Mikel and Stephen

Mikey grew up in Newcastle (in Mikey’s generation quite a lot of comedians came from Newcastle) and moved to Sydney in 1990, when he was 28. While completing a Bachelor of Arts degree with a Double Major in Drama and a Major in English he toured with a cabaret group called the Castanet Club, which had 14 members, one of the Steve. In Newcastle when he was on the Dole, he would perform under the name Mason Williams if he was getting paid for performing in a play.

Mikey has a column in Melbourne’s free magazine The City Weekly, that comes out on Thursdays. He also has a book out called Big Man’s World , which he wrote with his long-time pals and fellow Novocastrians, Steve Abbott and Tony Squires. Tony says, "We all brought different things to the book. I brought shallow journalism, Mikey brought gags and Steve brought everyone down." Mikey, Sandy and Tony all have their own nicknames: Sandy- Chunky, Tony- Lardy, Mikey- Genuinely Fat. In 1995 Mikey had a show on Channel 7 The Comedy Sale. He had a small role in the film Blackrock . His one line was "G’day, I’m Stan". His friend was making the film. Mikey kept looking down the barrel of the camera and adding extra ‘Stan’s’ into his dialogue. When the other more experienced actors said to him, "What the f--- are you doing?" he replied very proudly, "I don’t know!". In 1997 Mikey had his portrait done for the Archibald Prize. For his b’day Adam Cullen, the artist, made a head shot of it as Mikey didn’t want the lifesize version of it. After being on the mantelpiece for a couple of days it started to bug him so he put it in the study. The painting is a big hit with children and the mentally handicapped, when touring.

For seven years Mikey worked at Triple J co-hosting a breakfast show (6 – 9 am). His co-hosts were Helen Razor (1991-1996), Paul McDermott (1997) and Steve Abbott and Jen Oldershaw (1998). Mikey used to rise at 4:50 am every morning. In 1998 he used to get a lift into work with Sandy. His studio was on the 6th storey at the Ultimo Studios, Darling Harbour. Mikey stood down from radio on the 4th December 1998, "After seven years of getting up at five in the morning, it was time to decide whether I wanted to be a milkman for the rest of my life. With my work on Triple J and GNW, I was burning the candle at both ends. Something had to go and since radio had been there the longest, I thought that should be it."

We all probably know Mikey for his work on Good News Week and GNW Night Lite.

Mikey has not got a car, or a license. He doesn’t want to travel the world, he has "the couch and cable, I let the world come to me". Mikey loves Duchamp ties, "McDermott has these beautiful Duchamp ties and he wouldn’t tell me where he got them from. But I finally found this guy that stocked them". He goes to a personal trainer four times a week. He has no idea where he’ll be or what he’ll be doing in the future he says, "It’s taken me years to get to the stage where I can work with my mates. So long as I have Ted, Paul, Sandy, Flacco, and Julie around me, I’ll be happy to work on anything."

"Mikey’s been looking, obviously, because I don’t think i’ve shown him. He’s been going through my bag. That’s what it says. It says more about him than it does about me...". Paul McDermott answering a question about himself, that turned out to be more about Mikey... tricky Paul.