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Welcome to the 100th episode of Out of the Question, the show formerly known has 10 Questions.
It’s been a wild 100 episodes recorded over seven years – the most recent 50 coming a lot quicker than the first. I’m not going to mention individual episodes, but I want to thank all the guests who have come on and revealed their most personal stories and opinions. I’m so spoiled that when an interview subject doesn’t bear their soul, I’m left wondering why. So thank you to all the generous guests.
Quick apology for the sound quality in first fifty eps. No Zoom in those days. You either had to be in the same city or record the episode over the phone and no one wanted to do Skype. I’m sure there were other options, but I just didn’t have the bandwidth to seek them out.
Now to help celebrate the big three figures, I’ve invited back the first ever guest on the podcast – Dave O’Neil.
Over the past 100 eps, Dave has been on the show twice and gets mentioned in passing by guests every other week. We recorded the first ever episode in August 2015. In fact, we had to record it twice because we had phone problems. So, for this landmark episode, I’ve asked Dave to list the five biggest events in his life since that day. We start proceedings with the fifth biggest event and move on from there.
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It’s been seven years since I last interviewed Ash Williams for this podcast. Back then, the former Hughesy and Kate co-host had recently returned from LA, where he’d made guest appearances on Anger Management, The Exes and You’re The Worst. He also sold photos of his feet, appeared in tickling videos and worked as a shirtless waiter at a gay bar. We’ll hear all about that in this interview. But in recent years, he’s been a morning television regular, fronted colour reports for the Australian Open and hosted Miss Universe Australia. But probably his biggest gig was appearing in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. We talk about all that in the interview and you can also check out the related video content at adamzwar.substack.com.
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It was a treat for a sports nuffy like me to interview the football and cricket commentator, Mark Howard.
I think Mark, or Howie’s as he’s commonly referred to, is one of cricket’s strongest ball-by-ball commentators. He’s always prepared. He’s got insight. And he brings out the best in the former stars offering special comments.
During our chat, I learned he started his career in television as a crew-guy on the Forumula One broadcast. He then took a job as a reporter for Ten Sports, before becoming a boundary rider and commentator on Ten and Triple M’s AFL coverage. But perhaps his biggest break was commentating the Big Bash on Ten, before moving to Fox Sports – where he now commentates the network’s cricket and AFL coverage. He can also be seen hosting Fox Footy’s new late night show – Best on Ground.
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This week’s guest is one of the enduring stars of Australian comedy. He’s good-hearted, infinitely likeable, smart and funny. I speak, of course, of the great Peter Helliar.
I’ll take it for granted that we all we Peter best for his on air partnership with Rove McManus as well as his work on Skithouse, Before The Game, co-hosting The Project and his super-star alter ego – the final pick in the 2004 AFL draft, Brian Strauchan. There are also his successful TV shows, It’s a Date and How to Stay Married. And then there’s his stand-up – which is consistently funny, and also forms a heartfelt connection with the audience.
Don’t forget to check out Pete’s movie podcast You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, where he talks to movie lovers about classic and beloved movies they haven't quite got around to seeing.... until now.
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This week’s guest has been part of our lives for decades. The high school debating star studied law, science and maths at university before winning Raw Comedy and embarking on a stellar radio career – first on Triple J and then on 702. I speak of course of the guy who hates being called “a math’s genius”, Adam Spencer. Still, Adam’s pretty good at maths and has written five books on the subject, including the recently released Maths 101.
Adam’s TV appearances include Good News Week and The Glasshouse as well as weekly sports wrap, The Back Page. And apart from always being in-demand for corporate gigs, he’s also co-founder of Dry July which has raised over $75 million for adult cancer services.
BONUS CONTENT: IF ADAM COULD GO BACK FIVE YEARS, WHAT ADVICE WOULD HE GIVE HIMSELF?
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This week we’re talking to the playwright, author, and Guardian columnist, Van Badham. Over the course of our chat, we cover her humble beginnings to early steps as a playwright at the University of Wollongong to studying theatre in Britain and having multiple award-winning plays staged over there, to her residency at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and being appointed Literary Manager at Britain’s renowned Finborough Theatre. We also discuss Van returning to Australia, and taking a job working at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne before The Guardian and television punditry came calling. It’s been a wild journey, but it was a journey Van always knew she’d be going on.
