MIKEY Robins is standing at the foot of his bed. Hanging from the picture rail in front of him are three wire coat hangers, each straining under the weight of silk.

"Now this," he says, "is saaaad. Instead of a painting, this is what I have hanging up in my bedroom. This is my obsession. Other performers spend their money on drugs. I have ties." He strokes the weave of one as if it were a persian cat. I wonder, for a moment, if I should leave the two of them to their private bliss, but instead ask if many of this really rather modest collection, a few dozen at most, has special meaning for him.

"Yes," he replies, "and this is where it gets even more embarrassing." He pulls out a blue striped number that he feels is bad luck on stage. He points at another that he wears only when Good News Week packs its wagon and rolls out of the ABC Gore Hill studios. A third, he explains, is suitable for interviews, for moments requiring maturity. As his fingers move between the slinky garments, rescuing the important and familiar ("this is my nostalgia tie - the first one I ever bought").

Robins talks of them, of their personalities, as if they're his friends. "They are my friends," he says. "The thing is, I have never had to buy a tie before, never had to wear a suit for a job, so I really enjoy it now. And if you are a big bloke, a well-made suit can hide a multitude of sins. I'd love to tell Kim Beazley to lay off the double-breasted - you look like a barrel. I made that mistake last year."

It was Mark Fitzgerald, then producer of McFeast, who first put Robins into a suit in 1994. Before then, the Newcastle-born comedian was a self described yobbo, with a tongue that could slice bread but a wardrobe as blunt as Mike Munro's head. Sartorially transformed, Robins is sharper on all fronts. What comes out of his mouth may not have changed, but the perception of him definitely has. Where he used to be a wise cracking, overweight slob, he is now that witty, somewhat portly chap on the end of the GNW panel. The suit has made "all the difference in the world." "Wearing a nice, neat suit with a tie," he says, "gives you licence to do material that is a lot more off colour than you could if you just came out in a VB T-shirt and a pair of stubbies.

"I remember a theatre director from university. He was directing Macbeth. The big trend at that time was to do it in Mad Max gear but this guy dressed everyone up like dandies. I asked why, and he said, if you look like a wolf, there's nothing interesting in seeing you behave like a wolf."

If clothes make the man, there may be significance - make your own mind up - in the fact that for some time back there in his early 20s, Mikey Robins wore the frightmare wig and high-decibel suit of the party clown. "I used to get $40 to turn up as a clown at children's parties," the 36- year-old recalls, cheerfully picking at the scab of memory. "It was awful. I'd always hear one of the mothers say 'Next year, let's get a pony'. And children don't see a clown, they see an adult they have a licence to kick.

"Also, I was the only clown in the troupe that couldn't juggle. And if you can't juggle, you actually have to entertain the little buggers with games for an hour. There are probably 20-year-olds in therapy in Newcastle, still having nightmares about this fat man, whose breath smelled of beer, trying to paint their faces." Robins laughs, a shaggy sound, that of a man who delights in making fun of himself. But where others toss off a short line in sympathy-oriented self-deprecation, Robins takes the long view. And the long handle. Before your mouth is open, he will tell you he is fat, lazy, uncultivated and dumber than he looks. It's a persona that is a small part reality, a small part illusion and a much larger part toy, something to be played with. He is a big man. But in-truth, Robins occupies less space than his frame. He moves quite delicately and can be surprisingly still. As we speak, small, nervous fingers rake through his boyish fringe or pull at the edges of the couch cushions, fidgeting, drawing little circles.

He is lazy in so far as he hates to prepare, hates sitting and writing when he could be just spewing out stream-of-consciousness gags - his idea of planning is making sure the cab gets him to work on time. And though he has plenty of guilt about being a year overdue with a book he owes his publisher, he doesn't have quite enough to actually finish it. He is neither uncultivated nor dumb - that's just bluff. He is, however, more than willing to use either perception as an excuse for cheap, obvious jokes in dubious taste. His trademark bravado, as is so often the case, masks a gentle under confidence. But ask him a straight question and you'll get a ruler straight answer. No obfuscation. No deflection. No spin. How, I put it to him, does he feel about his size?

"I hate it," he replies instantly, rolling the words over a second time for emphasis. "I hate it. And anyone who says they like being overweight is lying. I would love nothing more than on a hot summer's day to walk around without a shirt on. Some fat blokes can. I can't - I'm too vain."

