How Tom Gleisner and Have You Been Paying Attention? found the lighter side of dark times
After winning five Logies, Tom Gleisner and the Have You Been Paying Attention team faced their toughest challenge yet — how to find laughs in the coronavirus era. They’ve found a way.
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The team behind the Logie-hogging Have You Been Paying Attention? faced something of a dilemma when it came to making this season.
How do you make a news-comedy-quiz show when there’s only one story dominating the headlines in Australia and around the world, and there’s nothing remotely funny about a global pandemic?
This time last year quiz master Tom Gleisner, regular panellists Ed Kavalee and Sam Pang and their revolving roster of comedian guests had the luxury of a federal election campaign – and they mined plenty of comedy gold from politicians kissing babies and talking themselves into corners, as well as the often unintentionally hilarious outbursts from mavericks such as Bob Katter and Pauline Hanson.
Now they are dealing with a world reeling from the coronavirus, with a population learning to adjust to a life in lockdown, and living in fear of wrecked economies and the growing cost in human lives.
Gleisner says that while he and the team of researchers who scour headlines for the biggest stories of the past week acknowledge the grim realities of 2020, they have no place in a show that’s intended to bring laughter and levity to a Monday night.
“Clearly that’s not a side that’s of any use to us,” Gleisner says.
“But we did a show a few days after the hideous massacre in Christchurch in New Zealand – we just don’t ask questions about it.
“It’s an unstated arrangement we have with our audience. We know this is a huge news story – we know that you know it’s a huge news story, but there’s no fun or comedy in it, and anything we said or did would be insensitive, so let’s just move on and play the Pauline Hanson clip.
“So, of course, we’re not going to show casualty wards and that sort of grim side, but there is still plenty of stuff happening in the world for us to have fun with.
“News still goes on. Obviously it is heavily dominated by the pandemic, but there is still stuff to find good questions about. Now that celebrities have discovered TikTok there is plenty of options there. Donald Trump only has to wander into a rose garden and you know there is going to be material.”
Even as the situation worsened, and the government-mandated social distancing and self-isolation measures tightened, the HYBPA team was determined to forge on with this season.
As well they might – the show has been a consistent ratings success, and has won five Logies in three years in the comedy and entertainment categories.
But in the current environment, the usual format of Gleisner asking the questions and Pang and Kavalee sitting alongside three guest comedians coming up with answers and inventive ways to insult each other, and the host, was not going to work.
Their solution, like countless businesses right now, was to do the show remotely. While they missed the energy and interaction of their usual live audience, a trial run a few weeks ago with Gleisner in the studio and Pang, Kavalee and first-week guests Kitty Flanagan, Marty Sheargold and Urzila Carlson went well enough to suggest it would work for viewers at home too. “We sort of did it like one of those bad Zoom meetings we have all sat through,” Gleisner says with a laugh.
“And we were actually very pleasantly surprised – it looked and sounded the same show that we love. Obviously there was the odd technical glitch – we’ve got to get Marty Sheargold off dial-up and on to something resembling broadband – but once we have got over that hurdle, I think we’ve got a show.
“People were having fun and turning on each other – and of course turning on me, which is a hallmark of the show. I think we all walked away feeling a lot more confident than we perhaps were when we went into it.”
Gleisner has been an integral part of the Australian comedy scene for more than 30 years, ever since he hooked up with long-time friends and colleagues Rob Sitch and Santo Cilauro while studying law at the University of Melbourne.
He was a key member of the D-Generation and The Late Show, and then as a part of Working Dog productions, which went on to produce TV hits including Frontline, All Aussie Adventures and Utopia, as well as films The Castle and The Dish. Having produced so many laughs for so many years, he says they are more important than ever right now, both as a coping mechanism and a desperately needed point of connection.
“I think the connection is a good point,” he says. “Ours is a familiar show with largely familiar faces, so in a point of time where people may be feeling isolated there is comfort in those shows that you can turn to for an hour or so and forget about the troubles of your world or the world in general.
“I think that’s important and I think we are seeing it in TV ratings in the last few weeks. We are watching a lot of TV and shows like MasterChef – which is our lead-in – are going through the roof. And I think that points to the fact that people want a break from the unrelenting reality of living through lockdown.”
Having worked with, and nurtured the careers of, so many Australian comedians and other creative talents over the years, he’s close enough to see how badly they are hurting right now. In a normal year, many of the HYBPA guests would be enjoying their busiest months at various comedy festivals around the country, but with the strict rules now in place around gatherings, live events and television have all but ground to a halt, and many artists who work from gig to gig are among the worst affected.
“I think the arts have been hit really hard by the lockdown,” he says. “A lot of artists – and I include stand-up comedians to classical musicians in that group – are not covered by any of the JobSeeker and (Job)Keeper provisions, and
they are basically out of work. And also, they are caged lions creatively – they want to perform, that’s what they do, and you can’t get groups of people in a room, so it’s very challenging times. But people are inventive and they are finding ways to keep doing what they love doing, just in different versions.”
While Gleisner credits the federal government for the enormity of the task at hand in having to keep the economy running as best as possible, while saving lives, he also believes more needs to be done to support the artistic community. If the industry – from performers to technical crew to support workers – grinds to a halt entirely, he says, it’s not just a simple question of picking up where it left off in better times.
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“We have to look after those people because they are really important to us, and when this is all over we are going to turn around and go, ‘Where is our next live show coming from?’ And if those people aren’t around and haven’t been supported, it’s not going to happen.
“We do need to keep businesses and production companies and people afloat through these times because we don’t want the lasting legacy of this terrible year we are living through to still be felt a decade from now. I think everyone
is dreaming of a bounce back, but that’s only going to happen if we keep people and industries vibrant, or as vibrant as they can be.”
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