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Tom Gleeson
 "Has it come around a bit too soon for you?" asks Tom Gleeson, referring to the Fringe Festival's sudden switch from being traditionally a bi-annual event. "Yeah, but last when I played there it was the first time I did a whole season," he replies when I throw the same question his way. "So it's almost as if they decided to go annual just for me. So I'm fine, I'm happy for it to be every year." For those unfamiliar with Gleeson, you may surreptitiously know him as the sketch-show character - the Australian fast bowler - from a few years back. Or more recently as the one who sent up the James Blunt hit You're Beautiful as part of his live act; clips of which are now doing the rounds on popular amateur video sites such as Youtube.
"That got a lot of attention," marvels Gleeson.
"As it turned out, the postscript of the story was that it got on the internet and then radio and in New Zealand they were announcing that it was Peter Hellier," he laughs. "And when I was in Montreal someone came up to me after a show and asked whether I had copied it from the internet. Just last week someone emailed the link to the Wikipedia and it listed all the parodies that had been done and it said that James Blunt thought mine was his favourite, so take that Weird Al," he boasts.
"But to be honest, how much do you believe on Wikipedia and it's not really a parody, it's just me talking over the top of the song so it's actually more like satire?"
Meanwhile, somewhere else on Youtube... "Yeah, I saw him," Gleeson says of another bloke of the same name; who incidentally is a drummer from Adelaide. "And he does a drum solo which is funny because I also play drums, so when I saw that I was like, 'Yaaaay!' So now I think it would be funny if I did a drum solo and posted it on there.
"Well, I went over there and it was a life changing experience," he recalls of his two week tour of Iraq to entertain our troops.
"In the show I'm actually telling the story about how I bought a Monaro but then there's lots of tangents about Iraq," he deliberates. "To be honest, when I went over I thought I'd have something to talk about for five minutes because I really didn't know what to expect. But yeah, it then started to shape my new show a bit fair. I've been enjoying it because there's some hefty elements of satire in there. I don't really do political humour," he avers. "I have tried but it just doesn't work for me, it's as simple as that.
"But a friend of mine recently pointed that out to me that all my stuff is usually experience based. All my material is usually about things I've done or seen and it's essentially observational," he states. "Because I've now experienced something political it's impossible for me not to talk about it without coming out with an attitude or point of view." Guaranteed to be another sell out season, so get in quick.
Steve Jones
Tom Gleeson performs in the Rhino Room from Thur 8 March
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