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I’ve met this week’s guest many times over the years – generally at gigs or in the green rooms of TV studios, and I never waste the opportunity to tell her how great she was on the iconic late 1980s early 90s sketch show, The Big Gig, or the spoof hospital soap opera, Let The Blood Run Free. I speak of course of the legendary Jean Kittson. INnmore recent years, Jean‘s popped up as a regular on The Einstein Factor, The Glass House and 20 to One. But her main vocation has been writing. There have been regular columns in the Sunday Telegraph, and the SMH, and two successful books – her DIY guide to life, Tongue Lashing, released in 1998, and You’re Still Hot To Me – The Joys of Menopause, released in 2014. Now, in what can only be put down to as just plain excellent taste on behalf of Channel Nine, Jean is appearing as a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice Australia starting at 7pm on May 22. As usual, I started off my chat with Jean by asking her how her fellow workers would describe her.
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It was quite an emotional day when I interviewed this week’s guest, the former rugby international turned best-selling author, Peter FitzSimons. Because it was the day after my father died. I’ve written about my Dad, Desmond Zwar, a lot on social media. He was the author of 20 non fiction books, including The Loneliest Man In the World about Rudolf Hess, In Search of Sir Keith Murdoch, This Wonderful World of Golf, where he went on the golf tour with Peter Thomson, and the runaway best seller, Golf: The Dictionary with illustrations by the great Jeff Hook. Dad, an avid reader, was in a nursing home towards the end of his life, so I ran his Kindle account. Whenever he wanted to read another book, I would buy it and sync it into his Kindle. And the last book I bought Dad, and the last book he read, was Peter FitzSimon’s biography of Ned Kelly. So it was strangely appropriate that the day after Dad’s passing, I was interviewing Peter. I didn’t tell him the situation. I didn’t want to make him feel weird. But the coincidence was not lost on me.
Some would know Peter from his seven rugby tests with the Wallabies as a lock forward from 1989 to 1990. Others would know him from his columns in the Sydney Morning Herald. But most would have read, or at least threatened to read, one of his 27 books – many of which have become best sellers. There have been the rugby books, which we’ll talk about later, joke books, a book on Nietzsche, historical biographies on Nancy Wake, Kim Beasley, Douglas Mawson, Kingsford Smith, Breaker Morant, and James Cook, and then there have been the books on big subjects like Gallipoli, Kokoda, the Batavia and the Eureka Stockade. And now he’s written The Opera House :The extraordinary story of the building that symbolises Australia.
In this interview, we get into the guts of how Peter came to be a writer, the word he most overuses in his books, and how he gave up the grog and managed to fit even more into his day.
PETER ON GIVING UP THE GROG
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This week’s guest is Andy Lee - one half of Australia’s most popular comedy duo ever. He and Hamish Blake started off doing TV and radio at university, before making their commercial radio debut on Fox FM doing the 10pm-to-midnight slot on Mondays. We discuss that in this episode as well as their network TV debut on Channel 7’s The Hamish and Andy Show. As of this moment, Hamish and Andy have enjoyed nearly two decades of unparalleled radio and television success with their drive show on Fox FM often reaching 2.5 million listeners and their TV shows such as Real Stories, Hamish and Andy’s Gap Year, True Story with Hamish and Andy, and Hamish and Andy’s Perfect Holiday getting huge ratings and playing all over the world. In the past few years, Hamish and Andy have branched into more solo work, with Andy hosting The Cube on Channel 10 and The Hundred on Channel Nine. During our chat, Andy and I talk a lot of shop, deep dive into his friendship with Shane Warne, and conclude that there’s no reason you can’t eat pasta on consecutive nights. Please forgive my croaky voice during this episode. You’d think I’d shut up because I was unbearable to listen to – but, no, I seemed to have a lot to say.
Andy discusses turning into his Dad:
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This week’s guest is one of the elders of podcasting in Australia. Back in 2010, he and Wil Anderson started making the podcast TOFOP – as well a collaborating on other podcasts, including the enduring and iconic, Two Guys One Cup. He’s also a well-known actor, starring in Blue Heelers, McLeod’s Daughters and Home and Away. I speak of course of Charlie Clausen.
