When it comes to standup comedy Tom Gleeson is at the top of his game. The star of The Weekly and host of Hard Quiz keeps his stagecraft well honed by performing at every major comedy festival in the world. He’s been nominated three times for a Helpman Award and the international standup legend Louis CK chose Tom as his support for his Australian tour.
His Hard Chat on The Weekly sees him go to places journos fear to tread.
‘Some of them admitted they were envious of Hard Chat because I get to ask anything at all. Because it’s a joke I can do whatever I want.’
Although his humorous hard-line interrogations of some of the more right-wing politicians have bought some criticism.
‘I got a bit of grief on Facebook for the Corey Bernardi interview. People said I was normalising him.’
But what does that even mean?
‘By making fun of Trump for instance, you make him seem human. If you are normalising, you are saying your point of view is normal, and if they disagree with your they are abnormal. Not really a point of view I support. I think it’s better to try to understand your enemy. Demonising political figures doesn’t get you anywhere. Every person I speak to, regardless of their opinions, I leave quite liking them,’ says Gleeson, who admits that if you accept the challenge to do Hard Chat then you are already indicating you don’t take yourself that seriously.
Gleeson is a master satirist. One piece in particular where he copped a lot of flack on social media was his very clever spin on defensive architecture, the new trend in city design that is unfriendly to homeless people and street sleepers. But of course some of the people didn’t get it. His ‘journalistic’ line that they could start aggressive architecture, where benches attacked people, was missed by some who though he was actually saying this was a good thing. Satire can be confusing for literal-minded people.
‘I know why I am saying and what I am saying,’ says Tom on his penchant for black humour. ‘If 99 per cent of the population didn’t get it I would feel bad because I didn’t do it clearly.
‘I often speak in code. This story was a simple one: defensive architecture is about having extra arms on benches so people can’t lie down. You see people on social media saying this is terrible – I think that is a bit wet. For me I think it is more interesting to say it’s great because it becomes preposterous. I knew I had to speak to someone homeless, I had to speak to a homeless advocate; he understood what we were doing. His name was Spike.
Before we started I said to him, ‘I am going to say these things to your face. Pretend I am Tony Abbott, so respond to me like that.’ So I attacked him
and he attacked me. I have always consoled myself that there are people who don’t like Fawlty Towers because they wish Basil Fawlty would stop lying.
If you are going to make something genuinely funny you are going to leave someone behind; part of the joy of laughing at something is leaving a few people behind.’
Be on the bus for Tom Gleeson when he performs Cheer Up! for NORPA’s Lismore Laughs on Friday 10 March at 7.30pm. Lismore City Hall. $25–51 www.norpa.org.au or 1300 066 772
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