The Little Dum Dum Club with Tommy & Karl - Episode 19 - Kate McLennan

Episode Date: March 2, 2011

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All righty. Hey, mates. Welcome aboard to another edition of the Little Dumb Dumb Club. My name is Tommy Dasolo. Sitting opposite me is my co-host, Carl Chandler. G'day, Nicky. Oh, that's it. You fancied it up. Yeah. Got bored with the old style? Yeah, I just... People want to hear something different. I don't want to change the words. I just want to give people a different experience in another way.

The thing I'll miss most about this show when we're kicked off the internet is these fabulous intro back-and-forth banters between you and I. They've really... Well, you started the show. I didn't even know we were starting the show. That's why. I was still looking at my phone, and I'm like... Looking at a picture of you in a giant koala.

Yeah, I was. And I'm like, oh, well, he'll start this in a couple of minutes. Oh, hang on. This is his intro I'm thinking about. Yeah. I don't know how you'd not know that I was starting the show, given that I did say, okay, we're starting now. I don't have any headphones. I can't hear the opening tune. I said it out loud. I didn't hear that. I was looking at a koala. Were you getting hot? No. I got hot last night. Really? Yep. Of course you did. Where were you staying last night? Because you were in Adelaide last night. I was in Adelaide last night.

I went to the Fringe Festival for one night. I drove to Adelaide with some friends of the show, and then it was very hot in Adelaide, and then I stayed on someone's couch, and it was bloody hot, and I had jeans on, and I was nearly going to neck myself. I hate being that hot. It was shit at house. So you didn't nude off in classic Chandler style? No, because you know why?

Because I was staying at a friend of the show, Rob Hunter's house in Adelaide. Oh, yeah? What's his house like? It's big. Yeah? It's good. And what happened was we were out, people were drinking, we were out. He went home very, very early, and I was thinking,

I'll get a cab home with someone at some stage. No one wanted to go home. I hung around, I hung around. No one wanted to go home. So I ended up I'll get a cab home with someone at some stage no one wanted to go home I hung around I hung around no one wanted to go home so I ended up having to catch a cab myself I got back to his address I snuck into the house and then realized that I don't know where I was supposed to be staying or where did he know you were staying with yes he did yeah he said I had his address so I went into the house and I didn't know whether his parents were up or there or not to wake this up or where to stay so I just walked into the house and got scared and there was a dog in there

that started chasing me. What? You're making yourself sound like the burglars of Home Alone. Yeah. And then I slipped on the marbles and then, no. And Hunter threw a paint can at you. Yeah. So apparently there was a spare room put aside for me, but I didn't use it.

I just slept on the couch and the dog ended up liking me, and I woke up every... And it was like about 35 degrees at night, and I woke up every five minutes because the dog kept going to sleep on my head. As soon as I thought I was going to sleep, it had come and sit on my head. Well, a friend of the show, Justin Hamilton,

used to go up to Sydney and stay with comedians Kent Valentine and Sam Bowery when he got there, and they have a pet rabbit. And he would sleep on their couch. And he would wake up in the middle of the night with the rabbit nibbling on his leg hairs. But they'd have people to stay all the time. And the rabbit wouldn't do it to anyone else. It would just, for whatever reason, hammos were the only...

Old lettuce legs. I just love the image of, like, Hammo walking through the door and the rabbit just being like, Oh, yes! We are eating tonight. We've got a big show tonight on the Little Dum Dum Club. We should mention we're on Barry Digital Radio currently again. So if you're tuning in, listening to us for the first time through that, welcome aboard. This show is called The Little Dum Dum Club. If you like what you've heard, hop on iTunes and you can find some of our old episodes.

Tonight on the show, a very good friend of ours. You may have seen her on the telly on all sorts of things or various theatre shows and stand-up shows across the country. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Kate McLennan. Yay! Oh, hang on. Oh! Yay! That's a level of professionalism that you're probably not used to,

someone forgetting to turn the mic on. Well, you're probably used to it, considering what you worked on recently. Oh, let's get stuck in right early. Are we doing this? Are we just going to go straight into this? Yeah, righto. Come on, hit me up.

You've said three words. Two of them were off mic because I hadn't turned you on. That's very... That could have been in the show Kate was on. In case you're not familiar, Kate McLennan is fresh off the Channel 9 series, Ben Elton live from planet Earth. Cancelled this week in the media. How quickly did we book you for this after that? I think it was about half an hour after the press release.

No, because I believe the conversation was we were chatting. You're an old mate of the show. You're a fan of the program. I've been listening. I was talking to you a few weeks ago and said, you know, we'd love to have you on the show. You should come on. You said, well, how about I come on when the show is off the air?

