So much so he says he does not care if he never appears on television again.

In a frank interview with the Sunday Telegraph, McDermott revealed the relief he felt when his show Good News Week was axed. "I’m just so tired, I don’t feel I have been human for five years," he said.

"People may disagree and say I never have been human being. I have been losing certain parts of my nature, I didn’t notice it for a long time. I have lost a bit of my humanity each time. People close to me were gradually moving away, i have become a Mr. Smelly, Mr. Odious, Mr. obnoxious."

The show, which McDermott presents with comedians Mikey Robins and Julie McCrossin, has propelled the former Doug Anthony Allstar into the commercial spotlight.

Suddenly he was recognised and approached by admiring fans as he went about the mundane duties of his life.

The pressure of over-zealous fans has added to his angst.

"There’s girls who camp outside my home and follow me as I take my washing to the Laundromat," he said. "People leave disgusting messages on my answering machine, carnation and strange letters in my mailbox. I have a profile now which I didn’t before, there’s an awareness of me as a performer. It’s not something I'm over-joyed with, that people recognise me more often and that rubbish. I find it a bit difficult to handle."

Off stage, McDermott possesses none of the energy, exuberance and front he oozes on the camera.

He is an intensely shy man who avoids conversation and is happiest writing, creating art works and painting.

After GNW’s final show, being filmed at the Capitol Theatre on November 8, the presenter will seek solace in his artistic pursuits. Until then his focus will be on the final thing.

"It’s going to be bigger than Aida," he said. "We have got Anastasia for it, that’s really good, she’s extraordinary. That’s worth coming along for even if you hate us, which you may well do. All the usual cast of villains, Flacco and the Sandman, and we’re trying to get as many of our regular star players to join us for this final extravaganza. In the past few years of the show we made a lot of mistakes. The one and a half hour time was a real mistake, I think it’s impossible to sustain that level of interest, especially with a glorified panel game. I think we did some great stuff over the course of that year but it’s very hard for people to stay with the program, to be there for the distance. I couldn’t do it. In a way it feels good not to have all the demands. It’s definitely time to move on, try new things."

Good news Week first screened on the ABC in 1996 as a half hour satirical game show.

In March 1999 it moved to Channel 10 and in November of that year a 90 minute variety show special GNW Nite Lite began. It was canned in March.

With the various reincarnations of Good New Week the ratings dipped until channel ten executives, this month, decided the program was no longer viable. McDermott was happy that the show’s demise came before his own.

"I wouldn’t have done it at this level for another year," said McDermott. "I just think we went in a lot of wrong directions. People are often baffled by the fact that you can be very insular and quiet yet you’re happy to perform, it brought out an aspect in me. I find that performance aspect is quiet easy, it’s easier to be up on stage performing than to be in an audience surrounded by people, that got really intense. People would often ask where the energy came from, it’s just there, you have to do it. With some of those double records, and the big Perth shows went for eight hours, that's a long time for anybody to be on stage talking, singing songs and running around. It’s exhausting, but not initially, it takes a couple of days to really catch up. I’m going to take a rest for a while, a long rest. Avoiding the world, that’s what i do best, sitting in a big chair looking at the ocean."

McDermott is not your conventional television personality.

He has no interest in fame, wants nothing to do with television executives and cares little about the much mentioned ratings. "I know channel 10 won’t really like me saying this but i don’t really care about the rating, i never have, i think to me i do something to the best of my ability," he said.

"If for some reason people aren’t watching then I'm not really that concerned. I don’t want ot scrimp or cut corners so more people watch the box so more cars can be sold or so we can have more of those AMP ads. Commercial is commercial, that’s what they drive on but to attempt to win viewers with something that would be false, i wouldn’t even contemplate it."

As for what comes next McDermott has no idea. A book of his newspaper columns is due for release later this year. He also has a collection of hand painted books he hopes to sell.

On Tuesday he will hand over the hosting of the Aria’s to comedian Rove McManus.

