a career in law.

Their son, conversely, "never had any long-term plans about how pursuing art would achieve a monetary reality in my life.

There would be no fiscal return from it that I could see. It was just what I wanted to do. So when I went to art school I was

aware that it wasn’t a very good career choice. I’ve never made very good career choices, I suspect, and that irritated my

parents for a long time."

The irritation was, however, temporary and today McDermott says that, despite the flack they get from friends who

disapprove of one aspect or another of his performance, they’re always quick to defend him. "They’re supportive," he says,

"thought it hasn’t always been that way."

Nothing brings fiscal realities to the forefront of a young artist’s mind like leaving home and it was the pressure to survive on a

student allowance that first brought comedy into McDermott’s life. While he was struggling to make ends meet in a government

flat, an early incarnation of the Doug Anthony Allstars was taking it’s first fledgling steps on Canberra street corners. A chance

meeting at a local cabaret club (where McDermott was moonlighting with a troupe called Gigantic Fly) led to an invitation to

work with the band.

"I saw them as a means to an end," he recalls. "They were making 30 bucks in cold, hard cash busking and I thought, if I could

get my hands on that sort of money, I could actually buy some canvas. I’d always stolen my canvas from the repertory society.

After they finished shows, they’d tear down the sets and I’d take the canvases home. I had friends who were putting

themselves through art school by working but I was too lazy to do that. Like water, I always find the easiest route through life.

So that was my rationale when the Allstars asked me to come and do some stuff with them. Then, once I was there, I thought,

"This group has incredible potential. It just needs to do some original work."

Despite protestations to the contrary, this proved his first smart career move. Before long, there were international tours and

sold-out performances in London, New York and at the Edinburgh Fringe.

"We enjoyed ourselves. We made money overseas by telling jokes and swearing at people and punching people. It was a

good way to make a living."

Ted Robinson stumbled upon the group at the Prince Patrick Hotel in Melbourne slightly before they reached their zenith. He

went out, that night, with the vague idea that he might find an act to be part of the regular team on ABC TV’s The Big Gig. He

found what he was looking for.

Robinson’s first impressions of McDermott were that he was "clearly extraordinarily talented but, in those days, a bit of a prat.

I thought he was too clever by half and a bit too middle class and wanting to be a post-punk sort of person. That was where

his attitude came from but, at the same time, he was obviously cleverer than that."

The Allstars’ line in comedy was fast-paced, spontaneous, razor’s edge and often at each other’ or at the audience’s expense.

It was occasionally even physically risky but, McDermott insists, their fans were complicit. Even when the front rows at gigs

found it necessary to bring umbrellas (and unfurl them) as a line of defence, "they were there," he says, "because they enjoyed

that. If they hadn’t enjoyed it, they’d have gone home. They knew what we were doing and we understood what they were

doing and pushing the limits was what was important."

Like the time they led 1,000 Canadians through the streets of Montreal chanting, "fuck the police." Or the time the band lit a

bonfire at the end of their first Edinburgh Festival.

"It was a way of celebrating loss, passing on, regrowth," McDermott recalls, "and having a bit of a joke. We invited everyone

to throw their credit cards and other possessions into the fire. Then I put a plank across and decided to run through the

bonfire. The flames were about six feet high and licking up the side of the plank but you could easily run across, which I did the

first time and everyone just went wild. Then I got a bit full of myself. The ego took control and I ran back through the fire but,

this time, the winkle pickers I was wearing, slipped and I slid into the flames and everyone screamed."

The Allstars scored a recording deal, a publishing contract and prime-time television spots. In the UK, particularly, their punk

ethic met with a clamorous response. But, by the early 90’s, tensions had begun to emerge within the band.

McDermott claims the problems were, for the most part, "just common, everyday things. They weren’t grand philosophical

dilemmas about the direction of the group. It was who’s using whose toothbrush in the end."

Fellow Allstar, Richard Fidler, expresses similar sentiments to The Good Weekend’s Jane Wheatley.