And I said, all right, well, I'll see you in a week. What time is it now? I did read about it getting cancelled on The Age Online. And then I sort of thought, I felt guilty about picking up the phone straight away and getting on it. But I wanted to lock it in because I thought, oh, this will be great. You want to jump on this quickly. We didn't have another guest.

This is perfect timing. But I thought, oh, this will be great. You want to jump on this quickly. We didn't have another guest. This is perfect timing. But I thought... Yeah, my phone was obviously ringing off the hook. Did you get a lot of condolence calls? Yeah, I did actually. It was nice. I didn't answer the phone though. I was just like, fuck off.

I can't deal with it at the moment. Because I've been talking about it a lot. Because I started in January, I think, was when we started pre-production. It's an extremely hot topic, isn't it? I've been dealing with the process. Yeah. Well, let's – I mean, let's back up.

I think we need to give a bit more background because the interesting thing about it is, you know, if you're not familiar with it, it was a sketch show that was on Channel 9 for three weeks. It was cancelled during the week, just gone by. And it's interesting because it was cancelled because of low ratings and it was – but it was getting a lot of negative press in the newspapers and whatever and there are a lot of articles written about it which i find bizarre given that the whole point of it was that it wasn't writing well meaning a lot of people aren't watching it yet there's stories

about it in the paper all the time and to me it's just like is anyone even reading the paper gonna know what you're talking about given that the whole thing of it is that people weren't tuning in. I was surprised, given how badly people have been talking about it, that it didn't rate better, because it seemed like people were watching it on purpose just to rag it. Well, the second episode, we knew our jobs were basically on the line going in to do it. And it was live, so we worked Monday, Tuesday. From planet Earth. Yeah, you know, it was live. So, you know, we worked Monday, Tuesday.

From planet Earth. Yeah, that's right. Just in case you were mixing it up with Ben Elton live from... Neptune. Yeah. Live from Uranus. Uranus. They must have been on the whiteboard at some stage. Yeah, so we were, you know, we were conscious of it.

You know, the second episode, if it didn't rate well, we were gone. And so the only thing that we had to hold on to was that there would be that car crash mentality of people wanting to tune in just to see how bad it could be. Yeah. And the second episode was actually not such a bad episode. It was an improvement on the first one. But it's also by that point but you know people have kind of made up their minds a little bit yeah and i think people just tuned tuned out like

they weren't going to watch it again and obviously because it dropped in the ratings again yeah first week to second week now we are we're i mean i'm trying to make excuses for us because we're going to act a little bit vulture likelike in finding out what exactly happened. And I think that's a natural thing for us to do. And I'll put on the record right now that me and Tommy Daslow, we were behind the scenes on a show that went for less than what your show. We were behind the scenes on The White Room and that went two weeks. So we weren't even as successful as you guys. And because our show wasn't live, there were episodes taped of our show that didn't make it to air.

So there are lost episodes. Yeah. We've got shit in the vault. Yeah. And I worked on Let Loose Live as well going back to 2005, which that was a two-episode show as well. So there was a bit of deja vu. Because we had nothing communicated to us about how long the show was going to go.

And so after that first episode, I think there was an article in the Herald Sun or something that basically said, well, gone, the show would be axed after the first episode. And so, like, I had relatives calling me saying, I hear the show's going to be axed. I'm just going, well, I haven't had a phone call, so I presume we're all systems go for next week. And then we got the phone call after

Ep 2 sort of you know I was expecting on the Wednesday that I'll get the axe phone call because that's how it goes you sort of get the ratings come out you know whatever time the morning after and then you get the phone call from the EP telling you you don't have a job anymore and because I've been through this before but you, you know, the producer, Aine, is like, Kate, you know, the ratings were lower than last week, but Channel 9 have decided that we will go another week. And then after that, I was sort of like, well, does that mean we're going to keep going?

Like, if week three doesn't go well, is it gone? If week three does go well, are we going to have another week? They sort of advertise it like that, like the special Green Mile episode. It's all like, no, Grandma can't see, she can't hear or speak, but we are going to keep the feeding tube in just to sort of see what happens. And then the third week did go to air, but because it was the day that the earthquake had happened, they decided to put news on from 9.30 to 10.30 in our time slot.

They decided. Decided. So we had an hour of devastating news happening, and then our show followed up at 10.30. But were you still, because I read, I think on the night, did you still still do that episode live at 9.30 and then they held it back by an hour? Yeah. So I was thinking how horrendous that would be if they had made the studio audience sit and watch the earthquake, if that was the warm-up act. I'd like to see the warm-up guy working for two hours.

