G’day, Wil! Comedians are supposedly very sad people, so being a Western Bulldogs fan must really help you out in that department…
I’m surprised more emos aren’t Western Bulldogs fans. Forget about listening to My Chemical Romance; if you really want some pain and suffering in your life, buy yourself a blue, red and white guernsey, and go home and cut yourself after games. Because I had such a good upbringing, I can’t really do a show about my parents touching me, so my football team fills up that void.

Despite being an old bugger, you seem to be a bit of a hit with the younger crowd, especially the women...
Yeah, but it’s not like I’m knee-deep in hot female groupies. Girls always say they like a guy with a sense of humour, but I just don’t see any of them caring how funny Brad Pitt is. I haven’t seen too many girls getting randy for John Candy...

Or Kyle Sandilands, but that’s probably more to do with him being fat and not funny. Do old codgers enjoy your work, too?
It’s weird how the different things I do appeal to different people. I learnt that early on when I was writing for the Sunday Magazine. I can’t go to IKEA on a Sunday afternoon because middle-aged couples who shop at IKEA with kids all read Sunday Magazine apparently. In that demographic, I am like The Beatles.

Do they get offended by the rude stuff?
I realise now that old people are fantastic, especially the ones that just don’t care. They’re a great audience because they’ll laugh out loud at dirty jokes — they’re beyond that point of caring about what other people think. Sometimes, when you do a uni gig, the kids all look at each other before they laugh because they have to check with their friends to see if it’s cool.

You recently copped a silent reception at one of your Edinburgh gigs after weeks of solid reviews. How’d you take it?
The Friday night when it happened, I was on stage for about 20 minutes with them just staring at me. I couldn’t help but think, “These are my jokes, I’ve run them by thousands of people and they have all agreed that these are jokes. Now, normally what happens here is I talk and you laugh. Oh, and by the way, this is what is happening for the next 40 minutes. I’m not going to be bringing anything else out, there’s not going to be a dancing panda. This is the actual show.” It was one of those moments where I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t try harder at uni.

Is there ever a time when you think, “This stuff is funny. It’s the audience who just don’t get it?”
The weird thing about comedy is that, no matter what, the audience is right. It’s unlike any job, in that the amateur is the expert. For example, if you’re the pilot of the plane and you’re saying, “We’ll take it up to 24,000 feet and then head left,” you don’t have passengers going, “Hang on, hang on. We catch a couple of planes a year and you’re getting it all wrong. We go right.” That’s the great thing about comedy; you wish it was good all the time, but it’s the times when it all goes sour that you remember how hard the job can be.

You’ve done radio, TV, stand-up and mags; is there a chance of you doing theatre restaurants?
I have been working on my Dracula impression. I love performing while people are eating. If you can make people laugh so hard they spit their food at you, then you’ve really made it in show business. So, it’ll probably be that or performing in between strippers…

Most strip joints do a lunchtime buffet as well...
See, there you go; my future in theatre restaurants is secure!




You were overseas during The Ashes; why is it that when Australians go overseas, we become as Australian
and patriotic as possible?
I’m guilty of it myself. For some reason, we defend shit about Australia we normally would consider quite shit. I found myself defending Sneaky Sound System, who I usually hate, but I was like, “They’re Australian and I will not hear a bad word against them.”

Paul Hogan made every Aussie abroad be subjected to “That’s not a knife… that’s a knife” every time they went to a restaurant. Are there any catchphrases your DVD, Wilosophy, is going to unleash upon the world?
This will make much more sense when you see my show, but it has to be: “It’s the best thing since fingering.” I’m really trying to bring fingering back because it gets a hard time in our society compared to sliced bread. I think, with all due respect to bread aficionados, that fingering is way better than sliced bread.

You do make a compelling case...
I finished every show in Edinburgh by telling the crowd that, if they enjoyed the show, then they should tell their friends it’s the best thing since fingering.

Sounds like it could catch on! We’ve been bashing Kyle Sandilands for a while now; who else do you think we should be taking the piss out of?
You guys were really onto the Kyle Sandilands thing before anyone else, weren’t you? You must feel like people who are really into a band before they get big, and now that they’re mainstream, it’s not nearly as cool.

Surprisingly, no. He actually topped our 50 People We Hate list.
Well, at least he’s being consistent! As for who should be next… I’m not sure why this is, and I hear he’s a really nice bloke, but that trainer from The Biggest Loser…

Shannan Ponton? What is it with you and hating Shannons?
I really don’t want to start a fight with another Shannon; it could all get very confusing.

Now that you’re a media personality, what type of things are you using your star power to get for free?
I don’t get anything for free — that’s the problem with working at the ABC! I keep trying to sell-out, but no-one will buy me! When I was at Triple M, I used to get free copies of ZOO, which was a welcome change from the complementary Thirsty Merc CDs.