"When we were touring," he said, "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. There were so many rows

and periods when we couldn’t talk to each other."

Robinson suspects the same tensions would arise in any band composed of three similarly strong personalities.

"There are lot of benefits to working in a group like that," he explains. "It’s an incredibly strong position to be performing from

and you’re always safeguarded by having someone watching your back but, at the same time, you’re dealing with three egos

which are all pulling in different directions and they all have their own attitudes. There clearly were tensions but, by and large,

they were healthy and creative tensions."

Which is not to say that the Allstars was an entirely democratic outfit.

"Paul was the engine room," Robinson recalls. "Paul seemed to drive the group and that’s where a lot of the ideas came from

but the others gave him a fantastic context in which to work."

"He is a bully, yes," Fidler told Wheatley. "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 of the

group."

Tensions came to a head in ’94 while the band was in London. Channel Four had approached them to create their own

television series but "at about this stage," McDermott remembers, third member Tim Ferguson, "decided that he and his family

couldn’t live in Britain any more. Tim wanted to come home, which was fair enough, but Richard and I didn’t want to come

back to Australia to go to a commercial station which, I believe, would have gelded us."

The Doug Anthony Allstars’ split was acrimonious but all three went on to forge successful solo careers.

Someone has cracked a couple of bottles of red backstage in the ABC TV green room. McDermott and his partner in crime,

Mikey Robins bound in like a pair of school boys, all bluff and bluster and unambiguous joy after a resoundingly successful

performance. They don’t know it yet but their first episode of Good News Weekend has just gone to air with a rating of

number one in Sydney and Perth and a confident second in other national capitals.

McDermott is all charm and smart one-liners. He and Robins reminisce about their days together on morning radio.

McDermott knew it was time to stop when he found himself sitting at home, tired, emotional and sobbing at an ad for soup on

TV. "In that moment," he relates, "I really did believe that Rosella knew and Rosella cared."

"Paul has two modes of being," says Fidler. "Very gregarious or painfully shy. He’s a 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."

McDermott has other fine qualities. Both Fidler and Robinson express admiration for his loyalty. "He is a loyal friend," says

Robinson, ‘and he’s talented and intelligent and he’s a good person to work with in that he’s not as ego driven as most

performers - at least, not overly."

The gawky teenager has also grown physically attractive and women in studio audiences do swoon when he sings, though he

abhors the sex symbol tag.

"Anyone under media scrutiny will be classified as a sex symbol," he complains. "For God’s sake, the paper came out the

other day and said Pauline Hanson was a sex symbol, but it would want to be a fuckin’ powerful aphrodisiac for the libido to

conquer the mind in that instance."

He is also very, very funny.

"If we knew why he was so funny," says Robinson, "we could bottle it and sell it and all make a fortune. I think it’s partly his

intellectual stance. He thinks about things and has an attitude and an opinion. He has his own idiosyncratic twist to it all and

somehow that makes it funny. You know where he’s coming from. Even though, by and large, he’s an amoral person, he has a

moral perspective. You understand that he cares about certain things and gets angry about them and has a point of view."

Paul McDermott is, for instance, passionate about politics, and particularly about native title and reconciliation, causes to which

he has dedicated considerable time.

I think this could be a substantial battle," he says of One Nation’s rise in Australian politics. "Everyone thought of Hanson as a

joke and treated her as a joke but the Queensland election result was not a joke."

McDermott is gearing up for battle but not, it must be said, with a great deal of optimism. "It would be naïve to think that, in

the next ten years, human nature will change to the point where we’ll become loving and accepting of other peoples," he

explains. "It hasn’t happened to this point."

It is important nonetheless, he believes. To fight the good fight, and he has thrown the weight of his comedic talent behind a

number of causes, MCing fundraisers and addressing rallies.

