Nick Boshier’s entry into showbusiness was via community radio and managing the singer-songwriter, Lior.

Then, in 2008 he made Youtube viral sensations “Trent From Punchy”, which is currently sitting on 9 million views, and “Beached AZ”, an animation about a Kiwi whale, that reached 10 million views, sold 80,000 T-shirts and won the hearts of The Flight of the Conchords.

After those early videos, Nick went on to develop the ubiquitous Bondi Hipsters with Christiaan and Connor Van Vuuren, the ABC comedy, Soul Mates, and now the Amazon series, The Moth Effect.

Here Nick talks about the pitfalls of all-boy private schools, the influence of his father and his determination to work with great people.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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He’s one of the few performers on Australian television who has fans from multiple generations.

First, there were the Comedy Company fans who loved him as Uncle Arthur, then there were the Russell Coight fans – and then the Kath and Kim fans who were beguiled by his multiple outings as Kel Knight.

I speak of course of the great and enduring, Glenn Robbins.

In this episode, we chart his beginnings in performance – from turning his back on being a town planner, to taking a drama teaching degree, before appearing in commercials and then becoming one of our best known and funniest actors.

There’s the public side of what Glenn does, but there’s also all the work he does behind the scenes nurturing up and coming writers and performers – most notably on The Ronny Johns Half Hour and Thank God You’re Here. His advice has been invaluable to me over the years and he’s one of those people who makes you feel better about the world after spending time in his company.

It was an honour to have him on the podcast and as usual I started by asking Glenn when he was most happy.

 

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One of the people I’ve known longest and admire most in the Australian entertainment industry and that’s Dan Ilic.

Dan’s had success on Australian television thanks to writing and starring in such shows as The Ronny Johns Half Hour, Hungry Beast and Can of Worms, and then taking on the grown-up jobs of executive producing and showrunning ABC shows Tonightly and At Home Alone Together, which could really do with another series right now.

He’s also had stints producing satirical comedy for Al Jazeera and Fusion in the US. But because careers in entertainment don’t progress in a linear fashion, whenever there’s been a down time, Dan has always gone back to generating his own work whether it be live comedy, documentary, or satirical ads and his output is always slick and funny and creates a splash.

Perhaps his most enduring work is his award winning comedy podcast A Rational Fear - with its overarching focus on Climate Change.

In this episode, we talk about that plus we discuss Dan proposing to his fiancée, that time his firing from a major news organisation became major news and his extraordinary parents, how they met, and how his father’s interest in comedy and social justice gave Dan a framework for his own career.

https://arationalfear.substack.com/

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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One of my favourite actors – a performer who can do comedy and drama, stage and screen, and that’s Kat Stewart.

Kat got a degree in marketing and arts before attending the National Theatre drama school at night while working as a publicist during the day.

After graduating, she started making guest appearances on The Secret Life of Us, Stingers and Blue Heelers before landing her first leading role on BBC’s Supernova opposite Rob Brydon.

After that, came her award-winning turn as Roberta Williams in Underbelly – followed by Newstopia, Tangle, Offspring, Mr and Mrs Murder and now Five Bedrooms.

We discuss most of those shows in this interview and a few more.

But before getting to the questions, we talked about our childhoods and Kat happened to mention she went to school with Portia De Rossi.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

 

Looking for another podcast between episodes of 10 Questions?
The Junkees with Dave O'Neil and Kitty Flanagan
Somehow Related with Glenn Robbins and Dave O'Neil

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You’d know Mark from his brilliantly observed sketches for The Roast on ABC 2, The Feed on SBS and most recently for 7.30 on ABC.

He’s also hosted the channel 10 quiz show, Pointless and, along with his co-writer Evan Williams, has written the book On Politics and Stuff.

Which is bloody funny.

I don’t want to generalise, but in comedy, people are generally scoundrels, but Mark’s one of the decent ones.

And sorry to completely embarrass him, but that decency shines through here.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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Jan Fran was born in Lebanon, came to Australia when she was a kid, grew up in Bankstown, went to the University of Technology in Sydney, then started working for SBS current affairs shows Dateline and Insight before becoming a foreign correspondent and filing from Bangladesh and then Uganda.

When she returned Australia she became a presenter on SBS’s the Feed.

And it was her work on a Feed segment called The Frant, which won her a 2019 Walkley Award.

Since then, Jan Fran has appeared on Q and A, The Today Show, Studio 10, and is a regular on The Project.

We talked about her superman husband, her father’s dislike of television even though even though that would end up being his daughter’s career, and her burgeoning squash game.

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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Scott rose to prominence in 2005 with the release of his micro-budget independent feature The Magician – a mockumentary about a hitman called Ray Shoesmith.

We’ll talk about how that came into being as the show unfolds.

Then more than a decade went by before Scott and Nash Edgerton, one of the producers on The Magician, turned Ray Shoesmith’s life into a TV series called Mr InBetween, with Scott writing and starring and Nash directing.

The show was picked up by FX and since then Scott has won plaudits all over the world for his acting and writing, including winning AACTA and Logie awards.

 

Where to watch Mr Inbetween - justwatch.com

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in part by Nearly Media.

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Most people know Merrick from his long-time radio partnership with Tim Ross, who I interviewed for this show in October 2017.

Merrick and Rosso started on Triple J in 1998, moved to Nova in 2001 and ended their 11-year partnership in 2009.

During that time, they also made the TV shows “Planet Merrick and Rosso” and “The Merrick and Rosso Show” for the Comedy Channel, “Merrick and Rosso Unplanned” for Channel Nine, and “The B Team” for Channel 10.

When their partnership ended, Merrick went on to host radio shows on Triple M and 2Day Fm including “Merrick and the Highway Patrol” and “Merrick and Australia” which turned into “Merrickville”.

\As an actor, Merrick appeared as an adviser to the Prime Minister in Working Dog’s 2008 series “The Hollowmen” opposite Lachy Hulme and Rob Sitch, and Marty Johnston in 2009’s “Underbelly: The Tale of Two Cities.”

Last year, Merrick was one of three celebrities to pass “SAS Australia’s” gruelling two-week challenge – with the comedian leaving many elite athletes in his wake. 

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Nell started her career writing for Spy Magazine and Vanity Fair. Since then, she’s written for The Simpsons, Letterman, Murphy Brown, Newhart, NCIS, she created Sabrina The Teenage Witch, she was the executive producer on Charmed.

She has written jokes for Obama. She co-wrote Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s best-selling book, Lean In. And her autobiography, Just the Funny Parts, is an enthralling book. If you’re ever stuck, or feeling alone as a writer, dip into Just the Funny Parts, and I’m certain it’ll bring you out of your funk and inspire you to stay the course. It certainly did that for me.

I interviewed Nell in Sydney in front of a live audience at the invitation of Jungle Entertainment where she is working with a bunch of Australian writers.

 

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In light of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival we're replaying a handful of shows.

This episode was first published 9 December 2015.

He's since morphed into the sitting Prime Minister on occasions. 

Check out the videos.

 

2018 MICF Show 

Lawrence Mooney: An Evening with Malcolm Turnbull

Running until 22 April 2018

Athenaeum Theatre Two (map)

Tickets - $30 to $42

 

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10 Questions with Adam Zwar is produced in party by Nearly.

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