It's a slight delay. There's been an earthquake. So hang on. Where are you from? What do you do for a living just for two hours? Yeah. We thought that would save us, though. We thought that maybe we'd get another week out of it because of the earthquake.

I kind of thought that because you can't blame – I didn't think you could blame the low ratings again on the show. I thought that would definitely be the smokescreen. I actually thought, no, they'll just shove this one out of the way. It'll obviously rate a lot lower because it's on at 10.30. Then they'll just go, that'll do. Yeah. I thought that was a bit of a stitch up, to be honest.

Yeah. I might be wrong. So tell me this. I mean, I've worked on behind the scenes on TV shows that have debuted and gone quite well and experienced that sort of environment. And I've also had the opposite where I've worked on shows that have come out and not done as well as they, you know, as everyone involved would have hoped. I mean, what's the mood like on a thing like that when you're turning up

to work those next two weeks after it's, you know, after it's getting savage and particularly in the way that it did? Yeah, it was awful. It was really shit. Okay, next question that's um like there's no kind of it's weird though you've got to talk yourself into doing a good job though like you've got to talk yourself into rocking up to work and still earning your pay and everyone else who's working on the show is doing a really awesome job like

the crew were amazing but there was a lot of negative talk going on. Like we knew, I think we were all quite, the cast were all quite cynical. Well, let's be honest, I was quite cynical. Paul McCarthy was quite cynical, and I think our cynicism just filtered on down. What about the bank woman? How was she feeling? Yeah, Genevieve was probably, the three of us are kind of that wide open. Does she have a real name? I just thought it was the bank woman.

That's what people call her. And she's amazing. She's brilliant. But she only did that one character. So Genevieve would just come in on the day of the show. Oh, right. She had a good deal going. But the other cast members are all quite young and quite naive.

And so by the end of it, they've they really um they've had a nice initiation into the world of tv yeah right but the poor things like after the first episode because you know because like i'm on twitter and so um i got on and had a little look 10 30 hashtag lp and like i you know lfp a lot of the things that were said on Twitter, I guess I probably had said myself leading up to that point. So none of it kind of surprised me. But then all these, I call them young kids, all the young kids were getting on there looking and laughing at the time.

But you knew they were going to go home that night and really be upset by it all. And then the next day we had a rehearsal for the second episode and they were just so flat and depressed. And, you know, that's really hard. That's the hard part about doing live TV and having... But I didn't read many... I don't think I read... In fact, I don't think I really read any criticisms

of the rest of the cast. No. It was more level with the show as a whole and... And straight at Big Elty himself. Yeah. Yeah, there was one comment on, I think it was, there was a Live from Planet Earth website, which I didn't realise, but there was a comment

on the website that said, just let Ben Elton have creative control, Channel 9, which we all kind of had a laugh over because, you know, there were no writers on the show. It was just Ben. And then if you're listening and you're not familiar We all kind of had a laugh over it because, you know, there were no writers on the show. It was just Ben. And then if you're listening and you're not familiar with the behind the scenes of television, that is extraordinarily rare.

But it was weird not having, you know, like writing meetings and that process. That's, you know, not even having an editor or... And Ben directed it as well. So that was... He directed it as well? So that was. He directed it as well? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

So coming off, you know, like I worked on the show in the mansion on the Comedy Channel a couple of years ago, which Charlie Pickering and Michael Chamberlain put together. And that was, you know, we had writer's room going and I think the boys were kind of acted as head writers. And, you know, there was a lot of work that went into the scripts on that show and, you know, draft after draft going out and, you know, that's kind of how...

And, you know, I've worked on a couple of other sketch shows and that's sort of the way it all worked. And, you know, you put out your topics and go, OK, well, you know, we're going to write eight sketches about, you know, I don't know, Shane Warne and Liz Hurley and see, you know, the best sketch of the day and that's the one that would go to air, whereas that process didn't happen on this show.

And it was interesting kind of coming just as an actor. Was he writing it week to week or did he have... He had a bank of stuff ready to go. Right. But, yeah, I guess for me it was... From 12 years ago or from recently? Well, maybe let's get on to this because I'm interested to know, you know, what was he

like to deal with, the man himself? What was, I mean, how much involvement did you have, you know, did you have with him? For the first week, he'd come out into the green room, sort of, you know, because he's not, you know, he's not from Australia. So he would ask us. I like how you're cautious about saying that. It's just a fact. It's just a fact. It's just an opinion.

Yeah. He doesn't have – his kids aren't old enough to sort of, you know, be able to fill him in on some of the gaps in our vernacular, but he'd come out and ask us what, you know, certain words or variations on certain words. And so nearly every day he would come out and ask, girls, what's another word for vagina? And so you're going to be like, minge, gash.

