THERE’S a serious side to comedian and all-round firebrand Paul McDermott – and he’s back in his hometown exploring it.

That said, it’s not all that serious, for “Paul McDermott Plus One – Blood Orange”, performed with self-styled “rock god” Glenn Moorhouse, is likely to bring the house down.

And with just as much absurd vulgarity as in the heady days of the Doug Anthony Allstars when, along with Richard Fidler and Tim Ferguson, he trod the world stage shocking and annoying people.

Now at age 61, McDermott is a sort-of respectable father and enjoying the freedom of a residency at the Canberra Theatre, where he and Moorhouse can “work ideas”.

“It’s very exciting at this time of life to be a little bit independent and it’s great to have a supportive team at the Canberra Theatre,” Mcdermott says.

He’s back in the town that was home to him from age three until about his early 20s. He still has family here and once more finds himself at the centre of political turmoil, where, he believes, his new show will be “quite appropriate”.

I catch up with McDermott and Moorhouse at The Courtyard Studio after they’ve been hard at work all day, thinking.

“Blood Orange” is their third collaboration in three years and, in their view, it’s the best, as they’ve kicked off the gloom of the pandemic seen in the previous “Paul + 1” shows.

Now more or less mature-aged, (we debate as to whether 61 is the new 41 or the new 51) he declares, “my irreverence hasn’t abated”.

That willingness to go where angels fear to tread emanates from his time as a schoolboy at Marist College in the heyday of “rugger-bugger and overt masculinity, which I didn’t enjoy”. 

However, his youth wasn’t entirely miserable and after school he enrolled in the graphic investigation workshop at the School of Art under legendary Czech-born artist Petr Herel.

“Graphic investigation doesn’t exist anymore, but it was great,” he says.

“It was a different kind of art, it allowed everyone to follow their own course, so that some people did scribbles on plaster and some made cities of books.”

While the Catholic system “binds you”, this was the first time he felt he was with like-minded people, even though Herel copped a lot of flak from other staff members for being “too European”.

It wasn’t long before he discovered the uni bar, took a vacant spot alongside Fidler and Ferguson in the Doug Anthony Allstars and became hot for several years touring the world until Ferguson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and they disbanded.

But McDermott was to experience even more fame when from 1996 he hosted the outrageous TV show, “Good News Week”, famous for introducing good talkers such as Mikey Robbins and Julie McCrossin, the latter significant in a time when comedy was male-dominated.

Fast-forward decades to 2020 and the enforced isolation during covid.

“I loved it, I got away from people to spend time with my family, and I survived… I had a lovely time and so did lots of other visual arts people and poets, he says.

“I know some people had a really rough time, but not me.”

Emerging from covid, he and he and Moorhouse, a Tasmanian muso with a huge career behind him, were able to work up three shows and, hearkening back to his Doug Anthony Allstars days, broke down the “fourth wall” of the theatre to busk after performances by taking people on a wander where anything could happen – people would stop and honk their horns.

The pair wanted to create “a larger piece with a longer life” and McDermott believes that in “Blood Orange”, billed as “a sweet-voiced assault on hypocrisy”, they’ve hit gold.

“It’s the third and the best of the three shows, it’s monumental,” he says. “Certain politicians are lambasted, but mine is the view from the sidelines, not like Max Gillies.

“The show is essentially about three things – the fall of empire, the rise of women and masturbation.

“It’s funny, it’s got all the hallmarks of what I’ve done before, but now I’m embracing the wonderment.”

“Paul McDermott Plus One – Blood Orange”, The Playhouse, November 17.