This episode was recorded in the aftermath of the Northern Rivers floods in which Charlie was on the front line of the rescue effort while I stood in my borrowed gumboots many lines back. During our chat, Charlie details the perils of acting and podcasting and how to deal with people offering up unsolicited criticisms along the way.
IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT CHARLIE DIDN’T GO TO DRAMA SCHOOL:
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This week’s guest on Out Of The Question is Masterchef judge, Andy Allen. Andy was an elite basketball player and full-time electrician before becoming a Masterchef contestant and then winner, in season 4. After that, he became a trainee chef at Three Blue Ducks restaurants, head chef at their Rosebery establishment, and then a co-owner of the group.
In 2019, he returned to Masterchef as a judge. And that’s where he is today, while also working every spare moment he can get at the Three Blue Ducks restaurants. This is a conversation with a guy who seems to make the most of every second of his life.
BONUS CONTENT: ANDY TALKS ABOUT GETTING THE MASTERCHEF JUDGING GIG
SOCIALS: ANDY ALLEN VS MARCO PIERRE WHITE
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Our guest this week is the brilliantly laconic comedian Dan Connell. I first saw Dan perform at Dave O’Neil’s Fun House in around 2014 and was immediately struck by his super-relaxed delivery and use of old school lexicon. Dan grew up in the rugby league heartland of Bateman’s Bay on the New South Wales South Coast, which was hit by the terrifying Currowan fire in 2019 that ended up burning for 74 days and nearly took the house that Dan grew up in.
When not worrying about his parents having to fight fires, Dan is steadily growing his career. It’s kind of like his comedy, just sneaking up on everyone. He’s made multiple appearances at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, including the opening night gala. He’s toured Australia many times, as well as Asia and Edinburgh, and his TV appearances include Comedy Up Late and the Oxfam Gala on the ABC.
In this interview, Dan talks about his reaction to a terrifying moment when his wife was giving birth and how injuries prevented him from having a career in professional rugby league.
As usual, I started off by asking Dan, how his fellow workers would describe him.
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The lawyer-turned-comedian and television creator, Nazeem Hussain.
If you’re anywhere near TikTok you’ll see that Nazeem’s sketch shows Legally Brown, which first screened on SBS, and Orange is the New Brown (Channel 7), have gained a whole new, obsessively loyal audience.
But Nazeem’s not thinking too much about creating any television right now.
He’s just become a father for a second time and his stand-up show, Hussain That? is currently playing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival before he takes it around Australia.
In this episode, we revisit a story Nazeem told me in 2015, in which he and his family narrowly escaped death.
We also talk about his problem with punctuality, and how former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, once sent him fun sized Snickers bars.
As usual, I start off by asking Nazeem, how he thinks his colleagues would describe him.
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Pretty excited to have the British comedian Mark Watson on the podcast this week – not only do I find him hilarious, but I also like the way he explores the formats in which comedy can be presented.
He’s won Perrier awards, Time Out Critics Choice awards and been nominated for Barry Awards at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
He’s appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Would I Lie to You, and Michael Mcintyre’s Comedy Roadshow. AND, he’s also written five novels.
Mark is back in Melbourne right now with his new show This Can’t Be it – where he tries to cram a year of pathological overthinking into an hour’s stand up.
Mark’s plane to Melbourne, which also had Adam Hills on board, was delayed by 24 hours due to a catering issue.
We talk about that here.
We also talk about him using a Welsh accent when he first started in comedy, and the fact that it’s necessary in an industry where you need to create your own work to continually tell yourself to keep going.
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Pretty excited to be interviewing a duo this week. Possibly, Australia’s funniest duo.
They are Melbourne Comedy Festival favourites, they’re winners of the Edinburgh Fringe Perrier Award, and they made two hilarious seasons of their sitcom on the ABC.
Throughout this interview with Colin Lane and Frank Woodley we talk about how they started off as a trio called The Found Objects with a writer-performer called Scott Casley.
They also talk about performing comedy when you’re grieving, as well as performing comedy immediately after a partner has given birth.
And they also reveal that in 30 years of working together, they’ve never told each other to get fucked. But that may or may not change during the course of this interview.
