Paul McDermott susects 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 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 all those things that you can't look at or can't talk about.

"You just keep it all at by while you complete the tasks you have to do, and then once it's over, you fall apart."

A victim of poor ratings, the last episode of the five-year-old show, Good News Week - The Closing Ceremony, has been taped and will air on Tuesday.

Recorded at Sydney's Capitol Theatre in front of a capacity audience of 2000 last week, the show, which began at the ABC, promises to be bigger than Flacco's bald spot.

"Regrets, I've had a few," Flacco reportedly told the crowd. "I regret moving to commercial television....and still not being rich."

For the last time, two teams will battle it out for no prizes. These will be tag teams of those who have made the show what it is came to be - many got their "breaks' on the show.

Guests include Natasha Stott Despoja, Rove McManus, James O'Loghlin, Kate Fischer, Richard Fidler, Johanna Griggs, Rod Quantock and Peter Berner.

Anastacia will perform live on stage, and The Sandman, Flacco and Mark Trevorrow (Bob Downe) will be on board for the grand finale. And, of course, McDermott will sing.

The 38-year-old is going through what might be called a blue period.

It's not that he's bitter about the end of Good News Week. He's ready to do something else.

It's just that the former member of the ferociously satirical Doug Anthony All Stars is worried about the viability of finding something he'd be remotely interested in because of the way television appears to be headed.

The word from Ten is the GNW team will be back with a new show next year. "We're talking about several different things," said Good News Week producer Ted Robinson.

"We've got a few options, a few idea we've been discussing with the network but nothing's locked in yet."

Adds McDermott: "I don't think there's any room for satire with reality TV and I think that's where we're heading now".

And unfortunately, he 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. Unbelievable." He is horrifies by the mock suggestion that Ten might try to lure him back in the new year to host its 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."

the nastiness of it all, in fact, has led him to decide that whatever it is he does next in television - if anything - will be for the forces of niceness.

"I've been evil for too long now," he laughs.

"I want to do something for positive energy, rather than evil sarcastic-ness and bile that we've been churning out for five years."

Whether television will let him is anither matter. "If you were sensible at the moment you'd be doing reality TV show so I don't know what the other options are, really," he reflects.

"But I still like working in the ... um... in the television, um ... industry ...," he says slowly, before chuckling at his own lack of conviction.

"Do I? Yeah. No, I think so. I think I'll still be doing it.

"I just need to basically get over this flu and have a bit of a rest."

Good News Week host Paul McDermott has no problem dishing out his own acerbic humour, but what happens when the tables are turned? 'I find it strange being interviewed,' he confesses nervously. 'Actually, I hate it.' Relax, Paul, this won't hurt a bit (well, not much...)

How do yo like being known as the 'thinking women's crumpet'?

 It's offensive, but I just don't believe it. I don't feel like a crumpet at all. It's a bit too late, isn't it? I'm a haggard old man.

Don't be so self-deprecating, Paul, you look fine from where we standing. What do you see when you look in the mirror?

I think I'm too fat and my cheeks are puffy. Only kidding, I'm just being a woman!

Funny. When was the last time someone outwitted you?

My greengrocer does it all the time. 'That'll be another 20 cents please.' I'm conned left, right and centre by small businesses all around Australia.

How did you feel after the Doug Anthony All Stars disbanded?

I went to Thailand and sought solace in pills and alcohol.

So, what's next for you?

People are such a burden. I think I'll become a hermit. I haven't done that yet. I might put a few books out - art-oriented ones.

You mean, coffee table books?

Ooooh (sharp intake of breath). Not that type.

Do you plan to have kids sometime?

I'm not planning any. I'm not very good with kids?

Is that because you're still a bit of kid yourself?

That could be the reason, My attitude is totally different toward most people's and if everyone felt like me, we'd be dead within a generation. I'm afraid of passing on aspects of my dark nature...

If they were making a film about your life, who would you want to play you?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame or the Elephant Man.

If you were interviewing you, what question would you ask you?

I'd ask if I want to go for a drink

Right then let's go. Your shout.

See Paul on Good News Week, Saturdays at 9:30pm on Ten)

NB - article written before the death of GNW

For an Alternative world view, ex-Doug Anthony Allstar Paul McDermott is your man.

In an episode of the Doug Anthony Allstars' anarchic televised comedy show, D.A.A.S Kapital, Tim Ferguson asked Doug-Mate Paul McDermott to describe his life. "My Life" wailed McDermott, "Is a cumulus cloud that rains misery over the flooded fields of my tragic memory… My life is like a young virgin girl, unsoiled, trying to find a youth hostel in Marakech but accidentally stumbling into a Turkish bordello, bathhouse and opium den. I hate my life! I hate my life!" The audience thought he was joking.

"I never feel really too stable," confesses McDermott, 33, comedian, singer, painter, writer, and razor sharp compere of Good News Week ABCTV's newest satire, in which two competing teams of celebrities attempt to wittily deconstruct the week's news. "I always feel agitated, permanently agitated."

It's a state that has worked for him, both during his eight-year stint with the Allstars and since they disbanded at the end of 1994. In the past six months he has written and starred in Mosh, a frenetic mix of dance, song and acerbic McDermott monologues set against a rave party and based, he says, on "My drug-addled observations when I've been abusing substances". Mosh has just finished its run at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and may tour nationally later in the year. Critiques of the show have ranged from "Often Hilarious" to "an Ugly… grubby, cheap piece of undergraduate cabaret".

McDermott is also painting a series of small landscapes in oils for an exhibition and working on a film script and an album of his own compositions. "I always feel I've got to rid myself of something," He says "I don't know what it is but I hate having it stored inside me. I hate having ideas or thoughts crusting up my skull."

