Considering there's an expectant live audience already filing into their seats and the show is due to be broadcast the following Thursday, no one appears duly alarmed. Familiar faces - including monotone man of the people, the Sandman, and dada enigma Flacco - wander in the side entrance, past the carefully dismantled Breakers sets, and make their way to makeup or their dressing rooms.

Just outside makeup, Robins is quizzing the wardrobe mistress. "What about some Gucci?" he asks, referring to the lack of tie around his neck. "No Gucci tonight," she tells him. "You're keeping the Gucci for Paul, aren't you?" he replies, all mock petulant and tanty-bound. "You know only you get the Gucci, Mikey." Robins laughs and wanders off, pausing briefly to smile and tell me: "I'm a tie slut, if you didn't know."

They're a well-heeled crew at Good News Week, which is emphasised as Paul McDermott emerges from his dressing room in a sleek, obviously expensive grey number. But whether the suit maketh the man is a different matter. Short and vocal, McDermott fizzes with a brittle, incisive energy. Unlike some comedians who are on then they need to be and most definitely off the rest of the time, McDermott has a compulsive, somewhat alarming presence. He can be friendly and provocative at the same time: a firecracker with an uneven fuse.

Looking around the antiseptic corridor, McDermott sizes up the situation. He spies a publicist from Channel Ten, the new home of the Good News Week empire since its departure from the ABC, and strides towards her. "I want the last three episodes of the X-Files that I missed," he says, playing the star. "On my desk. Tomorrow." He looks around, suddenly wide-eyed and discreet, whispering an addendum. "And also the last three Party of Five."

Seeing a journalist with an open notebook he starts dictating: "Channel Ten are filthy and disgusting! I knew nothing about the move!" Before anyone can reply he's off to makeup, where Robins is already ensconced, still awaiting his errant clothing. "Is my shirt here yet?" he calls out to no one in particular, his booming voice echoing down the corridor.

Of course McDermott knew about the move. Most people did. With its budget trimmed once more by an antagonistic federal government, there was always great doubt that the ABC could retain Good News Week. Nor had Ted Robinson, whose company produces the show, made any bones about the fact that he wanted to develop the show on the ABC and, if it worked, take it to a commercial network.

But because he controlled the show, Robinson was able to bring it to Ten en masse, instead of just slipping a few names into a new set-up. GNW has kept the same key performers - McDermott, Robins and Julie McCrossin - plus writers and technical staff, which has made the transition fairly easy.

"We're actually getting away with more at Ten," claims Robins. "They have censors who look at the show and - MY SHIRT!" The wardrobe mistress has walked by with a garment still in its dry-cleaning wrap, but it is not the one. "To be honest, I was worried when we moved, but here's been some Virgin Mary gags that never would have aired at the ABC. Here they were like, 'Sure, fine'."

For Robins it's not the first time with a commercial network - "I've been fired by Seven four times," he happily boasts - but apart from the odd flirtation with Liz Hayes on The Today Show while in the Doug Anthony Allstars, it's new territory for McDermott. He remains sanguine about the change and their prospects.

"I actuallly think Channel Ten are trying to do something good," he says. "They're trying to get a younger demographic and they're trying to get more extreme, volatile and Australian people onboard doing work. "At the end of the day the commercial stations are about making money and you become a commodity. But you can still do good work as a commodity."

Ten has obviously decided that Good News Week is a valuable commodity. The comic gameshow has been given the prestigious 7.30 Sunday evening timeslot, up against Nine's perennial giant 60 Minutes (home to the ABC's other recent high-profile defector, Ellen Fanning) and Seven's American sitcoms 3rd Rock from the Sun and Home Improvement. GNW Night Lite, styled as a variety show, has been given 90 minutes on Thursday nights, beginning at 8.30.

"Everyone thought it was game to go up against 60 Minutes," reasons McDermott, "whereas to us, if you're going to commercial TV you might as well go in the deep end." So does he now understand the crucial ratings figures? "I understand the ratings, but I'm not really interested in them." He pauses and laughs quietly. "I think that's causing a little bit of dismay when I talk to the people at Ten."

Brooke Satchwell has arrived, been whisked through makeup, given a glass of red wine and it now being introduced to McDermott. "I've been standing by the side of the road for an hour and a half," she says, explaining her late arrival.

"You should have hitchhiked," replies McDermott, attempting to smile in a friendly way, which is not easy for a self-confessed misanthrope who considers humanity a seething virus.

