Thank God It's Live

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday March 3, 2008

Sue Javes

Richard Glover's popular Friday segment is about to get its very own studio audience.

His performers won't be crowding around a single microphone dressed in dinner suits and evening gowns but in many other ways Richard Glover is helping to bring back the grand old days of live variety radio. From March 14, his popular drive time segment Thank God It's Friday will become a permanent one-hour live comedy and music show performed in front of an audience at the ABC studios each week.

What began a decade ago as a relatively short segment on Friday afternoons, featuring a little-known Gretel Killeen and James O'Loghlin, has become something of an institution on Sydney radio. A rotating trio of comics, including Jean Kitson, Wendy Harmer, Tommy Dean, Anthony Ackroyd, Lex Marinos and Noeline Brown, match their wits and have a laugh at the expense of the week's news.

In recent years, TGIF has had regular public outings, not just in the ABC studios but also at the Riverside Theatres in Parramatta and the Bowral of Laughs Comedy Festival. To make the audience a permanent feature is a natural progression.

"There's nothing quite like a live audience," Glover says. "You can see the fear in the whites of the eyes of the comedians." He is adding a Garrison Keillor-style monologue to the show called News From Nowhere (not that Glover sees himself quite in Keillor's league). Musical performances by John Williamson, Tim Freedman, Extended Family and Rory McLeod also have been booked.

The comics didn't anticipate how TGIF would grow. "If I'd known, I would have negotiated some sort of contract," Kitson notes dryly. They receive no financial reward but Kitson says there are other benefits.

"It's not only a great show to be associated with but also a chance to meet up with other comedians. I mostly work on my own now in the corporate sector and so any chance to work with other comedians, have a bit of fun and free associate, I jump at."

She says a live audience changes the dynamic enormously. "It sharpens our timing and gives us encouragement, probably more than we need. If we get one laugh, well go for another and then it's very hard to shut us up."

Ackroyd says TGIF provides him the chance to do intelligent comedy. "Glover is a great foil for comics. He knows how to be part of the situation without dominating it. He creates the environment where we can flourish."

Mosman architect and TGIF tragic Michael Blakeney has attended most of the live shows. His wife says she can hear his laughter through the radio. "There's the excitement of being live and in the studio," he says. "Some days you go home and your ribs hurt, you've laughed so much."

Glover considers himself a failed actor, so his return to the stage 25 years later, by a very circuitous route, has a kind of symmetry. "My wife [playwright Debra Oswald] saw me act back then and she would tell you that what broke me was my complete and utter lack of talent," he says. "That's fairly accurate ... but I'm back."

Richard Glover airs on weekdays on ABC 702, 3-6pm.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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