On a serious note, Lano and Woodley are about to embark on their most ambitious show yet – a comic, demented (their description), version of the Herman Melville novel, Moby Dick, which is touring all over the country.
As usual, I start off by asking Colin and Frank how their fellow workers would describe them.
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Annabel grew up on a farm, graduated from the University of Adelaide, became a journalist at the Adelaide Advertiser and moved on to The Age where she worked in the paper’s London bureau.
Then, when she returned to Australia in the mid 2000s, she wrote books, won Walkley Awards and also appeared on quiz shows (Randling) and panel shows (Gruen).
And from those beginnings, a stellar TV career emerged in which she wrote and starred in such shows as Kitchen Cabinet, where she would prepare a meal with a politician while interviewing them, The House, about the inner workings of Parliament House, Back in time for Dinner – about a modern family discovering how Australians shopped, cooked and ate in the olden days, and now the returning Tomorrow Tonight, where a panel of guests work out how to survive a ground breaking hypothetical news story.
Our chat was short and funny and moving and only slightly hampered by builders reattaching Annabel’s roof to her house.
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This week has been a hell of a week for anyone living in the flood effected Northern Rivers region of NSW, so I thought it was appropriate to talk to author, comedian, and now Green’s candidate for Richmond in northern NSW, Mandy Nolan.
All week she’s been helping the rescue effort in the region, so I was lucky to get her on Zoom for a chat.
She’s one of the funniest comedians in Australia. She’s definitely Australia’s funniest non-celebrity comedian.
Anyone in the business knows that it’s foolish to immediately follow her on stage.
But becoming a household name has always eluded her.
We talk about that here. We also talk about growing up under the shadow of domestic violence and how her Dad dying meant her life could officially start. And we talk about how The Greens finally convinced her to run.
If you want to help out with victims of the Queensland and NSW floods, the Give List provides many options.
https://www.australianphilanthropicservices.com.au/queensland-nsw-floods-2022/
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Our first guest under the new Out of the Question moniker is the screenwriter and satirist, Chris Taylor.
Post university, Chris started off as a cadet journalist for ABC news in Melbourne before moving back to Sydney and writing full time for the Chaser newspaper.
He soon became a fully-fledged member of the Chaser and was a distinctive voice in all the group’s iterations.
Other works include being a presenter on Triple J, writing shows and songs with his Chaser-pal Andrew Hansen, creating the half hour drama, Upright, starring Tim Minchin for Foxtel and now being a team captain on the Australian version of Would I Lie To You, screening on Monday night on Channel 10.
I loved this chat.
Smart guy, Chris Taylor.
As our talk unfolds you get why the Would I Lie To You team have put him in the David Mitchell chair.
I started off by asking Chris how he thinks his coworkers would describe him?
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The smart, talented and hilarious Chrissie Swan.
She was an advertisting copywriter before going on Big Brother in 2003.
After that came a stint on regional radio in Queensland, then Vega and Mix FM in Melbourne, and now Chrissie, Sam and Brownie on Nova.
In between, there were long term TV stints on The Circle, Can of Worms and The Great Australian Spelling Bee for Channel 10.
Now she’s back on the network tonight – Februaty 28 – hosting the Australian reboot of Would I Lie To You.
In this interview, she talks about the psychological transformation she’s undergone over the past year and how it’s based on getting an adequate amount of sleep.
We also discuss the rigours of radio performance reviews and the joys of being sacked.
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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.
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I first came across the Adelaide-raised Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann when he teamed up with Wil Anderson for their national drive show Wil and Lehmo.
I loved his work on Before the Game where he cracked football-wise alongside Dave Hughes, Peter Helliar, Andy Maher and Samantha Lane.
Since then, he and Joe Stanley took Gold FM’s breakfast show to number one before being fired – he talks about that here – and he’s since moved on to hosting breakfast on SAFM.
I like Lehmo’s work ethic and the fact that he’s performed to Australian troops in army bases in East Timor as well as across the Middle East.
He talks about that here as well in an extremely moving way.
His new show is called Be Nice and it's at the Rhino room at the Adelaide Fringe, starting on February 22.
Lehmo said it was originally going to be called Don't Be A Fuckwit but he thought that might scare people off.
More about Lehmo here - lehmo.com.au
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