McDermott is sitting uncharacteristically still on the end of a futon bed in the loft of his Melbourne warehouse home. Amid the clutter on a desk at one end of the room is a box of assorted glass eyes he brought in India, a cross-sectioned plastic medical torso and a container of paintbrushes. A display of antique wooden skulls, also from India, sits on a chest. Though McDermott spends most of his time in Sydney these days where Good News Week is taped, this room is him: artistic, macabre, witty and, on good days, bathed in sunlight.

Good Days? "I'm getting to be a grumpy old man," he smirks "I can't do anything lately without complaining about it. I'm not sure if that’s mellowing or just a different outlet for the bitterness."

The second eldest - Paul is one minute younger than his twin Sharon - of John, a retired senior public servant, and housewife Betty's six children, he traces his angst back to stifling school days at Canberra's Marist College. The School's Priority, he says, was "to make a good football team so that you could impress other Catholic schools in the area with your brute strength and machismo". His interest in art, he says, "might as well have been witchcraft". Every year at school "felt like a step deeper and deeper into a limbo or abyss".

After completing Year 12 and spending two years abroad, McDermott enrolled in a Canberra art school and hit his stride. "That was the first time in my life I actually felt like I was alive." He says. In '85, while performing street theatre with a group of art students called Gigantic Fly, McDermott met Tim Ferguson (The first Doug to turn TV frontman now hosting the Nine Network game show Don't Forget Your Toothbrush) and Richard Fidler who, with Robert Piper, were doing comedy routines around Canberra as the Doug Anthony Allstars, allegedly named after the former Country Party leader. Piper left to live overseas, the Allstars asked McDermott to Join and one of Australia's most successful comedy exports - Eight international festivals including hit seasons at the Edinburgh Festival - was born. "The primary reason for joining the Allstars was monetary," says McDermott "I'd been stealing canvas from the bins around the art school."

"In the early stages we used to rely more on song parodies," recalls Richard Fidler, 31, who became the willing fall guy for much of the group's subsequent cruel humour. What did McDermott bring to the group? "The Voice of an angel" says Fidler, "and a personal hygiene problem." For Fidler, who now lives in Sydney and produces entertainment CD-ROMs, a highlight of MOSH "was to see that Paul has finally got himself a costume without sleeves in it"

"There definitely is a 'Paul Smell' but you come to love it when you know him pretty well," laughs comedian Wendy Harmer, 40, who shared a house with McDermott in Melbourne (with few fights over the shower, it seems.) in the mid-'80's. Harmer describes McDermott, whose MOSH monologue includes references to bestiality, masturbation, social diseases, cancer and drugs, as "incredibly sweet natured. He always makes beautiful home-made birthday cards with his drawings on them and writes you poetry and sends lovely letter when he's away."

Ted Robinson, who as the former head of ABC-TV comedy invited the Allstars to appear on 1989's The Big Gig, has smelled the smell and seen the complexity. "He's paranoid, he's a fascist, but he's also capable of being warm and generous." Adds Robinson, "if he's not being suicidal. There's an intensity about everything he does. No wonder he pulls the birds."

"I'm in love every 25 seconds of every day." Says the currently single McDermott. Not that love takes away his edge. "There's a permanent part of myself that is reserved for being upset and depressed. I don't think I necessarily take that out on the people I'm with."

He's occasionally tried to block those shadows. "Drugs are good forms of escape but they have their own agitations," says the comic, "whether it's stomach cramps or a sudden concern that your respiratory system is failing or your kidneys have fallen out your back.

"Sleeping is good," he adds, "But even then I have bad dreams." Woody Allen-esque angst aside, "He was always the one who would say 'I love your hair' or 'that's a great frock'" says Harmer "What more do you want from a fella?"

*don't know where this is from.......Thanks to DG for typing it*

Published in Sunday Mail TV Plus November 26, 2000 (Adelaide) by Rachel Hancock

Julie McCrossin is used to discussing a serious issue one minute and rolling around with laughter the next.

But this time around, she won’t have to contend with the loveable antics of her Good News Week colleagues Mikey Robbins and Paul McDermott.

She’s flying solo – and loving every minute of it.

Her own talk show, McCrossin, debuts this week on the ABC-TV, the station which launched Julie’s television career.

Julie describes her 30-minute talk show as "sophisticated and entertaining". She’s not afraid to canvas the big issues with a dash of humor.

"It’s not comedy, nor is it news and current affairs" Julie said.

Each of the seven episodes centres around a theme, from great survivors to Aboriginal hereos and children of prominent figures.

A number of guests join Julie in the studio and via satellite, including Thredbo disaster survivor Stuart Diver, with each episode concluding with a live contemporary music act reflecting the mood of the night’s show.

"People really want to hear Australians speaking about things that matter," Julie said. "They want to be entertained, but they also want strong themes.

"We have not had an Australian show like this for a while. It’s a night-time chat show, it’s quite pacy and that’s the challenge for me, to get people to talk about really big, personal things in a relatively short period of time"

Surprisingly, comedy was never Julie’s first choice. "Journalism is more my thing. I never considered myself a comedian, but I do enjoy being in front of an audience and getting to the meat and potatoes."

Julie said she will miss working with Robbins and McDermott, the trio having formed a unique bond over the years. "Good News Week helped me to feel really happy and comfortable in front of cameras and crowds," she said.

"I have had hundreds of hours on the set and even through taping McCrossin was different because I was out there without Mikey and Paul, I felt really relaxed.

"I can handle all sorts of people and the capacity to jump from the serious to light hearted."