http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...8-7582,00.html Gag order imposed of Triple M's own free Wil - <LI class=byline>Sally Jackson
- March 29, 2007
COMEDIANS Wil Anderson and Anthony "Lehmo" Lehmann warn nothing will be off limits when they unleash their new Triple M drive-time program in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide on Monday. Except good taste.
Anderson says existing drive shows unimaginatively confine themselves to offering either serious news or gags. He asks: why not combine them? "There's nothing at all you can't make fun of if you do it in the right way," he insists. "You can find a way to do material about euthanasia or abortion comedically.
"There are always funny angles," agrees Lehmann. "We'll take serious news topics and completely mock and disrespect them."
The duo is considering instituting a "too soon" barometer, letting listeners vote on whether a topic - the murder of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, say - is still too raw to mine for laughs.
Triple M executives can't claim they didn't know what they were in for. They have reportedly been wooing the 33-year-old Anderson for years but he was busy at the ABC, first doing breakfast radio on Triple J, later presenting television panel show The Glass House.
Late last year, however, when Triple M was looking for a new drive show to replace the Shebang, which was moving to the early slot in Sydney after abandoning an experiment with a national breakfast show, the ABC controversially decided to axe The Glass House.
"The great thing about being sacked publicly is that people know you're available," Anderson says.
The Shebang ended last year as the second most popular drive show in Brisbane, fourth in Melbourne and fifth in Sydney and Adelaide.
Guy Dobson, group program director with Triple M owner Austereo, believes Anderson will prove "a good brand fit".
"That cheekiness, the slight irreverence, and the topicality ... Wil has always researched very well with our audience, and not just with men but our female listeners, as well," he says.
Lehmann, 37, is an accountant-turned-comedian from Adelaide. For the past four years he has been co-hosting the breakfast show on Austereo's SA FM, but says relocating to Sydney has not been a wrench. When he told his girlfriend about the move, he says "I looked up and the chair was spinning, there was a puff of dust. She was already at the airport."
The two are hoping for an odd-couple chemistry, with footy-loving Lehmann the self-described "blokey-bloke" and Anderson the self-described "wacky female sidekick".
Hosting drive isn't their only gig. Lehmann also appears on the Ten network's AFL panel show Before the Game and Anderson writes a funny, punny column for newspaper insert publication The Sunday Magazine (published by News Limited, which also owns The Australian).
But both say it is their priority.
"Up to now I feel I've been learning ... but I've come into this with a bit of experience and a vision of what I want to do with it," Anderson says. "This is the good job - the one I don't want to f-- up."