My guest this week is satirist, humourist, author and stand up – Titus O’Reily. Titus used to be called Alex Twomey. He was a corporate guy who specialised in crisis and issues management. As we discover in this interview, Alex started writing a blog while still working in his office job and gave himself the pen name “Titus O’Reily”. The blog was hilarious and it turned out I wasn’t the only one to think so. He was soon asked to write books and perform live shows and more success followed. Now you see him regularly casting his jaundiced eye over every AFL season on radio and his regular appearances on The Front Bar where he mocks his own team, Melbourne, for being posh and my team, Carlton, for everything. His blockbuster podcast Sports Bizarre with Mick Molloy, in which Titus tries to bamboozle Mick with the strangest stories to occur in world sport, is back for another season. So check that out. This conversation looks under the bonnet of how you transition from a real job into becoming a comedy professional. It’s full of wisdom and revelation, but always returns to the theme of hard work.

Check out Sports Bizarre here.

This week’s guest is my long time pal and work colleague, Sarah Wilson. 

Sarah is a multi-New York Times and Amazon best-selling author, podcaster, international keynote speaker, philanthropist and climate change advisor. 

She founded the I Quit Sugar movement – a digital wellness program and 13 award-winning books selling into 52 countries. And in 2022 she sold the business and gave everything to charity. 

In what seems to be a lifetime ago, Sarah was the editor of Cosmopolitan Australia; host of Season 1 of Masterchef Australia; was a journalist at the Sunday Magazine, which appeared in the Sunday Herald Sun and Sunday Telegraph – and that’s where we became mates.

I always leave a chat with Sarah feeling a little wiser than I did at the start. I hope you enjoy.

I’ve been lucky with the content offered by the guests on this podcast – but this guy has an unusually inspiring story. Working class boy, becomes a political operative at 19, works his way up to being an advisor in the Rudd and Gillard Governments before pivoting to cricket commentary and becoming one of the best-known cricket broadcasters in the world. His name is Adam Collins, and in 2018, he saw there was no Australian radio presence covering the test series between Australia and Pakistan in the UAE, so he used the money he was saving to buy a house and bought the rights to broadcast the series. He talks about the stress of that deal here, particularly finding a station he could on sell the broadcast to, as well as overcoming tech and censorship issues. Right now, the whole saga is being developed into a feature film. 

Quick shout out to The Final Word - the best cricket podcast going around hosted by Adam and his on-air partner, Geoff Lemon.

I hope you enjoy this chat. Check out the exclusive bonus video below where Adam discusses the two funniest cricketers he’s met.

Links:

The Final Word Podcast

Adam's collaboration with Wayne Swan which set his career pivot to cricket journalism in motion.

BONUS VIDEO: THE FUNNIEST CRICKETERS ADAM COLLINS HAS MET

This week’s guest on Out of the Question is writer, comedian, and musician, Andrew Hansen. 

He’s the member of The Chaser who sings and sometimes gets into trouble for the lyrics he sings. I think he’s hilarious in the style of a shorter Cleese or a stronger jawed Tim Brooke-Taylor – while, at the same time, being completely his own thing. He’s also been a radio presenter on the ABC, Triple M and Nova. And he’s toured his live stage shows around the country many times. In fact, you can catch his new show Andrew Hansen Is Cheap in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Launceston in the next few months. Just type in bio.to/andrewhansen and all will be revealed. 

Alright. We had a good chat. He’s a decent man, Andrew Hansen. Before the interview proper, I told him how great I thought his Billy Connolly impersonation was and we started talking about impersonation comedy in general.

A serious moment when Andrew talks about what it’s like to be sued over a joke.

This week’s guest is the former Western Bulldogs great, turned AFL commentator, turned radio host, Luke Darcy. In 2002, Luke was awarded the AFL Players Association Most Valuable Player Award, the Australian Football Media Association Player of the Year Award, and the Herald Sun Player of the Year Award. He represented Australia in the International Rules Series against Ireland that same year and was captain of the Bulldogs in 2005/6. When he retired he proved he had a natural talent for broadcasting and remains one of the Seven Networks biggest stars – not just with its Saturday Night AFL coverage, but also hosting the Olympics. Luke recently found time in his busy schedule to launch the Empowering Leaders Podcast,  where he and his guests break down the fundamentals of a 21st century style of leadership, touching on themes such as collaboration, integrity, and innovation. Episodes drop every Wednesday. I started our discussion by asking Luke, how his colleagues would describe him?

