Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2019: How Tom Gleeson nailed the art of being mean
He makes a living out of being a hard-nosed TV quiz host with a penchant for teasing guests (not to mention ScoMo), but there’s a soft edge to comedian Tom Gleeson. READ OUR REVIEW.
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Tom Gleeson is a nice guy. No, really.
The 44-year-old Sydney-bred, Romsey-dwelling comedian, radio personality and TV presenter made mean his scene after an incident at University of Sydney we’ll get to later.
He acts like a meanie, sure, but his career prospects have been paid in kind with laughs and huge crowds.
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Apart from a 15-night run with his new show, Joy, for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, his latest you’ve-really-made-it moment is hosting the festival’s sold-out Oxfam Gala.
“It’s been a dream of mine to host the gala ever since I was asked last week,” he quipped in the announcement.
But this hard-nosed zinger slinger has a soft side.
He’s the loving husband of food blogger Ellie Parker (who curates Live With Elle) and the doting dad to a seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old son.
And two Scotts — Scott Morrison and Scott Pape — have a special place in his heart for very different reasons.
Gleeson helped friend and neighbour Pape — AKA financial guru The Barefoot Investor — out when he was in a tight spot.
“He’s a good friend of mine,” Gleeson says.
“It’s funny. We had friends in common who said my wife would really like his wife and should hang out.
“So my wife met up with Liz and were getting on really well and then I met Liz and realised I knew her already because she was a producer on The Project.
“Their (the Papes) house in Romsey burned down in the grassfires at the start of 2014.
“Ellie and I and the family were going over to Adelaide Fringe for five weeks and we didn’t need our house so we gave them the keys and our cars to make sure they were all right.
“We were good friends anyway but that really cemented it.”
Did they give Chez Gleeson an Airbnb rating?
“They gave us five stars,” Gleeson laughs.
“Actually they were probably disappointed. Our house wasn’t as big as their house. If it was a bad comedy review then they would have said it was 3.5 stars, perfectly serviceable … and very reliable.”
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From great Scott to grate Scott.
Nobody wants Gleeson to be nice about our current (at the time of print) Prime Minister, and Gleeson has been suitably forthright about Scott Morrison, joking that “ScoMo is the substitute teacher of prime ministers”.
“I’ve been taunting him on Twitter just to let him know that I’ve got more comedy out of him than I’ve got out of Tony Abbott and that’s a bad sign,” Gleeson says.
“Scott Morrison has been a non-stop field day from day one. I do corporate gigs and get big laughs out of ScoMo material — and they’re supposed to be hispeople!”
TOM GLEESON’S RISE TO FAME
The bald, bold, bellicose Gleeson has had a steady rise since 2008 when he won the MICF’s Piece of Wood Award, the peer-voted honour that’s a barometer of an act on the up.
From there he’s appeared on skitHOUSE, hosted comedy chat show This Week Live with Tommy Little, Dave Thornton and Meshel Laurie, and found his most natural home on the ABC satirical news program The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, where his popular — and caustic —Hard Chat segment was born.
With searing take-downs of the likes of Sophie Monk, Em Rusciano, Karl Stefanovic, The Veronicas and Human Nature, it morphed into Gleeson’s own show, Hard Quiz, now in its fourth series.
It was watched by 694,000 people earlier this month, just behind My Kitchen Rules.
Gleeson tweeted “#HardQuiz is hot on the heels of #MKR. GO YOU GOOD THING!”
He’s chuffed with its success.
“Hard Quiz rating well is always pleasing because it shouldn’t — it’s all word of mouth” he says.
The clincher for Hard Quiz is the extra points awarded to contestants who answer a competitor’s category.
“You can see the evil grin they get on their faces when they steal points,” Gleeson smiles.
“The contestants just love it, they’re having the best day out. And there aren’t many shows where you get to pay out the host and the host loves it.”
If everyone who voted #Denyer4Gold votes #Gleeson4Gold, @ABCTV will get its first Gold Logie since Norman Gunston in 1976. Voting is now open. It’s time. https://t.co/FFVdzHDgWL pic.twitter.com/ONpXHjqPVT
— Tom Gleeson (@nonstoptom) March 4, 2019
Last year,Gleeson found a way to be both altruistic and anarchist in helping Grant Denyer win a Gold Logie, despite the diminutive smile machine’s Family Feud having been axed.
After having Denyer on his Hard Chat segment, the men established a rapport and Gleeson was inspired to help Denyer to win Gold, with his #DenyerForGold campaign taking off.
“I haven’t seen him since just after he won,” Gleeson says.
“I went into the green room and hugged him, then he went and did press. The publicists said ‘You should go in there with him’ and I thought better of it.
“He got his Gold Logie, we got a funny photo of him picking me up. I had to let him free, like a mockingbird, back into the wild.
“The next day my phone ran off the hook and I was on holidays so I just ignored it.
“Every radio producer that had got my mobile number in the past 20 years called me to chat about the Gold Logie but I didn’t want to be seen to be bleeding the moment dry.
“The person who has the most right to be angry is Tracy Grimshaw because she was the favourite, but at the same time we — sorry — Grant won it fair and square.