Robins says he started the year at 134 kilos and is hovering around 118. He has been up to 137 and down to 105. It's a constant battle, getting more difficult as winter comfort food beckons. Four days a week, he works out with his personal trainer, Tracy Usher: one day is devoted to weights, one to circuit training and two to "dragging my fat arse around Bondi".

"Tracy has managed to find every flight of stairs between here and Bronte," he says ruefully, "and we go up and down, up and down for an hour." Weight references are a staple of his humour. Like many others - and he admits the cliche up front - he puts it down to schoolyard experience. Everyone's looking for a target, and if you're the fat kid, you might as well have one painted on your forehead. Make them laugh and you're safe.

Robins uses fat jokes as defence, but also as offence, realising that once you've demolished your own ego, everyone else's is fair game. "As a performer, you make fun of other people," he says. "Which is fine, but you have to be willing to shine that same harsh light on yourself. If you can't recognise that you have the same foibles and find humour in them, then you haven't got an act, you've' got a long scream for help." He knows that being an XL gent gives him a hook, an easy series of self-mocking gags, but is convinced he could survive on his wits without the weight, and would like to try, particularly as he reaches the sort of age where questions of mortality float by.

"That's what I'm dealing with now," he says. "I used to try to lose weight because I thought women found me repulsive. I always wanted to do it for vanity's sake. Now I'm doing it because this is my last chance. I'm 37 this year. If I don't lose it now, I will be a fat adult and I will keel over with a stroke when I'm 60."

Mikey Robins grew up in an area of Merewether known as The Junction. He remembers it as crammed with pensioners then, but says, with an emotion bordering on loss but not quite making it, that it has since been gentrified. His mother, Leila, worked in the local K mart, in charge of the toiletries. His father, Bill, who died when Mikey was 10, sold hair-care products to salons. If the young Robins's drive to perform was formed by necessity at school, it also had its home influences.

On summer weekends, Dad was a surf carnival announcer. He also dabbled in stand-up, miming to comedy records at Newcastle club nights - "it's the act Jerry Lewis did before he met Dean Martin", Robins recalls. "Not very highbrow."

ROBINS Jr slid through school, accumulating enough marks to get into an arts degree. Life at Newcastle University brought him into contact with the local arts community, an extended family of performers that still accounts for the bulk of his friends (Steve "Sandman" Abbott, who shares the Triple J breakfast slot with Robins, is a notable example).

During and after his studies, Robins performed in plays, contributed percussion to a "very twee" band and tried his hand at comedy in the notoriously brutal Newcastle pubs.

"The first time I did stand-up I bought an Alexei Sayle record and stole half of it," he recalls. "I still do a joke from it if I'm desperate. I was not particularly good at it - I'm still not. The stuff I do best is improvising one-liners, which is why a panel situation like the radio or Good News Week suits me. I'm not the person that drives the thing along. I'm a Bert in constant search for a Don." Robins spent four years in the cabaret troupe the Castanet Club, before leaving to pursue comedy dreams. With a small inheritance after his mother's death in 1989, he squeaked by for a few years as a sketch writer (and washer of dishes) on the way to breaking into radio.

The latter ambition was achieved by lying to Triple J programmer Stuart Matchett - Robins claimed he knew how to operate the studio panel. Matchett let him handle a few midnight-to-dawn shifts which, while not without incident - "the first time I was on, I took the station off air five times" - went well enough. On a whim, Robins joined forces one night with the metal head and chain saw feminist Helen Razer, then presiding over the slot before his. The pair stayed on air for nine hours and soon afterwards, at the start of 1991, were offered the breakfast domain. Since that time, Triple J has turned around its 1980's slump and risen to considerable national success - it maintains a tight cultural grip on the youth of Australia. Its manager, Ed Breslin, credits Robins with being "the major driving force" of the network's resurgence.

Seven years into the breakfast show, Robins is still managing to rouse himself before dawn (though some days you could pack for a family of four in the bags under his eyes), and has spread like dry rot through the ABC, grabbing opportunities. Side kick roles on Live and Sweaty and McFeast led to a starring role on the highly visible Good News Week There, he has solidified his reputation as one of the fastest minds in the country and moved from disembodied voice on the radio to "that bloke on the telly", the kind of person who can't walk down the street without being stopped for a chat.