A special with Mikey robins, is due to air on October 31, called Paul and the Fatman, may develop into a new series for next year. But the idea of never returning to the small screen does not phase him.

"I don’t think I'd be displeased," he said.

"Before Good News Week there was no interest in me at all as a performer, the only person who supported me was Ted Robinson (executive producer GNW). The powers that be didn’t want me, they were quite adamant, it could have been the dreadlocks, that tragic white Rasta thing never quite worked."

"I’d be quite happy not to open my mouth for a number of years. I really loved doing the show, we performed some radical TV for it’s time. At the time we started working, very few shows in Australian TV allowed those acerbic, witty performers to do what they do best. I’m looking at six months off, i don’t know, I very rarely make decisions on my own life. Some people have five year plans, I'm just a cork from a bottle. I have been lucky with the tides, basically people have been kind to me, I haven't gone out searching for things."

"The final show will be a bit of a celebration."

"I can’t predict the future, there may be tears, I'm not sure, I'll be crying too much."

9 November 2000, Daily Telegraph, Elanor Sprawson, thanks Epod & Jill!
No More Mr Nasty Guy

Paul Mc Dermott is unemployed. He also suspects he is dying. "I'm feeling like a Charles Dickens character, in a little garret, coughing myself to death," says the flu sodden host of Good News Week, which is officially no more. He is not a bit surprised that the end of the show and his own demise ("consumed by phlegm") have coincided. "Most families break up during vacations," he says gloomily. "Disasters usually happen at that moment when you take time off, because you store up all those things you can't look and talk about. "You just keep it all at bay while you complete the tasks you have to do and then, once it's over, you fall apart."

Good News Week is a victim of Ten's tough line on ratings. The last episode of the five year old show has been taped and will air later this month. Meanwhile, Ten has compiled a clips show of highlights, out-takes and behind the scenes goings on which will be broadcast of Tuesday night. While many high points will get a second airing - Mc Dermott's extremely threatening version of the Britney Spears song, "Oops! I did It again" springs to mind - the 38 year old is disappointed the retrospective does not include anything from the years Good News Week was produced for the ABC.

"It's pretty appalling," he says. "You know, the things you do, you don't own. "I've always found that curious. You produce something and then, stupidly you think it's yours. Then you find out there's some contract somewhere that says it's not actually yours, there's some corporation that owns it." Mc Dermott is going through what might be called a blue period.

It is not that he is bitter about the end of Good News Week - he is ready to do something else. But the former member of the ferociaously satirical Doug Anthony Allstars is worried about the viability of anything he would be remotely interested in doing, given the way television seems to be going.

"I don't think there is any room for satire with reality TV and I think that's where we're heading now," he says. This Mac the knife fears reality TV is immune to satire. "It's already satire," he says. "You could not get more satirical than "Search For A Supermodel". Can you imagine it? I was watching that, trying to imagine the guy - or whoever, I assume it was a man - trying to sell the concept. Unbelieveable." He is horrified by the mock suggestion that Ten might try to lure him back in the new year to host their latest reality TV outing, "Big Brother", based on a British model of sticking a bunch of people together in a house and filming everything that goes on.

"No, no! I mean, that's too scary for words," he says, after a shocked coughing fit. It's just the concept - creating these tiny microcosms where people are just chosen for their incompatibility with other people you know. Creating an environment where disaster is only a heartbeat away."

27 March 2002, Inpress, Kate Schmitt, thanks Karen!
A Pauling

Paul McDermott, whose snarling visage once dominated our lounge rooms and whose most barbed of barbs singed our airwaves has vanished from sight and sound. But where did the man voted third sexiest man alive in Who Magazine 1998 disappear to? Where has the national bail of fury been hiding? A search on the Internet reveals a plethora of sites dedicated to Saint Paul. Sites with titles such as paulmcdermottiscute.com. the Paul McDermott Temple website, The Cult of Paul McDermott, and Paul McDermott: The God Site to name a few. Many of the sites are no longer working. They were probably put together by 14 year olds who loved him 4 eva until the next month where they could be found devoutly worshipping at the temple of Human Nature or Pacey of Dawson's Creek. He has been absent for a year after all and we are a fickle lot.