“They hammered it for six weeks on Channel 9 and I basically did the same thing on the ABC, asking 600,000 people who had never voted in the Logies before in their life to vote for Grant Denyer.”
The latest on the Logies? Gleeson will be going for gold at this year’s gongfest on the Gold Coast on June 30.
He tweeted earlier this month: “If everyone who voted #DenyerForGold votes #GleesonForGold, @ABCTV will get its first Gold Logie since Norman Gunston in 1976. It’s time.”
TOM’S MEAN ACT
Gleeson has taken Red Symons’ schadenfreude and spruced it up with a kind glint in his eye.
He may sneer, he may jibe, he may jab his guests, but you can always see the good human lurking under the surface.
“It started a long time ago,” he explains.
“Instead of being a self-deprecating comedian I chose self-aggrandising and confident. I’ve been swimming in the other direction to everyone else ever since.
“People worry about putting their foot in the wrong spot when they’re discussing religion or politics and I enjoy tap dancing in that mine field. It’s where I live.”
The mean act started way back in 1999 when he was singing in a band, The Fantastic Leslie, with Cameron Bruce (from Paul Kelly’s band), Andrew Hansen (of The Chaser fame) and James Fletcher.
“We were playing at a university in Newcastle and we had a lunchtime gig and we were really far away from the crowd and they were all huddled under the shade 30 metres away,” he explains.
“I was annoyed because we’d travelled all that way and I absolutely cracked it. I snapped. I went on a tirade for 10 minutes and it was mock anger, but it was based on reality. ‘We’ve been rehearsing for weeks! We’ve driven two hours! The least you could is to come closer to the stage and enjoy yourselves because we’re not here for your pleasure, we’re here for our pleasure!’
“And the crowd started laughing and that made me ramp it up even more and go crazy. I kept losing my temper between songs and it turned into this whole act.
“We had a show booked in Newcastle a few days later and it was sold out because people were waiting for me to snap again. This is before I did comedy.”
Gleeson was about to complete his bachelor of science at the University of Sydney when Adam Spencer called.
“I was at Sydney University and it had a healthy stand-up comedy and Theatresports scene under the tutelage of Adam Spencer before he did Triple J,” he says.
“People looked up to you. For me, suddenly people wanted to talk to me because I was good at this thing they couldn’t do.
“There was a five minute stand-up competition Spencer ran and I knew straight away I was on to something because I got up there and I didn’t really have any jokes, I was just talking and that got a laugh and then I said something else and that got a laugh that spilt into applause and there was something really cool about that.”
HARNESSING THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
But not everything has a punchline — well, almost. Late last year, Gleeson harnessed social media after discovering that Perth-based company Macedon Resources wanted to commence mining in Romsey, in the Macedon Ranges, where he lives.
More than 5000 people signed a petition launched by Gleeson before the application for an exploratory licence was withdrawn.
“The thing I thought I had going for me is that most people in Romsey wouldn’t have known about it and also I don’t jump on every issue,” he says.
“I contacted the local member there for state and federal and sent them an email suggesting it might be a vote winner.
“They both had elections coming up and they both gave me a call and told me what to do and then within two days the licence was extinguished.
“It was brilliant that social media — which had been giving me the s---s to the point where I wanted a break — could be used for something tangible rather than making a sarcastic joke about Scott Morrison.”
After spending the best part of two decades making a name as the mean dude, is his show’s title — Joy — pure irony?
“Performing brings me joy,” Gleeson says. “I know that sounds like a cliche but part of the reason I titled the show is aspirational. It’s a reminder to me about how to feel about the show before I do it.
“Anyone who has seen my shows live, even though I’m really cynical and sarcastic and very harsh with hecklers, there’s a joy in the performance … and the joy of irreverence.”
OUR REVIEW OF TOM GLEESON AT MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL
Rating: ★★★★
Reviewer: Stephanie Glickman
Tom Gleeson says his new show, Joy, is 78 per cent true, leaving the audience to guess what’s fact and fiction.
Doesn’t really matter, as Joy is a very solid offering of sharp humour and wry sarcasm with lashings of Gleeson’s signature hard chat.
The inanities of politicians, regional Australian life and domestic dramas all mix in a tightly written hour that wraps up almost a little too neatly.
Gleeson seemed slightly disappointed when heckling was of the swooning, rather than insulting variety, as he’s most in his comic element with snide repartee with his crowd.
A backdrop has Gleeson’s neckless mug, blown up to huge proportions in the O of JOY so there’s no escaping the once-ginger, now bald man commanding stage as both theatre set and live talent.
He reckons he’s arrogant bald — so imagine how smug he’d be with a full head of hair.
And who can really blame him for smugness? Gleeson career is riding high as a proven Aussie talent, consistently delivering the goods.
Tom Gleeson, Joy, Comedy Theatre, until April 7, with extra shows added April 10-14.
TOM GLEESON, JOY, UNTIL APRIL 14, COMEDY THEATRE. TICKETS $35-$54.90. THE OXFAM GALA IS SHOWING ON ABC IVIEW.
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