"I have to be honest - 99.9 per cent of the time, people are really really nice to me," he says.

"The ABC apparently did some research on me and the strongest thing in my favour was that I tend not to annoy people too much. I'm not abrasive." It's a strange thought that this man, who is not afraid to work blue or obnoxious, could be seen as "not abrasive" A spokesman for the ABC said he "could not recall a single, specific complaint in the last couple of years" about Robins's work on radio or television. Robins, whose memory goes back further, is proud of his one and only Backchat reference, a complaint about a Live and Sweaty sketch which took a children's TV character to Belanglo State Forest. Clearly, rudeness is no longer a barrier to fame.

"I'm not famous," he insists. "Ray Martin, that's famous. All that happens to me now is... here's a big one... the last time I was at the Sydney Football Stadium, a bunch of guys actually let me cut to the front of the beer queue. For a working class boy from Newcastle, that was better than a Logie." He beams, the kind of smile you see on GNW's best nights (and don't see on its occasional misfires), when it looks as if Robins couldn't stop himself being funny if he wanted to - at full tilt, he seems afflicted by a comedic variation of Tourette's syndrome.

"I never second-guess what is funny," he says. "I can never pick it anyway. Anthony Morgan got me a beautiful one on Good News Week when we were in Brisbane. I threw out this line really confidently. As it was in my head, I was thinking 'This is going to kill them'. Then it came out and... nothing. Anthony turned to me and said 'Isn't it awful when you think you've got a joke and all you have is a sentence.'

"But when I'm having a good night and improvising well - this will sound wanky - I almost have this warm feeling in my chest, like a confidence thing. I trust myself to just open my mouth knowing something will come."

Tonight, Robins will launch Good News Weekend, colonising the space left vacant by Roy and H. G. The weekend version will differ from its Friday counterpart in length (a full hour), content (songs and sketches as well as games), and guests (entertainment-oriented). Robins says the rehearsal process has been shaky, but sticks to his "it'll be all right on the night" principles. Not that he's feeling cocky - he admits to a bracing, adrenalised fear about it. "And that's good," he says. "It's really good, because there are nights now when I go on Good News Week and I don't have the fear. It's good to be scared about something again. I can tell you, I will be wearing the brown trousers when we go on." With a nice tie to match.

Resume.

1961: Born Newcastle.
1980-83: Bachelor of Arts, double major in drama, major in English, Work as a party clown.
1984: Castanet Club, cabaret troupe.
1988: Washes dishes at the Burdekin pub on Oxford Street.
1989 Writes and performs sketches for TV show Saturday Morning Live.
1991-1998 Triple J Breakfast show
1993-1994: Contributor to Live and Sweaty
1994-1995: Roving Reporter on McFeast.
1995 First Book: Three Beers and a Chinese Meal, written with Helen Razer.
1996-1998: Good News Week
1998: Good News Weekend, Second book, Big Man's World, written with Steve Abbott and Tony Squires, due out next month.

May 5 1999, Herald Sun, Fiona Byrne.
Tackling The Lite Stuff

And while most people dream of having one show, the endearing funny man has suddenly found himself starring in two prime time spots for Channel Ten.

Good News Week, the irreverent current affairs based show happily ensconced in the station's Sunday night line up has spawned GNW Night Lite which premieres tomorrow.

Is there no stopping the phenomenon?

Valiantly battling a head cold, Robins this week admitted the success of the "good news" formula surprised him.

"I always thought when we started, it (Good News Week) was going to be the sort of 1Opm nice little late night cult thing," he says. "Then when we first started we had trouble keeping it on the air - the ABC tried to axe it after about six weeks. Then last year we played the Sydney Opera House.

"Four years later, I wasn't expecting to packout the Melbourne Town Hall and the Opera House and be doing it prime time on a commercial network."

GNW's migration from the ABC to Channel Ten and its Sunday 7,30pm slot initially raised a few industry eyebrows, but Robins says the show has adapted well.

"It is finding its place out there. It is finding an audience," he says.

"I think it was a big call taking that show to the timeslot we took it to.

"It's bedding in and we are really happy with it.

"When we started doing it (in the new timeslot) there was this whole - 'So you are going to beat 60 Minutes,' thing.

"Ten don't think like that and we don't think like that."

