Tom Gleeson has recalled how one among his first stand-up TV gigs was an entire trainwreck, and left him fearing his profession can be over earlier than it begun.
The Gold Logie winner, 49, appeared on Tuesday evening’s episode of the Inventive Sorts With Virginia Trioli, the place the veteran journalist performed footage from Gleeson’s cameo on ABC TV’s dwell music present Restoration in 1998.
A baby-faced, bright-eyed Gleeson might be seen cracking a collection of jokes and testing out some bodily comedy, none of which lands with the dwell viewers.
“I remembered on the time pondering, ‘Wow, I’ve died on TV. That’s how I’ve began. Nice’,” Gleeson informed Trioli of the gig.
At one level, Restoration host Dylan Lewis visibly cocked his eyebrow on the digital camera throughout Gleeson’s set.
However the Taskmaster and Laborious Quiz host reckons he’s had the final snigger.
“Dylan spent the entire time pulling humorous appears to be like on the digital camera and drawing focus … Which may be very unprofessional,” Gleeson joked.
“However anyway, I’m nonetheless on TV and Dylan’s not.”
Elsewhere, Gleeson opened as much as this system about being an “outsider” at college, earlier than he turned “obsessed” with the stage when he began doing comedy in college.
“You simply couldn’t preserve me away from the stage,” he mentioned.
“I bear in mind actually early on, I used to be in a comedy competitors and I intentionally spent that complete week doing spots round city [as preparation]. I even did stand-up spots between bands at band venues, so by the point I obtained to the ultimate [of the competition], I knew I used to be set. And I do know nobody else had performed that [level of] preparation.
“Diligent … Obsessed might be nearer to the reality. I simply needed to do it.”
Gleeson’s mainstream breakthrough got here in 2003 when he featured on Channel 10’s comedy sketch program Skithouse.
He gained notoriety for portraying a collection of characters, notably, his hilarious parody of Australian cricketer Dennis Lillee – which was named the ‘Australian Quick Bowler’.
Quickly after, Gleeson was invited to star on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering the place he landed his personal section ‘Laborious Chat’, which noticed the comic conduct brutal interviews with a few of Australia’s most well-known folks.
“That was the rise of this model of Tom Gleeson,” fellow comic informed Trioli.
Watch Tom Gleeson on Inventive Sorts with Virginia Trioli on ABC iview