Jokes keep coming on True Stories

Hamish and Andy spill on Dave Hughes, Don Burke, Bert Newton and selling their hit TV show around the world | PODCAST

Andy Lee and Hamish Blake on the set of True Stories, being aired on Channel Nine

You never really interview Hamish and Andy, you just toss questions at the biggest names on television and they convert them into instant stand-up.

For instance: why didn’t the comedy duo, active since 2003 and about to launch the second ­series of their hit True Story program on Nine, name themselves the more logical Andy & Hamish?

“If you go all Andrew Denton on me and dig deeper I will cry about this,” says Andy Lee, before Hamish Blake, his university friend of 20 years, takes the ball and runs with it.

“I sometimes catch him punching the wall crying out, ‘Why am I the Packard to your Hewlett? Why am I the Paykel to your Fisher? Why am I the Olufsen to your Bang? I can’t handle it.’ ”

The comedy duo dissolve into laughter. We are trying to record an interview for The Australian’s Behind the Media podcast. It is the morning after the Logies, and the pair sit poolside at the swish 19 bar and restaurant, part of The Star Gold Coast, while a Nine Network function is set up.

The boys have had about 90 minutes’ sleep, having gone to bed knowing the result of the 4am World Cup match. They already have done their traditional 7am bathrobe interview on Today. Oh, and they were a highlight of a rather flat awards telecast, with a hugely fun riff on secret star tattoos, and saving the embarrassment of host Dave Hughes into the bargain.

Hamish & Andy, or Hayme and Ando, as they call each other, are lightning quick with the jokes, but a little persistence yields a modicum of introspection. If anything, it is Lee who ends up as the most thoughtful. Or maybe just less hungover.

The night before, showbiz legend Bert Newton had received a standing ovation for his routine but caused a stir by talking suggestively about deceased TV great Graham Kennedy “mentoring” young people behind locked doors of his dressing-room. In the age of the Me Too movement and sexual harassment, social media was ­outraged.

“In my opinion he’s absolutely said the wrong thing,” says Lee. “And even if it’s a joke, it’s not a joke that we have these days. I don’t even subscribe to the old ‘Back in those days it’s fine’. Now we’ve got a new standard. And he missed the mark.

“Does it stain Bert forever? Nah. Bert’s great. Is it a chance to maybe educate him or educate others as to why it’s the wrong thing to say? Yes.”

Lee says “people are quick to outrage these days sometimes fairly sometimes unfairly sometimes overly”. Comedians who rely on shock humour admit to him things are much harder now.

“Hamish and I have never really played in that realm so we’ve only got our one trick and we continue to do it.”

For Blake the solution is simple. “Think of another joke,” he urges. “There’s not a finite amount of jokes.

“I don’t think Bert’s coming to us for advice but if he was I would say talk to people. Say sorry. Does it tarnish a 50-year career? No, but it’s not his brightest moment.”

During the awards Lee and Blake had arrived on stage and apologised on behalf of Hughes, who during a scorching intro told the audience that he “loved” Don Burke, the former Burke’s Backyard TV star who denies accusations he was a serial sexual harasser. Lee says Hughes was “kind of hysteric like he was manic” backstage after his lapse, so the pair offered to say sorry on his behalf.

“You know he just put together a horrible string of words,” says Blake. “The irony is not lost on him that he’s out on the stage ripping into people doing dumb shit all year. And then in the midst of that I think he was thinking, ‘OK I’ve done the most notable thing.’ ”

Next month marks the return of True Story with Hamish & Andy. In the first series, shown on Nine last year, ordinary Australians told their amazing tall tales but true to the pair, who were kitted out in velvet “listening” jackets. Then, top actors and comedians re-created the story, and the result was a TV smash, with about 1.2 million metropolitan viewers for its first outing last year.

Was this untried idea a hard sell? Lee points out they are in their eighth year with Channel 9. “And so there’s a creative trust there, which we’re very lucky that it’s afforded to us. The sell wasn’t really anything. Channel 9 said: ‘Whatever your show is next we’d like to take it.’ ”

The format has been sold to Germany, Israel and The Netherlands, with other territories on the way.

“It makes us feel a little bit grown up,” adds Lee. “We’ve never really made shows that could be sold. It was just Hamish and I running around in some weird country with our mates running after us with handicams.”

True Story is a rarity, a homegrown format that is selling globally. “The challenge for Australians is money to pilot,” says Lee. “The actual funding to try something without having to put it on air, that doesn’t exist as much in Australia.”

The US and Britain are likelier to experiment with something new. “We do television really well in Australia, I think, and I think we’re the best at radio in the world,” says Lee. But to sell a format, he says: “It’s far easier if it’s been on air and it’s done well. There’s not that many slots in Australia. Most shows are stripped across the week. There are not too many avenues to get shows up, let alone new shows.”

It is not often mentioned, but Hamish & Andy are not really a duo but a quartet. Their old friends Tim Bartley and Ryan Shelton are the other members of their production co-operative Radio Karate. But, surprisingly, going into business with friends is pretty easy, according to Lee. “You don’t really have to preserve any relationship because you’re just out there having fun with your best mates.”

What makes them unique? “Hayme and I were friends first,” says Lee. “I can’t think of anything else on air where people were friends first.”

Blake puts it: “That biscuit base that we’ve built the cheesecake on, if you will, it comes with an in-built telepathy. It’s a hard thing to put into words. When we do stuff with other people we just forget how much we just rely upon instinctively knowing what we’re trying to do.”

Each maintains the friendship is more important than the business. Says Lee: “An unspoken thing early, that became actually spoken thing — we’ve talked about it — was if I’ve got an idea and Hayme’s not on board, I’d far sooner think of another idea. We know that anything we’re doing is only going to work if both of us are pumped to do it.”

As the pair are called away to get miked up for yet another interview, there is just time to find out how well they really know each other, by asking them questions about each other.

They come off handsome winners, and Lee is delighted. Andy knows Hamish’s favourite colour is blue, that he fears spiders, and would have been a scientist if the pair hadn’t met. Hamish knows that Andy would have been an accountant.

But the only question on which they stumble is when answering who has the most “big d..k energy”, a vogue, gender-neutral phrase fast gaining traction in media circles that means “confidence without cockiness”. Both are momentarily stumped. “I only heard this during the week. Look I’d be surprised if either of us had it. A dead heat. I’m going to say Hayme,” says Lee.

“I only heard about this last night,” says Blake, after he has settled back into his chair. “I still don’t understand it. It’s got to be Ando. I’ve just got medium d..k — low voltage — I guess?”