More than anything, with this show Gleeson wants to name stupid ideas for what they are. “Stupid ideas thrive when they’re not discussed. Taking things on face value is not hard to do.” The good part of his life as a comedian is the travelling round the country and getting his ideas across to as many people as possible, people who should be listening. “I did a gig in Canberra and there were people from the Department of Foreign Affairs in the audience. Gleeson likes the idea that his jokes were informed by decisions made by the very people sitting in the front row. “They got to go back to work and say ‘hey, I was in the audience at a show and they were laughing at us.’”
Gleeson doesn’t script his routines as such – he goes on stage with a list of ideas in his head and takes it from there. “The longer I perform the better ideas I get at. When I did write everything down what I found that in a show 80% of it wouldn’t work and the three ad libs I did would work. So it was a waste of time learning it. Now I freestyle.” How does Gleeson remember everything he wants to say? “If you forget anything, the only person who’s going to worry about that is yourself. No-one cares about the stuff you forget – they don’t know. You’re only doing five minute spots when you start. If you forget you can start talking about something else or you can stop. Thank you and goodnight. Open mic nights are a great place to make mistakes.”
Like other comics, Gleeson prefers the 50 minute or hour long festival shows where he can say what he likes. “It’s a long time to talk about stuff. You can have something underneath what you’re saying, a subtext and build that up to a point. You can’t do that with a three minute TV spot.”
Are there any downsides to his long comedy career? “I wish people would stop staring at me,” is his surprising answer. “I know how tigers in a cage in the zoo feel. When I’m on holiday I do very to please anybody. But gigs are good; everybody has to go to work and do something to please people.” Is the Tom Gleeson we see on stage anything like the real, preferably displeasing Tom Gleeson? “The longer you go the more your true self comes out on stage. Either what I do on stage is an honest appraisal of myself or I’m becoming lazy. It’s pretty close to who I am as a person. If you’re being yourself it’s easier to stay in character. I’m getting more anti-social. It’s really getting to the point where I’m becoming completely unlikeable.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
