and which had, what, in 2005, five million readers? it was pretty big because it was before it alljumped off the page, and he wrote this just utterly sneering review, one star review, really snobby in that sort of guardian way, like, quoting shakespeare. i was like, how dare you quote shakespeare at me? i ll quote shakespeare at you! and just incredibly sneering and ungenerous, a thing that just says i m terrible at myjob. it really, really threw me. and so, like, a year later, when i had to come up with a new show, i thought, well, i m going to take that guy down. so i wrote the song for phil daoust. # ding, dang, ding dang dong # this ends my phil daoust song # everybody sing along # la la la la la la la # i hope something you love catches on fire, # ding, dang, dong, # i ve written you this special song # to show how far i ve come along # in my efforts
i mean, it was quite a quick sort of not particularly thought about decision about the end of 200a. i was in sydney writing a little musical with my friends, actually, and this cabaret thing i was doing was definitely quite clearly looking like the thing i should concentrate on. people were really enjoying it and the room was. you know, sometimes i was playing to two people in the audience, but in general, people were starting to take a bit of an interest. # you could be clever as voltaire # but it won t get you nowhere if you want to sell discs # and very early 2005, i did a show at the seymour centre in sydney and i had just decided to. i ve got very curly hair. i decided to straighten my hair, don t know why. and i d lost a bit of weight and ijust thought, ijust had this sense that maybe this show i was doing, which at the time was called dark side, might be a bit of a chance. and so i thought. i ve always had a fairly pragmatic attitude to this. i m not someone who thinks,
the thing that kept me on music was . my brother going, oh, come and work out the intro to light my fire , because, you know, we d listen and i would do the keyboard bits. do you regard yourself first and foremost as a musician or a comedian? 0h, certainly not a comedian. i mean, i would consider myself a musician and then probably a writer in the broader sense and then an actor and then a comedian, probably, now. now? now. while i was a comedian, i would have happily called myself a comedian. but even during that time, i tended not to call myself a comedian. so you ve passed through the comic phase, then? well, really, i got known as a comedian, but i was always a cabaret artist who was just pretty funny between songs. the best thing i ever did was stop calling myself a cabaret artist and start calling myself a comedian, and everything went bang. cheering the first choice that you ve made for this cultural life is being asked to write a musical version of love s labour s lost when yo
kind of, oh, i m so brilliant, i can t control my thoughts. there s a streak, a kind of misanthropic thing. a little bit like a battered. yeah, like he might not like going outside very much, that he spends his life in his own head, having these slightly quirky thoughts, these sort of sexually perverted thoughts and, you know, talking about inflatable dolls. # your love for me is not debatable # your sexual appetite s insatiable # you never make me wait at all # delectable, inflatable you # and then just going on around about logical philosophy and wearing. i m looking like edward scissorhands crossed with robert smith from the cure, and you got the sense that he was someone who didn t get out much. yes. and that s very different from who i am and who i was.
i was hiding behind a sort of. a kind of slightly stuttering, kind of, oh, i m so brilliant, i can t control my thoughts. there s a streak, a kind of misanthropic thing. a little bit like a battered. yeah, like he might not like going outside very much, that he spends his life in his own head, having these slightly quirky thoughts, these sort of sexually perverted thoughts and, you know, talking about inflatable dolls. # your love for me is not debatable # your sexual appetite s insatiable # you never make me wait at all # delectable, inflatable you # and then just going on around about logical philosophy and wearing. i m looking like edward scissorhands crossed with robert smith from the cure, and you got the sense that he was someone who didn t get out much. yes. and that s very different from who i am and who i was.