But now he's back. Twice as big, twice as bad, and twice the number of shows (two} at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Comedyoscopy and GUD, Hard Core Cabaret both promise to be huge hits and both feature Paul McDermott doing his shtuff.

So you think you're tunny. There's that story you tell about the waterproof Irish tea bag that usually gets a laugh. But sometimes it falls a little bit flat and you're not sure why. Come and find out what you are doing wrong at show no. 1 - Comedyoscopy- "A discourse on Comedy: Practices. terms and archetypes, with the objective of informing and delighting the audience while exposing the practitioners of this elusive craft. WARNING may not contain humour, may also affect audiences' ability to enjoy other shows".

I ask McDermott if his show will deliver its PR kit promise and be an expose of the tricks of the comedy trade.

"It's like life - a work in progress at the moment," he says "I've seen the audiences over a number of years and it has troubled me that in too many shows people come to the festival and don't know how to react to comedy.

They are just laughing for the sake of it sometimes, willy nilly - not really understanding and very confused after the show So Comedyoscopy is basically making comedy the subject rather than the object and enables people to see comedians for what they are. How they manipulate and use the audience. Take apart jokes, deconstruct them, reconstruct them and enable the audience to then go out and understand more fully how comedy works ''

Kind of comedy 101? -.Yeah, a hard core course in comedy appreciation."

Does he think there will be much animosity amongst other comedians in the same way that magicians despised the traitor that showed the world how the beautiful woman was sawn in half? "I'm going to reveal the 50 magic secrets of the humorist.

And is he going to get personal, for example - this is how Adam Hills goes about getting laughs? "I'm going to steal his material as well. Cos I don't have any I'm going to say "in his show, the brilliant Adam Hills says blah de blah de blah" and I'll get a laugh off that. And then I'll rip it apart. . . maybe. "

I ask him if he will be bringing fellow comedians up on stage to analyse their efforts "Well I thought that would be another good way of approaching it too: " This is such and such and here's her best gag! What do you think of that? Ha!" You know, have the master class We'll get Wil Anderson up and deconstruct his appeal." Which is? "Well, he's very good". I note that he has a kind word to say about everyone. "I love everyone. I used to be bitter and small- minded but now I just think everyone is fantastic... except John Howard." (Who is this bundle of love and what has he done with the surly guy?)

McDermott has performed Comedyoscopy but not to his satisfaction. "In a very rough form, just some of the more comic material rather than the more philosophical aspect that I want to bring to it. Cos I don't think I can actually achieve that... I need to read a few more books about philosophy and what it actually is. I tried to read Freud's treatise on comedy, By Jingo By Crikey which is just basically a lot of jokes about Austrian Jews which I can't use. I thought it would be helpful but 600 pages later... I got nothin. I'm looking at other things, Deleuze, and Guatarri at the moment, but there's not a lot going on in French philosophy in the 1960s." I ask him about the French philosophers -You know, from the Dean Martin song (he starts singing Volare) - Guatarri, Deleuze Guatarri Deleuze. Deleuze has given me wings." I have the sneaking suspicion that he thinks I am an idiot.

Just to sidetrack a little - McDermott's introduction to comedy is just the tip of the iceberg. A world of funny business/strange subculture exists out there of which most of us are unaware. Our Professor Funny is not alone in his dissection of the tricks of the wit trade. You may find some of these books on the shelves of your friendly local comedian: Comedy Writing Step by Step, Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, The Comic Tool Box, How ho Be A Working Comic. An Insider's Guide to A Career In Standup Comedy (by someone you will never have heard of). and Comedy Writing, Teach yourself At the New School University you can study Comedy Theory and Practice. You can also sign up for the Witworld Newsletter, the International Society for Humor Studies, The Australian Journal of Comedy and digest the Readings from the International Conference on Humor

