No Hiding Now

The Age

Thursday November 29, 2007

Wendy Hargreaves

HAUGHTY Young Liberal one day, foolhardy bogan the next. There are many facets to broadcaster and comedian Tony Moclair, but his characters all have one thing in common - they strive to shock.

A rare free-agent in the world of radio, Moclair has characters on rival networks at the same time. Triple J listeners hear his outrageous right-wing tirades under the guise of Young Liberal Stirling Addison (officially in mourning after John Howard's defeat at the weekend), while Triple M is home to regular podcasts and occasional on-air blasts as serial reality TV contestant DJ Domm.

The Melbourne-based comic has made a career out of sending up boofheads, most notably his chart-topping parody of a Greek hoon, Guido Hatzis. And we haven't even started on Bill the hippy Kiwi social worker, a regular on Triple R.

But Moclair's latest foray onto the airwaves is the trickiest of them all. After years of hiding behind radio characters, Moclair will play himself as a summer host on 774 ABC.

From Monday, Moclair will host a yet-to-be-announced shift (probably breakfast) with a soon-to-be-revealed co-host for five weeks (we are tipping a female comic known to 774 listeners). ABC management had not finalised his shift when Green Guide went to print.

The folks at Aunty clearly love Moclair, who has played guest roles at 774 in recent months.

But the summer stint will be his first extended gig. That means no bogan spoofs, no sending up conservatives and definitely no scaring the listeners. This is grown-up radio and Moclair is nervous, even though he has breakfast experience with almost every network.

Speaking to Radio Waves while chasing his 17-month-old son Raphael around the kitchen, Moclair cannot believe his luck.

"It's a huge honour to fill-in for Red (Symons)," Moclair says. "This year is finishing on a high note. It will definitely take two of us to do the job."

Not that he is allowed to confirm the name of his female co-host.

While hosting a daily show on 774, Moclair will be getting simultaneous air time on Triple M as DJ Domm - a former rock patrol driver and self-professed chick magnet who appeared for the first time last month as a podcast but will expand to one-hour shows on 105.1 this summer.

Also at Triple M, Tony Martin's cult show Get This went to air for the last time on Friday, running nearly 20 minutes over as Martin, co-host Ed Kavalee and "button pusher" Richard Marsland played back-to-back sound bites from previous shows.

But the highlight was the amazing timing of Get This producer Nicky Hamilton, who gave birth to a baby boy just 20 minutes before the show started. She even called her on-air colleagues for a report on the delivery.