How Tom Gleeson found his comedic groove in Baghdad war zone

For thirty years Tom Gleeson has made audiences laugh with his uniquely caustic and clever takedowns of the rich and powerful and everyday Australians. And he isn't stopping now.

Tom Gleeson poses for a photograph in a Canola Field near Romsey, Friday, October 19, 2018. Tom Gleeson has started a petition to stop a mining exploration application near Romsey. (AAP Image/James Ross) NO ARCHIVING

Baghdad is not a comedy hotspot, nor does it have a reputation as a place for humorists to work out their schtick.

However, Tom Gleeson – funnyman, quiz show host, stand up star and smart arse – found his groove during a visit to the war zone.

It was 2007. Gleeson was in Afghanistan to entertain Australian troops when it dawned on him … hard.

“I decided to say whatever I liked until it went bad,” he tells V Weekend. “The weird thing is, it never seems to, you know, go bad.”

Gleeson was overcome by all the rules. “Everybody was so guarded,” he says. “There were things you were allowed to say, and not, because you were in a war zone. And there was a definite rank structure you couldn’t undermine. And security issues.

Tom Gleeson in the Middle East to entertain the troops. Picture: Supplied

“There were all these really big obvious things you couldn’t say. Then I thought, ‘what would actually happen if I said them?’ They’d probably fine me, but it was a voluntary position, anyway. Worst case is, they’d send me home to Australia. I thought, ‘that’s not that bad’.”

So Gleeson let rip, starting with the liberal sleeping arrangements in the Dutch base camp next door. “How come they’re allowed to root each other,” he told our servicemen and women, “and you’re not?

The seeds, so to speak, were planted.

“Up to that point, it was like I’d only been eating meat and two veg, and suddenly it was cuisine,” Gleeson says. “This whole world opened up when I challenged myself to talk about things that are hard to say.”

Comedian Tom Gleeson was a rising star in the early 2000s and found his groove during a volunteer stint to entertain Australian troops in Baghdad. Picture: Supplied

By then, Gleeson, a rising stand up star, was doing guest spots on Ten’s sketch program Skithouse and panel show Good News Week. But after Baghdad, Gleeson had a new driving force: fearlessness.

“I wasn’t scared of the defence force, and I wasn’t scared of the soldiers, so why should I be scared of Channel 10?” Gleeson reasoned. “What’s going to happen? They won’t invite me back? I didn’t like the show anyway. Instead of worrying about people’s feelings and sensibilities, why don’t I just say things that are true, and funny?”

Gleeson built his clever and caustic humour into a segment called I Hate You, Change My Mind on another Ten show, This Week Live. Politicians Bob Katter, Pauline Hanson, Adam Bandt and broadcaster Steve Price faced off with Gleeson in the so-called “hate” chair.

“You’ve got extreme right wing views,” Gleeson said to Hanson, deadpan. “I like Asians.”

TV host, producer and writer Charlie Pickering says Gleeson was his first pick to be a correspondent on the ABC-TV show, The Weekly.

Tom Gleeson as his character Dennis Lillee for the television comedy show Skithouse.

“I knew how funny Tom was, and I knew how deeply he loved comedy, almost from an academic-scientific level,” Pickering says.

He says I Hate You, Change My Mind inspired Gleeson’s spot on The Weekly, a career shaping moment called Hard Chat.

“You go out and see live bands all the time, yeah?” Gleeson asked Hard Chat guest Anthony Albanese in 2015. “When you turn up to a gig, do you feel like an old perv?”

Pickering continues: “Tom comes out with both guns blazing, and says to people’s faces what he thinks of them. And they’re the best jokes that could be written to say to that person.

“It was exactly that time, I would say, that Tom realised he could do something that no one else could do … and break one of the Australian rules of comedy.

“One of the rules, particularly in Australia, is being self-deprecating, playing lower status – ‘Here’s a story about me being dumb.’

“You never want to talk yourself up in Australia, it’s not a national characteristic.

“But Tom learned he could be funnier playing high status. He could be, ‘I know more than those idiot execs at the ABC’. And he would come on my show and play higher status than me!” Pickering says, laughing.

Tom Gleeson broke the rules of Australian comedy by playing a higher status.

Gleeson says Hard Chat let him operate outside the comedy bubble.

“Suddenly, I was giving ‘the treatment’ to Paul Kelly, which is ludicrous,” Gleeson says, laughing. “But I was making jokes about people completely outside my world, doing it to their face, and them taking it, and loving it. It elevated everything.”

Hard Chat led to ABC-TV’s hit show Hard Quizand, in 2019, a Gold Logie for most popular TV personality. “I’m going to put (the Logie) on the back of a Monaro and use it as a tow bar,” Gleeson said while holding his trophy on morning TV.

He never rated the Logies, so why start now?

“The Gold Logie was all gravy to me because my fans loved it,” Gleeson says.

“Anyone I offended was never going to buy a ticket to my show anyway. But Hard Quiz numbers went up, and so did (ticket) sales.”

Indeed, beyond the Logie that sits in his home office “with all the other family trophies,” Tom Gleeson is box office and ratings gold. He’s hit a veritable sweet spot as a truth teller who accepts the consequences of what he’s said. After all, they’re just jokes, you know?