And then one day... Did gash make it to it? No. Because this is the thing, he'd always ask for suggestions and then, you know, he's like, so at the moment I've got fanois. At the moment I've got fanois. Do girls say fanois? And we're like, like no they probably would say fanny or vag probably vag i think that's right that fan one thing where did it's just something he made up he just made that

up he made that up and so you know we'd sort of say you know like i said oh look you know girls probably say fanny or vag or for jj was the one that we were trying to get in because that's probably you know what most chicks would you know the one that we were trying to get in because that's probably, you know, what most chicks would, you know, the girls that were in that sketch would probably say. That's at least something that's been said before in the history of time. Yeah. Unlike Fanois. Fanois.

But it was all about the catchphrases as, you know, yeah, he was very much about the catchphrase and working back from there. And, yeah, so Fanois made it through, but each day, you know, he'd come out and ask and we'd sort of give him some variation on the theme. Because I felt like that first episode that he broke the land speed record for a number of different terms for it. But you know what? It was insane.

The week, the dress rehearsal, he said, you know, I've realised that, you know, the first nine sketches in all my stand-up have, like, some reference to the genitals. So I've decided to cut some of that back. So it's actually going to be more so. Oh, my God. So, yeah, there was one that was written that I didn't read for, which I was really disappointed about,

where the queen was talking about getting her anus bleached. So, that's a shame that wouldn't be there. People should be so thankful of what actually went to air, considering what was in the pipes. Wouldn't that be an interesting technique for a show, would be to show the episode as is on the Tuesday, and then people come out and hate it and go, well, hang on, here's the stuff that didn't make it in on the next night and go, so you tune in to the Tuesday night one

or there's going to be more on the Wednesday night one. We'll just start filtering that in. How was his sort of mood once it came out and it was after the first episode aired and people hadn't? That's a good question because he seemed very confident and, you know, every time he'd be in between the sketches, he'd be like, well, look at those guys there, those characters. You'll be seeing a lot more of them the next couple of weeks

and, you know, the next couple of years when this show just keeps getting renewed. Yeah, like he, I think he genuinely thought that Australia would fall in love with the show and the characters. Like there was that optimism there. Like he was, he's very prolific in the amount that he can write. Like he would go away and write, you know, like 10 sketches in a night and write his stand up in the lunch break. And like he was, you know, quite prolific in the amount of material he could churn out. in the lunch break and, like, he was, you know,

quite prolific in the amount of material he could churn out. And he was really great to the cast in the way that he dealt with us. But there were just, I guess, little, not warning signs, but just, like, the first week of rehearsals, he came in and he said, I shouldn't talk about this. Yes. Here we go. Come on. All right.

So the first day, first rehearsal, there is six girls in the cast sitting at this table in the green room. And, you know, if anyone that's seen the show, the girls are all quite attractive. Like, there's a nice-looking bunch of girls in the show. And he came in and he was like... If you do say so yourself. Oh, referring to me. I'm referring to the other girls.

And he said to anyone, I think that I'm some middle-aged man having a midlife crisis, you know, and I like getting a whole bunch of pretty young girls into my show and they'd be right. And we were sort of like, ah! You know, the laughter was genuine for a while and then it was just like, ah, this has been awkward. I did a gig in Bendigo on Friday night and I started the gig by just saying, look, I've

had a bit of a rough week. Did you get recognised? Well, I said, you know, I've been working on this show called Ben Elton's Life from Planet Earth and I got a massive round of applause. Well, by law of averages, if you're 185,000 people, there would have been probably two people in Bendigo that would have watched that. There could have been all of the audience. That might have been.

They might have all been in Bendigo. They should have just run lots of ads for Gilly's Pies and stuff during the show. Maybe if the show had been Ben Elton's Life from Bendigo, it would have gone a bit better. I'd have tore it up. Bendigo Elton. Life from Kangaroo Flat Oh god Well you've touched on this just a couple of times

The show Let Loose Live Which if people don't remember Was a sketch show On Channel 7 In 2005 Yeah So I'm interested That made it to two episodes And now Ben Elton has made it to three.

I'm interested, you know, the comparison between those two kind of, you know, those two shows, like how the experience is compared to each other. Well, I was really young with Let loose live. That was my first break, I guess. I'd been acting and I'd been doing sketch comedy on stage. I'd done the comedy festival a couple of times and stuff. So when I started Let Loose Live, I was really green and really enthusiastic. Like I was just writing like the clappers.