But on with the next show. GUD - Hard Core Cabaret That's a joke. An oxymoron really I'm thinking now I should have called it Urban Decay Cabaret or Moral Decay Cabaret I just think cabaret is the most ridiculous word and we have to bring it out more. Cabaret! Cabaret!, it's so girlie, big, blousey stuff that 14 year-old thespians get into. High kicks and jaunty pianos with glitter hats. It always makes me laugh but that's my own personal sense of perversion...There'll be singin' and stylin'. and raconteuring and (with German accent) I'll play a piano accordion and wear fishnet stockings... it's just comical songs not that comical even...just songs really. More along the lines of an All Stars show. High energy, good musically. its going to be a lot fun. ~

McDermott wrote the songs with Mick Moriarty (The Gadflys) and Cameron Bruce. He once played tunes with Paul Mac on Good News Week " who has become mega- famous. One of the most brilliant songwriters Australia has ever produced He has left us alone, rather wisely, bobbing in the wake of his magnificence." He describes his new pianist buddy, Cameron Bnuce, as "God's gift, a gem, an undiscovered talent and I am hoping that he will take the bulk of the show so l can just sit back and drink which is my forte "

McDermott's plans for this year - "I want to do the Melbourne Comedy Festival as well as I can, to the best of my possible abilities. I'm off the drugs now...for a little while to keep myself good". I tell him that he even managed to say ."good" in a very bad way. ."I know. I have a very weak and shallow personality. I'm not very strong when it comes to too much hedonism A life of just abandonment and hedonism Shocking. I need some discipline...that's what I need. I figure its about time I got a bit of discipline. Last year was essentially a bit of a rest too, because Good News Week had been going for five years and everyone felt exhausted. So I just stayed at home and did little things... (manic laugh) Dear God! A whole year. ..of hedonism, little hedonism."

Other items on the kitchen calendar include more comedy shows, the release of a short film he worked on last year, another book and a musical, The Witches of Eastwick "1'11 be the evil Jack Nicholson character, except shorter and less interesting...it's just something different that I had never even contemplated doing before but I always like playing demonic character (another manic laugh).

So what does the multitalented fellow love doing the most? "The drugs definitely. But I have to find a way to support that, dammit! What do I like doing the most...?''

Well out of the writing. the directing, the illustrating, the acting. the painting. the singing. ''It sounds very pretentious and wanky doesn't it?" He asks

What? Your skill set?

"Yeah."

Not at all You are the renaissance man as it says in every bit of reading material about you "Renaissance renaissance, yeah, that's crappy What a fucking silly bitchin' whole thing I think it's great to be really good at one thing. I just feel really messy and all over the place in being able to do a number of things Also, once I get into one thing and start doing it for a while I just think I don't want to do this anymore. Besides there's just crap everywhere… boxes and boxes of paper Just little scribbled notes that seemed like ideas at one point late at night but you read them and think 'what the fuck?'

"But what do I like most? Probably the painting and drawing I wanted to incorporate that into Comedyoscopy I still may over the course of the four weeks I'm there. I did want to paint something for it and it was quite a visual aspect of the show but now that I have been evicted from my home and my paints and canvas aren't close by anymore so I've had a bit of trouble finding a space I'd like to incorporate it into the show like a Rolf Harris thing cos he is just God when it comes to combining skills. What he can do with an egg carton and a couple of bits of pipe cleaner is phenomenal."

So what do you need to be a veteran comic a la McDermott? Drugs? A Catholic upbringing? A perverse take on life? Paul will continue his quest for the Holy Grail of funny over the next couple of weeks but admits that he does not yet have the answers. "I haven't found the key to the puzzle! I must find the key Or the ring! That's a very popular image at the moment because of the circular nature of it "

Maybe we shouldn't look too closely As he states in his byline: "it is what it is, what it was. what it will be, now or whatever". Whatever it is the quintessential angry, renaissance bad boy is back. And that's the good news.