Gleeson’s latest stand-up show, Gear, sold out its month-long run at the 2024 Adelaide Fringe Festival, and is now playing at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre until April 21.

Tom Gleeson won the Gold Logie for most popular personality on Australian TV at the 2019 Logie Awards in 2019. Picture: Darren England

He also hosts Ten’s celebrity comedy game show, Taskmaster.

Gear packs engaging tales of industry revenge, accommodation surprises, electric vehicle ownership and a particularly strong thread about the right to hold dodgy opinions.

“I think people have lost the ability to disagree,” Gleeson says. “I don’t want everyone turning up to my show, nodding their heads and agreeing for an hour. I want there to be things that make them go, ‘oh, that’s a bit off’. It’s great to be challenged.”

In Gear, Gleeson cites the “dodgy opinion” of the late comedy legend, Barry Humphries, who sparked controversy with a comment about transgender people.

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival removed Humphries’ name from its top prize, The Barry Award, after the remark offended some in the LGBTQI community.

“I think you have to be very careful writing off someone’s whole career because you didn’t like something they said,” Gleeson says.

“I love the Rolling Stones, right? But I strongly suspect Mick Jagger might be a bit of a prick. But I don’t care. I don’t have to hang out with him.

“This idea that we have to be really cozy, and we need to agree on everything, I feel it’s misplaced. I’m embracing difference … and everybody gets a spray.”

Gleeson will mark his 30th anniversary as aprofessional comedian this year. He started, age 19, alongside University of Sydney peers including Chas Licciardello, Andrew Hansen, Craig Reucassel (the trio later became The Chaser), Adam Spencer and Andrew O’Keefe.

Tom Gleeson wants his audience to disagree and challenge him. Picture: Supplied

Gleeson grew up on the family farm near Gunnedah, NSW. “It was the ideal upbringing,” he says. “I thought I was going to own the farm. I thought I would be a farmer, like my dad. But as time wore on, he was like, ‘whatever you do, mate … don’t get a job that relies on the weather’.”

After tough times and unrelenting drought, the bank sold their farm. Tom was 15, and in Year 10, when the family packed up and moved to Sydney.

“It was so sudden,” Gleeson recalls. “Years later, I’d be, ‘Mum, Dad … what happened to my motorbike?’ They had to sell it as part of an auction at the farm. I missed a lot of that. I wasn’t there when they packed up the house, either, which was strange. They were trying to protect me.”

Gleeson graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and physics, but for him, the only equation that mattered was comedy.

“Looking back now, I might have been deluded, but comedy just clicked. It came naturally, really easy,” Gleeson says. “I’d been in a band for five years. There’s lots of rehearsals, writing songs, performing, but that had nowhere near the impact comedy did.”

It also paid better.

“I was on Austudy, and I’d get $200 cash for a comedy gig, doing three spots a week. I was a high impact act. I’d come out, act all crazy, but I’d be the one everyone remembered. I had no real ambition with it, but I’d do the gigs, they kept getting better, and I never stopped.”

Tom Gleeson and wife Ellie Parker at the 2024 AACTA Awards in February 2024. Picture: Chris Hyde

His early comedy act was an alias named Malcolm, an angry figure wearing a wig, flannelette shirt and tracksuit pants.

“It was a bit sneaky,” Gleeson says. “I didn’t want to fail under my own name, so I created a character to hide behind. My idea was, I’d be this extreme character, very manic and pissed off, like someone you might see mouthing off on public transport.

“I like characters who take on an idiotic thought and sell it as their own. For me, it’s funny when someone becomes the joke. It’s weird because, to some degree I still do that, even though I’m not wearing a wig or doing a silly voice anymore.”

Gleeson quit the Malcolm alias after he got tired of changing into costume.

“It was sad,” he says, smiling. “I was getting changed in the toilet, the toilet was 3m from the stage, and the crowd saw me walk to the toilet, then come back dressed as this character.”

Gleeson met his future wife Ellie Parker, who would later work as a lawyer, at his early shows.

The couple, and their two children, aged 9 and 12, live near the Macedon Ranges.

“Elle brings stability to our family which is really important,” Gleeson says. “She also gets it. I’ve described her in the past as a muse. I definitely think my material out loud with her, and she’s very supportive.

“I know comedians out there who are single and that’s a tough life. I also know comedians whose partners don’t give a shit about their careers. They’ll proudly say, ‘I don’t really like comedy’. Well, the person you love is really into it …”

Are his kids impressed with their dad?

“I think they are, but they live with it,” Gleeson answers. “It’s a bit like me with my dad. He could ride a horse and drive a tractor, but that was ho-hum to me. I imagine if some people saw their dad jump on a horse and ride really well, they’d be like, ‘where the f--k did that come from?’”

The same could be said of Gleeson’s comedic superpower; an irreverence, fearlessness and relatability that keeps delivering.

“I’ve been doing this so long due to infuriating optimism,” Gleeson says. “I always thought things will work out, and there is something better ahead.

“But I’ve been given – I probably took it – this privilege, where I know people are going to turn up, so I better have something to say.”