And Sammy J, that was his sort of first break as well, really. The two of us were the unknowns that, you know, came in performing with Mark Downey and Michael Veach and who else was in there? Dave O'Neill was in there. Ugly Dave Gray. Ugly Dave Gray. Ugly Dave Gray. And that had a team of writers behind it. Yeah, and that was, you know, a lot of the fast-forward writers were in there.

Right. But a whole heap of different writers, like really awesome writers. And, you know, that was really exciting, but it was kind of that thing where, you know, being my first job and getting paid really well, you know, for me at that time, I was getting paid really well and getting picked up by a driver every day. Yeah. Photo and TV week and all that sort of stuff.

Like, it was really exciting. Every girl's dream. Yeah, it was really. And Peter Moon said to me, he's like, Kate, this show's going to run for 25 years. It's going to be like the Australian version of Saturday Night Live. Oh, dear. You know how Magda did those Sorbonne ads? You're going to be like that.

You're going to be making $150,000 just doing an ad just as a character. You're going to be loaded. And then, you know. And you, of course, you know, you totally gobbled it up, yes? I swallowed it. Swallowed that shit right up. But it's not just, you know, that I swallowed it up. It's that because, you know, when you've been acting or whatever for a while and you get a job and then it's like all your family are behind you.

And so I had everyone on board. I grew up in a country town, all my family from the country, and this was like an exciting thing for them as well. The minute you can say to your family, because you spend, yeah, in acting or in comedy or whatever, you spend ages, you know, you do things that are a big deal to you or a big deal to people who know the industry but to your family or people outside of it, it means nothing.

And the first time that you can go, I'm involved in this thing that's on around the country every Sunday night, it's a big moment. Yeah. Because suddenly it validates you. If you're not on TV then they can't. It's tangible for them. And you're from a country town. Yeah. And that means a lot more. Yeah. Because suddenly it validates you. If you're not on TV, then they can't. It's tangible for them. And you're from a country town. Yeah.

And that means a lot more. Yeah. Like it, yeah, it does because people. They're in barracks for you in that town. Yeah, they sort of get behind you. But then, you know, so that went to, you know, and we rated quite well. If, you know, we were on air now, we probably would stay on air. Yeah, what were you saying?

You were telling me before what it rated its first week. So the first week was like 1.2 million and the second week was like 800,000. I actually bumped into the producer of it the other day and he said that he was talking to someone from Seven the other day and they said if the show was on air now, we definitely would have kept it on air. Well, because I've worked on shows that debuted at 1.2 and they were wrapped. That was like huge. Yeah.

So, you know, it's a different climate. Well, we've already spoken about the figure that your third week was $185,000, so. I think it was maybe even less than that. But anyway. Oh, really? They were fudging the figures to get it up that high? No, no. I meant lower.

It was lower. But, yeah, like we've let loose live there. Second episode went to air and I got this phone call on the Monday from the producer and this really lovely guy called Steve Looby and he rings up and he's like, how are you going, Kate? And I'm like, oh, good. And he's like, oh, how are you enjoying having a Monday-Tuesday off? And, you know, your weekend's a bit, you know, it's a bit skew-iff.

And I was like, yeah, you know, but, you know, it's fine. You know, I might go to the movies today. She's dating over. Oh, this is making me sad. You know, but, you know, it's fine. You just, you know, I might go to the movies today. She's dating over. Oh, this is making me sad. You know, this five-minute conversation. And then she says, anyway, Kate, look, the network, they love the show. They just don't want to put it on air anymore. So after that happened, and then my dad, like, my dad took it really badly

because my dad plays lawn bowls, and so he goes over to the bowls club every, let's be honest, most nights of the week, and he said to me, and everyone over at the bowls club was saying to me, when's your show going to be on air? And then I had to tell him it's been axed. He's like, I wish your show had never been on air in the first place. Oh, Dad.

So, you know, I'm dealing with the show getting axed and I've got my old man cracking his shits as well. But then this time around, it was quite funny how Dad seemed quite educated to the whole process of TV now. So I rang him up after the first episode and he said, he was like, no, I thought it was very good. I thought there's some things that you could iron out. There's a few creases you could iron out.

But that Elaine Front character, as soon as she had a go at Ben Elton, she had us in the palm of her hand. Was he aware that you don't play that character? Yeah, I was going to say, my dad is the exact same way where if he comes to a show or anything I'm involved in, the bit that he'll rave about will be the bit that I visibly had nothing to do with. He'll come to a gig and we'll just go on and on and on about another actor not mentioned.