"I’d rather sit back and be apathetic because I don’t like discussing politics," he explains, "but I think we’ve come to a point

where it has to be discussed. We can’t ignore it any longer. Now there’s a little bit too much going on for people to back away

- and we are a nation of backers away. ‘She’ll be right. It couldn’t happen here.’ It’s fuckin’ happening here and she won’t

be right unless we are actually doing something about it."

McDermott is also concerned about the propaganda war on drugs. "Drugs are fine, kids," he grins. "They’re good for you in

fact. Break those social conventions. Go out there and do some drugs. Tell them Paul sent you."

When Robinson describes Paul McDermott as amoral, this is the aspect of his mental landscape about which he’s speaking.

Social taboos both fascinate and horrify him. He believes they’re "put in place to protect governments and sets of laws.’

"If you question one aspect," he insists, "the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. That the wonderful thing about it, you

just have to scratch the surface of the everyday and you’ll find bizarre, fetishistic behaviour in every quarter. There’s drug use

in every quarter of society from high court judges to kids at school. There’s every gamut of sexual expression. We’re brought

up in a sanitised world but it’s not like that at all. It would be better if we were taught from a young age that sex is lovely

between a man and a woman but you might also like to have razor blades ripped across your arse and your penis hammered

into a length of four-by-two and that’s fine, as long as you’re not hurting anyone else."

He says this with a poker face and, while one assumes he’d flinch if actually confronted by a hammer-wielding seductress, he

would defend with a vengeance your right to join her in the carpentry workshop.

Paul McDermott sits at a pavement table in a sunny suburban café. He is drinking Irish Breakfast Tea and, while the teapot

drips (which plainly irritates him), the tea is strong and piping hot, so most things are right with his world.

He is talking about happiness, not a subject with which he appears familiar.

"I don’t know," he says, "happiness, sadness - these are extremes. I don’t get clinically depressed. I don’t get mind bogglingly

happy. I just don’t sort of care."

"About what?" I ask.

"About anything," he laughs. "I’ve been aware the last couple of days that I don’t seem to care."

"A midlife crisis?" I suggest.

"No. I had that. It means I’m going to die at 36 (which is this year folks) because I had it when I was 18. I don’t think I’ve

ever cared very much. I don’t care how people react to things. With this new show, everyone’s going, ‘Do people like it?’ I

think, well, we’re doing good things. It doesn’t matter if it’s reflected in a wider popularity. As long I don’t feel ashamed about

doing it myself, I don’t care what people think."

Of course, there are things he does care about, like native title and finding time for the odd dip in the ocean and his girlfriend,

Joanna, and his painting. McDermott still paints and draws and makes books - he writes, illustrates, prints and binds them, and

then "puts them in a corner."

"I find those things good for balance," he admits. "If I don’t do that stuff, I get a bit tired or angry, a bit tense. You wouldn’t

like me when I’m tense. So I amuse myself with little projects."

He has just one other image of himself, he confesses, aside from the gawky 12-year-old and the kid watching horses.

"The other image I have," he says, "is of myself as a very old man. He’s sitting up in the mountains or by the beach.

He has avery long beard. He’s an old man, in a shack, and he’s sitting there painting. That’s all he does."

"Is anyone there with him?" I ask.

"I don’t know," he replies slowly. "He doesn’t look around much. He has a bad neck."

A Hornet's Nest

Fiona Horne's appearance as a "hapless guest" on Good News Weekend has fostered an unlikely creative partnership

between the former Def FX singer and Good News Week host Paul McDermott. After performing the McDermott-penned

"shut up/kiss me" - a "classically beautiful song with a dark underbelly", explains Horne - the duo decided to release it as a

single. Recording the song was a comical experience for Horne. "Paul's just a wealth of off-the-cuff one-liners. He always

makes me fall over laughing. It's almost exhausting. It's got to the point where I just laugh when I look at him." Antics aside,

Horne is looking forward to performing the song with McDermott again at the Good News Week New Year's Eve special.

"Our voices sound good together, and as (Good News Week co-host) Mikey Robins commented on the day we did it on

television, 'Thank God one of you sings like a man.'"