Suddenly you’re not so excited anymore. It dawns on you that she’s been lying this whole time. It’s not about doing what makes you happy – it’s about paying for her goddamn retirement. “Well, sorry Mum,” you think. “Being the host of Channel 31’s Studio A may not make me big, but I’m in the process. And isn’t it the journey that counts anyway?”
Now the above story features a hypothetical mother and comedian, so when I start talking about Studio A’s actual host, Tommy Little, please refrain from a direct association between the two. Little does often talks about his mother though – in that self-deprecating way that comedians like to pretend that their mum is their only fan. For example, she constitutes the half in his six-and-a-half Twitter followers (because somebody else set up her profile) and she is his only blog reader. In reality Little is so painfully amiable that his mother has undoubtedly made peace with the ever increasing company of admirers that began joining her ever since she made the mistake of letting him out of her womb. And now he is charming the estimated 43,000 viewers of the only live comedy tonight show in Australia, although he denies fame.
“The first show I did as a cast member,” says Little, “I had a guy come up to me the next day and he said, ‘Hey you’re the new guy on Studio A,’ and I was like, ‘Awesome! Yes that’s me! This is gonna happen all the time!’ Turns out he worked in the crew on the show,” he laughs charismatically into the phone while I manically click the ‘like’ button on his Facebook page and wish you could like something more than once. It turns out that the chumminess with his fellow cast members on the show (Cambo, Karl Chandler, Luke McGregor, Nick Cody, Tegan Higginbotham and Xavier Michelides) is as sincere as it looks. “We stage it. I hate the guys,” he jokes. “But that means our acting skills are getting better.”
Because Channel 31 is a community channel, you might hold the misguided view that its shows are of a community kind of quality – basically, bad. But Studio A, now in its fifth season, often plays host to many a famous comic – such as the beloved Josh Thomas, Dave Thornton and Justin Hamilton. Plus, Little says that the show’s crew (and himself) are some of the best comedians in the country. This is a fact. “I think it’s in Wikipedia if you look it up in the right spot,” he attests.
And really, it is the community nature of the channel that gives Melbourne an industry edge over other cities in Australia – that and the fact that it has the best comedians. “The show is the only show like it in the country and it’s fun and it’s funny but it’s also a training ground for people and comedians who want to be involved in the media,” Little says. “We’re lucky in Melbourne. Particularly with the nature of commercial television the way it is at the moment. You can often get one and a half shows in and you’re axed already. So you have nowhere really to get your chops up.”
The show’s funding comes from few sources, one of which is the annual fundraising event.
“It’s just a big night of comedy, so I’ll host it and then I’ll bring the comedians out and they kind of do 10 to 15 minutes each,” says Little. “It’s just an awesome event and it provides us with the money to make a TV show which we otherwise wouldn’t be able to do. It allows us to have things like props and sketches and stuff like that,” he laughs.