Welcome to the 100th episode of Out of the Question, the show formerly known has 10 Questions. 

It’s been a wild 100 episodes recorded over seven years – the most recent 50 coming a lot quicker than the first. I’m not going to mention individual episodes, but I want to thank all the guests who have come on and revealed their most personal stories and opinions. I’m so spoiled that when an interview subject doesn’t bear their soul, I’m  left wondering why. So thank you to all the generous guests. 

Quick apology for the sound quality in first fifty eps. No Zoom in those days. You either had to be in the same city or record the episode over the phone and no one wanted to do Skype. I’m sure there were other options, but I just didn’t have the bandwidth to seek them out. 

Now to help celebrate the big three figures, I’ve invited back the first ever guest on the podcast – Dave O’Neil. 

Over the past 100 eps, Dave has been on the show twice and gets mentioned in passing by guests every other week. We recorded the first ever episode in August 2015. In fact, we had to record it twice because we had phone problems. So, for this landmark episode, I’ve asked Dave to list the five biggest events in his life since that day.  We start proceedings with the fifth biggest event and move on from there. 

It’s been seven years since I last interviewed Ash Williams for this podcast. Back then, the former Hughesy and Kate co-host had recently returned from LA, where he’d made guest appearances on Anger Management, The Exes and You’re The Worst. He also sold photos of his feet, appeared in tickling videos and worked as a shirtless waiter at a gay bar. We’ll hear all about that in this interview. But in recent years, he’s been a  morning television regular, fronted colour reports for the Australian Open and hosted Miss Universe Australia. But probably his biggest gig was appearing in I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. We talk about all that in the interview and you can also check out the related video content at adamzwar.substack.com. 

It was a treat for a sports nuffy like me to interview the football and cricket commentator, Mark Howard. 

I think Mark, or Howie’s as he’s commonly referred to, is one of cricket’s strongest ball-by-ball commentators. He’s always prepared. He’s got insight. And he brings out the best in the former stars offering special comments. 

During our chat, I learned he started his career in television as a crew-guy on the Forumula One broadcast. He then took a job as a reporter for Ten Sports, before becoming a boundary rider and commentator on Ten and Triple M’s AFL coverage. But perhaps his biggest break was commentating the Big Bash on Ten, before moving to Fox Sports – where he now commentates the network’s cricket and AFL coverage. He can also be seen hosting Fox Footy’s new late night show – Best on Ground.

This week’s guest is one of the enduring stars of Australian comedy. He’s good-hearted, infinitely likeable, smart and funny. I speak, of course, of the great Peter Helliar. 

I’ll take it for granted that we all we Peter best for his on air partnership with Rove McManus as well as his work on Skithouse, Before The Game, co-hosting The Project and his super-star alter ego – the final pick in the 2004 AFL draft, Brian Strauchan.  There are also his successful TV shows, It’s a Date and How to Stay Married. And then there’s his stand-up – which is consistently funny, and also forms a heartfelt connection with the audience. 

Don’t forget to check out Pete’s movie podcast You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, where he talks to movie lovers about classic and beloved movies they haven't quite got around to seeing.... until now.

This week’s guest has been part of our lives for decades. The high school debating star studied law, science and maths at university before winning Raw Comedy and embarking on a stellar radio career – first on Triple J and then on 702. I speak of course of the guy who hates being called “a math’s genius”, Adam Spencer. Still, Adam’s pretty good at maths and has written five books on the subject, including the recently released Maths 101.

Adam’s TV appearances include Good News Week and The Glasshouse as well as weekly sports wrap, The Back Page. And apart from always being  in-demand for corporate gigs, he’s also co-founder of Dry July which has raised over $75 million for adult cancer services.

BONUS CONTENT: IF ADAM COULD GO BACK FIVE YEARS, WHAT ADVICE WOULD HE GIVE HIMSELF?