Yeah, no, he was still pretty supportive of what I did. Like he said to me, I thought you were very good. I thought you were very good. He said, I might be biased though. And then the other day I was down in Geelong because they're in Geelong now and I was going out for dinner to this restaurant with some friends from high school. It was this sort of nice restaurant in Geelong. Dad's like, Empire Grill?

You're going to the Empire Grill? That's a bit fancy. But I guess you need to go to fancy restaurants now, because you're a celebrity these days. And then he said, I might be biased, but you're a celebrity to me, mate. Aw. He just did a good job. He should have rang the Herald Sun to get you in confidential. And then he said, I may be biased, but you're a celebrity to me, mate. Aw. It just hurts his mind. He should have rang the Herald Sun to get you in confidential. Spotted.

Kate McLennan at the Empire Grill, drowning her sorrows after episode three. Begging them to put a signed photo of her up on the wall. I love the calamari, Kate McLennan. She ate three plates of it. Yeah, so Dad's, you know, he's initiated now into the world of TV. Well, of course, I mean, you know, we were talking about Twitter before, playing a massive role. No friend of Ben Elton.

Yeah, and how did you, because like, you know, you were saying before, you can pretty easily gauge what the public are thinking of by just hopping on Twitter and having a look. And compared to Let Loose Live when they're,ose Live, back when there was none of that, what kind of game... I mean, were you just going on the numbers or did you hear... How did you hear? How did you hear anything of what people thought about it?

Oh, got on How To Look. On what, though? On Twitter. Oh, do you mean back in Let Loose Live? No, I mean Let Loose Live, yeah. Yeah, well, there was maybe like a shitty write-up in, you know, The Green Guide. Perhaps that would be the only.

That was the Twitter of the day. Yeah, that was it. So we kind of rocked up for Ep 2 of Let Least Live, none the wiser in a way. Yeah. You know, willing to put in a good day's work with a happy frame of mind. Yeah, yeah. Whereas this show is a bit different.

Whereas now this. I found that very weird, the way that Ben Elton was so getting stuck into Twitter. As if Twitter was some machine that was doing it to him. It was like people. It's people that are saying it, not Twitter. They're not sitting in the ivory towers at Twitter going, let's spread the opinion of this show around. It's just people's opinions.

It's just constructed under the umbrella of Twitter. Yeah, and there was that, I guess people think that people only get on the internet to hate on stuff, which clearly wasn't the case because the next night Adam Hills' show went to air and really overwhelmingly positive feedback. Look, let's say that people do, it does turn into a bit of a sport. And especially with Ben Elton, like once anyone smelt blood at all, it was like, okay, let's do this. And I actually thought, and I said this before, you know, I actually thought that the numbers

would have been boosted by people wanting to play it like a game and get on Twitter and watch Ben Elton live and rag whatever crap sketch came up next. Yeah, well, that's what I said. I was doing stand-up a lot in those two weeks, and I said that, you know, tune in on Tuesday night because we're going to do a Q&A style Twitter feed at the bottom of the screen. And people were like, are you really doing that? I said, no, no.

That would be amazing. Cast would go backstage and hang themselves. Coincidentally, you know My Kitchen Rules is doing that now on Channel 7? Really? Yeah. I do not see the point in that. Oh, that meringue looks good. Because didn't they?

What's the fucking point of that? Too much sauce. Now, I'm saying, I'm making these jokes, but I just want to keep absolving myself of, you know, blaming it on the cast or whatever, because it obviously wasn't anything to do with you guys. I was just amazed by the, you know, out-of-date stuff that they were forcing upon you. I just thought that's so unfair. I don't know if that's the right word,

but it just seemed like such a horrible thing to... It was like putting kick-me signs on your backs by giving you those scripts and stuff like that, I think. It was a challenge. It was interesting. You had to find reasons why... God, it sounds like we were all abused or something. interesting like you had to find reasons why god it sounds like you know we were all abused or something you you know like i had to find reasons why you know what what was my lesson to be learned

from it all and you know like i love writing sketch comedy and i love playing characters and you know one day i would like to get a sketch show up. You know, that's probably a pretty big aspiration of mine. And it was a lesson in kind of not what not to do. It is what not to do. But, you know, just having a team, like collaborating with writers and having cast who can write as well I think is really important. Well, because that was the thing was that the format of it was sort of okay, you know. I like having a host in between the sketches

and the sketches all being really simple, just in one little location. It was sort of like if you had a team. And the live idea. The live idea is great. But if there was a possibility of anything live happening, but there sort of wasn't, was there? No.

It goes back to my point. Because to me, like I tuned in the first week, you know, to have a sticky beak, you know, to watch and support you. And also because it is live, you think, fuck, I wonder if, you know, what if someone falls off a chair or that's the main or something. But, yeah, there's no sort of risk of that. It's like, well. Yeah.