"The thing is for us on Friday night our audience - which I think is people pretty much like us - go out.

"The people who would want to watch us are more likely to be home on Sunday night."

Stifling a sneeze, Robins says GNW Night Lite will appeal to a different audience than its current affairs based big brother.

"It is a similar format to the Sunday show in so much that the basis of it is a panel game based around questions and answers," he says.

"But as opposed to the Sunday night show, which is based on current event politics and issues, it is more about popular culture, music, film, old ads and stuff like that.

"There is also an element of live music and guest artists performing - and of course old Pauly boy puts on a flashy suit and sings... that voice of his..."

Robins, who admits to listening to six or seven hours of current affairs a day and describes himself as having no hobbies, says two doses of Mikey, McDermott and McCrossin a week is not overkill.

"If the other show is like a dinner party this is more like a drunken bar brawl.

"It is a lot more raucous than the other show and because it does deal with popular culture you find people who aren't as interested in politics get a lot more out of it.

"Then there is the musical element and of course people, get to see little Pauly sing.

"For some reason people seem to enjoy that...".

"There is certainly not a great novel hidden in me," says Robins, in town as the advance scout for the Good News Week troops.

"Writing is like going to the gym: it's the three hours you take talking yourself into getting off the couch that are the worst."

Which is not to say the quip-expert is not passionate about reading. Late at night, with the bedlamp on, you might find him pursuing his "soldiering dreams" with forays deep into various historical tomes.

It was the American Civil War at one time. Right now it's the intrigues and dastardly deeds of post-medieval Politics that have taken his reading fancy.

Politics and people - from Peter Costello's leadership aspirations to why blokes always choose to play the Rebs in American Civil War re-enactments - it's all fodder for the comedian's fidgety brain.

"politics - it's a world I find fascinating," says Robins, throwing back his upper torso in that characteristic gesture which seems to say, is this line okay, am I saying the right thing here?

"But I'd rather be on the outside pissing in," and he rocks forward again, his eyes flickering to your face to see if the naughty punchline has gone down well.

He's a slave to his audience, is Robins, a keystone in the continuing success of what he calls the "glorified parlour game" that is Good News Week.

"You'd have to have a fairly low energy level, not to keep enjoying it," he says. "I'm just happy to keep the audience going, up on their feet. It's always on a knife edge, which is why it's so much fun."

This is the third time Good News Week has tapped into the Writers Festival buzz.

They tape two sessions at the South Bank Piazza, which is just a stone's throw from the Festival venues around the Queensland Art Gallery.

Robins says he loves Brisbane audiences. They're quick to get the gags and are not timid - "robust" he calls the responses.

7 October 1999, Gold Coast Bulletin, Marnie Finster.
Satirical Silliness

Robins and his GNW crew, including leads Paul McDermott, Julie McCrossin, Sandman and Flacco, are in Queensland to give us a taste of their brand of satirical sillyness with a live taping of the show during the Brisbane Writers Festival next week.

No doubt a plethora of one-liners and gags on BrisVegas and the Coast's gold sandaled social set will form part of the the taping.

"As a large man, I love to go anywhere where there is heat because women find sweat and heat rash so attractive," says Robins of his northern adventure.

"The last time I was on the Coast was three or four years ago. I woke up nude on a concrete floor. I found lots of places to do major head damage."

Robins' wife Of 1 1/2 months, Laura, will be at the show's third Brisbane taping.

She who 'never lets me out of her sight' could be the feminine touch behind Robins' recent nomination as one of the most dapper men on TV.

"GQ magazine said Paul and I and Matthew White from Channel 10 Sports were the best dressed men on TV," says Robins.

"It's amazing what a new tie and show can do for you."

To the weightier subject of leaving the ABC, the comedian is not reminiscent.

"It has not made a real difference to us. We are an indivividual production company, we do the show and give over the tapes. Channel 10 seem nice to us, they all smell good," he says.

"With the new 9.30pm slot, we can be edgier and cruder than in the family-friendly time-slot of 7.30pm Sundays.

"And the unreleased sexual tension between us all keeps the show firing."

Robins takes the idea of his future past GNW and comedy as unseriously as everything else.

"I'm 37 and have no other skills," he says matter-of-factly.

As to whether his instinctual humour will last: "It is a worry to wake up one day and find the funny-ness fairy has stolen it all away."