Another guest, Sacha Horler, the star of Praise, is also introduced to McDermott. He tells her he liked the film and gives her some hints to surviving a show that can bury timid guests alive. "Talk loud and talk often," he declares.

The on-air regulars gather just outside the door to the studio floor while staff make last-minute adjustments. McDermott has a technician behind him wiring up a radio microphone, while the wardrobe mistress in front of him straightens his tie. "I like being touched by people," he says, smiling lasciviously, "but this may be a little much."

After much anxiety, Robins has received "The Shirt", but now he's wearing it, it appears to have lost its lustre. "It's just a plain black shirt," he observes as they wander onto the side of the soundstage. Ted Robinson, who also directs Good News Week, speaks to the audience before unleashing the well-primed cast. A balding, somewhat rumpled figure in his mid-40s, Robinson runs through some instructions before making a final plea: "If we achieve nothing else tonight, we want to make a TV show that doesn't resemble Hey Hey It's Saturday in any way."

It was Ted Robinson who brought Paul McDermott back to television. "He's the only person in the industry I trust," notes McDermott of Robinson. Their association goes back 15 years and Robinson has been a supporter ever since, even during the Allstars' widely savaged sitcom, DAAS Kapital. After the trio split up, McDermott entered what he calls "the stupor", staying at home to paint, his lifelong passion. Robinson encouraged him to perform again and eventually won him back.

McDermott has now gotten back to regular ways. At this year's Logie Awards in Melbourne he had a fist-fight with Hey Hey host Daryl Somers in the men's bathroom. Talk of the rumble spread so quickly that Bert Newton even mentioned it on air during his morning show on Ten. The only problem is that a mystified McDermott didn't even attend the Logies. "I think it was Bert's way of saying, 'Welcome to Channel Ten and by the way you had a fight with someone from Nine,'" speculates McDermott. The rumour-mongers never decided who won the punch-up between the two, so does the GNW host think he could take Mr Hey Hey? "I don't know," he muses. "It depends what he's like after a few glasses of good red."

If Paul McDermott is unsure about whether he could out-biff Somers, there's no doubt that it would be a knockout victory when it comes to performing live. Onstage with Robins, McDermott is preparing the audience to holler uproariously for the GNW cameras. The pair also prerecord two sketches which, by the process of stretching the lower halves of their heads, turns Robins and, especially, McDermott into (respectively) a boneheaded Kerry and James Packer. The second taped piece features a wildly libellous comment about the scion of one of the most powerful families in the country which leaves audience jaws on the floor. Virgin Mary gags may be one thing, but the sketch never makes it to air the following Thursday (although a revamped version runs the next week).

"I thought it was rather a cruel thing to do at the time, but at the same time quite funny," saya McDermott on reflection a few days later.

Cruel and funny. It is, agrees the man himself, the best summation of his strain of humour. "It probably has been for a long time," he says. Paul McDermott is the anti-Somers, the comedian who packs a vicious punch into his best lines, walking the line between shock and a witty fascination. He's at his best when he pushes those listening a little too far and they waver, questioning whether they should laugh. You can feel the snarl in his voice as he turns on their indecision, telling them to get stuffed, flinging an enraged arm out at them.

It's no wonder those in the front row inwardly cringe when McDermott's gaze alights on them. "Got any eccy?" he suddenly demands of one woman. "I've just been in Melbourne for a while and let me tell you, no matter how much other people urge you, don't eat you're own shit."

With taping about to begin, a floor manager hooked up to the control room via a headset calls out some instructions to the duo. "Can you imagine what she'd be like in bed?" wonders Robins. "Up, down, stop, start, left, right..."

"And she'd be wearing that headset," marvels McDermott.

The audience can't stop laughing. The Anti-Somers and his sidekick prance around the stage like the happiest people alive. The show is most definitely ready to begin.

When the call comes from the ABC, of course, you feel flattered. Then self-doubt sets in, and by 4.30pm on Thursday, when you arrive at Gore Hill, you are pretty sure you know nothing about that week's news and absolutely certain that you aren't funny.

And as this show is Good News Week, which is all about being funny and knowledgeable about current affairs, that is not a winning combination.

Every week there is at least one panellist on GNW who is scared out of his or her wits. A few weeks ago it was me. The rest of the line-up comprised regular team captains Mikey Robins and Julie McCrossin; frequent guests Amanda Keller, of Triple M, and Melbourne comedian Greg Fleet; and American comic Barry Diamond. All right, it was his first time, too - but he is funny for a living.