Yeah. But doing the live night was really fun because that no sort of risk of that, it's like, well... Yeah. Yeah, it's... But doing the live night was really fun because that's sort of a nice little combination of me doing the stage stuff and the telly stuff. Like, it's a perfect sort of forum for... What about this? There was a suspicion on week two that there was someone,

a plant maybe, or the warm-up guy or something like that, that on the show you could hear someone going, a plant maybe, or the warm-up guy or something like that, on the show you could hear someone going, ah, ah, ah, like really loudly laughing at everything that ever happened. Because we were laughing at that and we were like, who is this guy? Who is it? And someone thought that perhaps it was Brian Nankervis

because he's the warm-up guy. But then apparently it wasn't him. But we don't know. We don't know who he was. Oh, really? Do you know if there was any sweetening of laughs for the TV audience? Because a couple of times I'd be watching it on TV and there'd be a big aerial shot and the soundtrack would have people laughing very loudly or whatever.

And just looking at people, you're like, that doesn't look like a crowd of people that are all laughing that much. No, they were. The second week, the audience were really into it. Okay. Yeah. The first week, they were quieter because we had half the audience were press. Yeah.

Which was weird because the Friday night we'd done this dress rehearsal and everyone was going mental because I think there were a lot of, you know, there's a lot of old Ben Elton fans that came along to the live show. So the live audience would really get into it. And then, yeah, the first, it was a bit flatter. But the second night, there were genuine laughs in the room, genuine laughs. But it was a fun room to play to. It was massive.

There's probably a couple of hundred people in the audience. Yeah, it's a dream. Bottom line is it's TV. It's live TV. It's exciting. It's what people want to do. It's great. It's just sad that it's ended up the way it ended up

but you know that's what you know ourselves included that'd be everyone's goal to be doing live comedy on live TV yeah

yeah did you have like a farewell we're having a wrap party on Tuesday night because that's the thing we let Lisa up we didn't get a wrap party

it was just kind of like axed and then we never you know spoke of it ever again. But this one we all get to go out and get blind drunk on Tuesday night as opposed to all the other Tuesday nights that we worked together where we went and got blind drunk. So, yeah, that'll be fun.

That'll be exciting. I'd like to come. Is that a possibility? Can you bring guests? I won't be here. You'll be away? Yeah. Yeah, that's disappointing because I would have brought you along.

Is Ben himself going to be there? I don't know. I don't know. I'm intrigued to see whether he'll make it out. I wonder if he'll get drunk and just turn on you all, start blaming the failure on all of you. It was funny though on the Tuesday night after the third episode, he said, you know, I just think this cast is amazing.

You know, I deserve an award for putting this cast together. And still kind of, you know, finding a way that he could come out of it. Looking really good. Hey, have you voted in the Loggies? Do either of you vote in the Loggies? No. Because I think this might be the first year that you can do it on the internet. So I did it just because I was bored the other day.

Who did you vote for? Well, here's the thing. In all the presenter categories, I voted for people I like. Like I voted for Sean McAuliffe and I can't remember who else. But then for the overall best show, I thought purely because I thought it was hilarious that you even could vote for it, I voted for Warnie to win most popular program. Just because the very fact that you could even do that was so insane to me that I went, that's, see, I'm not a goddard.

So is this the long list? Like, it's, it's, it's a pretty long list, yeah. Are you voting, are you voting for the actual, like, is it narrowed down to five or six people in each category, or is this the long list? No, I think this is the, this is the short list. This is the, no, this is the, yeah, I don't know how it's – but then I thought – Well, I'm more surprised that Warnie didn't do what Ben Elton did in Assemble, like half a dozen attractive females for each show for no reason.

I think he just had one and hoped for the best. But then I thought, imagine if it won based on the majority of the people just because it's so much easier to vote. You don't have to buy the TV where you can fill it out. Imagine if people just got on the net and everyone voted for a retarded show like Warnie and it won the Logie. How amazing would that be?

Don't they talk about networks buying... A network will employ some company that then it's just their job to vote. Like it's... Right job to vote. Right. I'll just ring up and... Well, I mean, Ray Ma, Alf won the Logie, and no one's seriously voting for him to be the best actor of the year. Everyone's going, how funny would it be if Alf won the Logie?

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, completely. I went to the Logies a couple of years ago. Oh, here we go. What for? What show? Well, we did... Oh, you were working for the Logies?

Yeah. You did sketches? So we did these sketches in between. So it was Dan Ellick and Chambo and Justin Kennedy. Who else was doing it? Arne Declan, Faye. So we were this little writing team that put this. Oh, actually, that's a lie.

