In opting for intelligence and wit over hype and glamour, the ABC's weekly news review may end up in anarchy. JANE FREEMAN reports.

PAUL McDermott says his new ABC show takes television back to what it used to be - live to air, black and white, single cam. Actually, the show is none of those things, but he claims the spirit of the olden times will creep through.

McDermott, best known as the aggressive-on-stage, creative-off-stage force behind the anarchic singing comedy act the Doug Anthony Allstars, is the host of the ABC's new satirical current affairs game show, Good News Week . "There's a lot of excitement in this show," he says, "a sense of going back to the days when television was filmed live in front of an audience. We've seen so much hype and glamour in television - this show relies on people's intelligence and wit."

The program is modelled on the cultish BBC show Have I Got News For You , in which two teams, consisting of two permanent team leaders and various weekly guests, pit wits as they ad lib gags about the news stories, headlines, footage and photographs. It's risky business because, if the talent flounders under the pressure, so does the show. McDermott says the Australian version, with team captains Mikey Robins and Anthony Ackroyd, will start off as derivative of the British program but gradually evolve into a unique Australian style and format. As a proponent of original Australian television ideas, ìI think it's essential that it evolve', he says earnestly.

McDermott, who occasionally looks disturbingly like Tom Hanks gone punk-and-gel, launches into a sweeping indictment of television comedy. While saying he admires the pioneering work of The Comedy Company , he says they chose easy targets, racial and social stereotypes. And the thought of the long-lived success of Hey Hey It's Saturday makes him blanch into his pot of tea.

McDermott believes comedy should have the ability to change people's ideas and concepts and to challenge the status quo aggressively. Good News Week , he believes, does a bit of that and, in an impressive display of television faith, the ABC has already commissioned 50 shows. Some of McDermott's best memories of his Doug Anthony Allstars days centre on The Big Gig and being able to do jokes about Salman Rushdie almost as soon as the fatwah was issued.

"The ABC were terrified there was going to be a backlash (after the Rushdie jokes), but there was that adrenalin, that feeling of being right in the moment," he says.

Good News Week will not be live to air but will be shown just days after it is taped. In dealing with the news stories of the week, McDermott intimates the show will be almost as bad and edgy as DAAS, a group renowned for having the bad taste to do Kurt Cobain jokes when the sound of the shot that killed him was still reverberating.

"I've never been one to stay away from putting the boot into the corpse until the body is cold," McDermott grins.

DAAS broke up in 1994, just after being offered its own series by Channel Four in Britain. Before that, the group had the ABC series DAAS Kapital , appeared on The Big Gig and worked extensively in the UK. Since the split, McDermott has been cruising quietly, spending a lot of time lying on the beach and taking long walks. He says he never really liked the idea of performing; he was a shy, retiring writer who just accepted that he had to get up on stage if he wanted to express his ideas.

His more recent work has included taking part in the Comedy Festival debate last year and putting together his theatre show, Mosh. Now he has had to add reading newspapers to a busy schedule that includes doing some work on Triple J with Angela Catterns and taking Mosh to festivals in Adelaide and Melbourne .

Meanwhile, former band-mate Tim Ferguson has been romping all over the box on Channel Nine with Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and other assorted specials.

McDermott is keen to point out that there is not some kind of causal relationship between DAAS and game shows.

"This is not really a game show; there are no prizes, no seduction of the audience with money. It's a joke on a game show."

-Jane Freeman

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