The show goes to air on Friday nights, but is recorded the previous evening. I am whisked into make-up, where McCrossin and Keller are already under the firm control of make-up artists. The ABC digs into its vast treasure trove to lend me a pair of suitable earrings.

Between applications of lip gloss, McCrossin says she has grown to find this make-up session "very relaxing". Like everyone else, she rolls up at 4.30pm, having watched Ten's Sunday-morning news round-up, Sunday on Nine and other news shows during the week, and having read her dose of Who Weekly and the tabloids.

Paul McDermott's opening and linking spiels are pre-scripted, but for the panellists there is no rehearsal, no pre-scripted jokes. It's becoming painfully clear that this is going to be seat-of-the-pants TV.

The girls are very reassuring - nice of them, considering I am on the opposing team. Amanda recalls her earlier GNW appearances: "The first time I didn't do anything. Second time, I didn't say much but was saved by the editing. The third time I said a few things but was cut back in the editing..."

So what should a first-time guest do? "Talk, no matter what," says Keller, "because they tape for about 45 minutes and the show is cut back. Err on the side of verbal diarrhoea because they can always cut things out."

Suitably glamorous, we adjourn to the production office, where coffee and bowls of nuts and lollies have been laid out. I ask McCrossin whether women guests are different from the men.

"I think women are generally - with exceptions - less competitive as a reflex, and less willing, as a reflex, to jump over the top of another," she replies. Keller warns: "I think women, by nature, sit back and wait for others to talk."

The message: don't feel squashed. Some guests (who shall remain nameless) have just sat there and done nothing but giggle. Everyone agrees that Mikey Robins, my team captain, is good, damned good. Fast, funny and knowledgeable, but able to stand back and let his team-mates get a word in if they feel up to it.

Robins wanders in, introduces himself, and advises me to think of the show "as a dinner party".

At that moment, food magically appears for the cast and crew: chicken curry and salads. We tuck in and toss around likely news stories with Greg Fleet, our other team-mate. Robins nominates his fav-ourite story of the week: the one about "the chicken of death". Apparently, six people died in an attempt to recover a hen that had fallen down a well. "The chicken was still alive," Robins adds.

The chicken of death? How had I missed that one in a week of dutiful news-reading? More panic.

Steve Johnston, one of the writers, says it's more important "to have an attitude to the news rather than know all the answers". Does that mean guests should prepare some jokes? Johnston looks shocked. "You can't prepare for this show, because you never know what you're going to see and you never know the direction it's going to go in." Anyway, the best things happen spontaneously: "That's when the show comes alive," Johnston says.

I ask Paul McDermott what makes a good guest. "Being complimentary to me often helps," he says.

About half an hour before things are due to start, when the audience is buzzing outside the studio, Ted Robinson, GNW's executive producer, leads the teams onto the set to tell us which camera to look at - "if you feel confident enough".

"Don't be afraid to jump in," he says. "An amusing wrong answer is as interesting to me as a right, dull answer."

Robinson gives us a few clues about what to expect. Our "odd one out" question will involve pictures of Pauline Hanson, Air Supply, a cartoon koala and Ung Huot, the one-time Australian Telecom engineer who has just been named as first Cambodian prime minister. And the props for our last-round story will be a Mars bar, an old $100 note and "a vast expanse of nothing".

We head into the corridor to ponder all this. Robins advises us to think like cryptic-crossword compilers, and nudges us towards the thought that the odd-one-out question might have something to do with people who are more popular in Asia than they are in Australia. As for the second, we all think this has something to do with future Mars astronauts being trained in Antarctica.

It gets no further than that, and we are herded onto the set once again for the show to begin.

Fifty minutes has never passed so quickly. What is surprising is the sheer physicality of the other panellists (Fleet jumps on to the deskand picks up his chair at various stages) and their confidence. Several times I find myself soundlessly opening and shutting my mouth, trying to find a moment when I can interject. But I manage to say a few things and hear people laugh, which seems somehow amazing. No wonder actors talk about applause as a drug.

Afterwards, over a rowdy coffee backstage, Ted Robinson issues a congratulations: "You kept up."

I tell Mikey Robins that it was fun, but nothing like a dinner party. "You should have dinner at my place," he replies.