I didn't write it. Anyway, we filmed these sketches and they went on in between. And so we scored, Dan and I scored an invite to the Logies. But, you know, there's a bit of a hierarchy involved. So we were a late entrant in getting a place. So we sat at this table right at the back of the room and I was sitting next to the guy that called the trots on Skype. Johnny Tapp.

Was it John Tapp? I don't know what his name is. He had a moustache. I can't remember, but his wife worked for Nine or something, so I don't even think he was supposed to be there. Who else? Who else were you sitting near? This is like the Zone 3 of Logies.

Okay, well, this was before talking about your generation had gone to air, so they were kind of sitting up the back towards us as well. Oh, really? But I had a bit of an incident before the Logies had even started because, you know, oh, look, I don't mind a shandy. And it was all free booze. And so we're sitting out in the foyer and I had this dress on that was like this skirt that you hoisted up over your chest and tied up around your neck.

And there's this actress called Julia Blake who's in Bed of Roses. There's this old, old Dorian of Australian theatre and TV and she's sitting down next to me and we're having a chat and she says to me, Oh, Kate, I love your dress. It's very nice. Now, look, I wasn't wearing a bra with this dress because, let's be frank, I don't need to, not because I've had work done and they just stay up of their own accord just so I have the breast of a 13-year-old.

But I had this dress hoisted up and because it had this tie-up sort of thing, I went, oh, yeah, and it's got this lovely sort of waistband that you hoist up over your breast. And I pulled the dress apart and the waistband had fallen down to my waist. So I just totally flashed my breast to this old woman and whoever was sort of standing by. And this was at like 5 o'clock in the afternoon. So it wasn't even late in the piece.

And on the other side of the room, Ben Elton saw it and went, that's Miguel. Woman for me. Miguel, she's destined to work at Channel 9. Girl flat. She's got girl flat all over her. No offense. I went to a Logie's party one year in Crown Towers,

like in the, you know, above the hotel rooms where they film it, because I'd been doing some writing on Rove when it was still on. Oh, yeah, because he, like, used to get a room, didn't he? Yeah, their production company gets a hotel room and I got invited and I RSVP'd and said, yeah, that'd be heaps of fun. I'd love to go and got really excited about it. And then the week before the party, I got fired. But I'd already RSVP'd and so I was sort of like, because, you know, I knew a lot of,

you know, the dudes who wrote on it and, you know, sort of a few people from the office and it was like, it's a pretty cool thing to get invited to. I don't, you know, if I want to go, I'll just sort of, I'll pull a bit of a Costanza, George Costanza. I'll sort of just turn up and just hope for the best. Really? Yeah, I just sort of turned up and no one really, everyone was like, you know, cool.

And, you know, the writers knew that I wasn't on the show anymore, but, you know, they all knew that. Do you think after you left, you know, they closed the door and everyone just went, why the fuck did he turn well that was the thing it was because me and a friend of the show

Jared McCulloch were sitting because they're in the main sort of you know in the sitting room of the hotel room everyone was

the TV was on but everyone was chatting and drinking so you couldn't really tell what was going on and me and Jared actually kind of wanted to watch it so we went into the bedroom

and lay under the covers watching it on the TV in the bedroom and we were taking bets watching it on the TV in the bedroom. And we were taking bets about who was going to win and the bets were escalating. And then a few more people came in and at one point I went, I can't afford to be making bets like this. I don't have a job.

And then one of the production assistant women went, how can you be here if you don't have a job? And I was like, oh, I'd better go. I've got uni in the morning. I kind of left pretty soon after that. So I imagine it was very much a – I was with that comment. Oh, we sacked him. Oh.

But I was just – I was like 20 or something at the time. So I was just like just drink as much of the free piss and have as many fucking dimmies as you can. Yeah, because things have changed a lot since then, haven't they? Hey, no. Now that you're older and mature. Yeah. Yeah. So free – swipe anything from Channel 9?

No, I did try to get my dignity back when I was leaving. I think they're just going to post it to me with my final paycheck. Guys, that brings us to the end of the show for another week. Kate McLennan, thanks so much for joining us and bearing your soul and being honest about all that. Jump on iTunes and check out the Download podcast if you're listening to this. Yeah, give it a few weeks. Give it a few weeks when the

footy season starts. Thanks if you're listening to us on Barry. Check out all our old episodes. Give us some strange reviews on iTunes. We've got plenty of them already, but leave a few more. And we'll see you next time. See you, Max. See you, Max. Bye. and we'll see you next time. See you, Max. See you, Max.