Sh’bam, baking and playing the ukelele: Tom Gleisner’s surprising isolation hobbies
Have You Been Paying Attention host Tom Gleisner has revealed the amusing isolation activities that are keeping him busy, including one his family isn’t too pleased about.
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Tom Gleisner is looking to come out of lockdown with a Sh’bam body, strumming the ukulele while a loaf of sourdough bakes in the oven.
Sh'bam, the Have You Been Paying Attention host tells Hibernation, is dance exercise for people who aren’t any good at either. He’s convinced his daughter to join him in the online craze.
And while the dancercise may be a bonding time, the whole family’s not rapt in his decision to master the ukulele.
“But I am – I’m two chords in, I can do A, that’s easy because that’s just pressing down on one string,” Gleisner says.
“I’ve just about got A minor mastered, so it’s a slightly limited repertoire. I can generally find a room where I won’t cause too much damage.”
The Channel 10 star’s also joined the baking brigade, mastering sourdough bread with its necessary, and finicky, starters and cultures.
“Is that a little tragic?,” Gleisner asks.
“There’s flour on every surface in our kitchen and it’s the stickiest dough. God help you if you are in the middle of kneading it and the phone rings because you are absolutely cactus.”
Viewers have been drowning in a pretty steady feed of hard news and COVID current affair specials of late, so Monday’s 8.40pm return of the award-winning Have You Been Paying Attention will be a welcome respite.
There will be a few minor changes to the tried and tested formula, quiz master Gleisner will be in the studio, while regular panellists Ed Kavalee, Sam Pang and first-night guests Kitty Flanagan, Marty Sheargold and Urzila Carlson will be at home.
A trial run a few weeks ago to iron out any technical glitches went well enough to suggest it would work for viewers at home too.
“Once we get Marty Sheargold off dial-up and on to something resembling broadband, I think we’ve got a show,” Gleisner jokes.
“That was the thing I was most excited by in the little test we did – the interaction between the contestants was as good as ever.
“Obviously, not quite the same as sitting shoulder to shoulder with someone, but it worked surprisingly well.”
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And can we expect the usual banter and barbs from Pang?
“Lisa, I have a very special super power … that is the ability to mute him,” Gleisner says.
And while he was super proud of other regular Kavalee who smashed it out of the park, finishing third after a shaky start on Ten’s Dancing With the Stars earlier this year, don’t expect Gleisner to follow in his nimble footsteps.
“I’ll think I’ll leave that to slightly more co-ordinated people,” he says, with a laugh.
Originally published as Sh’bam, baking and playing the ukelele: Tom Gleisner’s surprising isolation hobbies