Paul McDermott

Paul McDermott describes his new show, Paul Sings as “A baptism of love. It's an all encompassing, glorious, wonderful romp through my heart. I have a little cornflake heart, it's like a little black cornflake.  Burnt to a crisp. You know those black cornflakes you occasionally get in the cornflake packet? I'm pretty sure that's what my heart looks like.”

The show has been billed as being serious, but McDermott says that's not the case. “I don't know who bills these damn things. It's not serious. It's a bit of a different show for me because it's primarily singing and songs, which is different. And the songs aren't comedy songs, so there's a different response from the audience, it's a far more emotional, connective response. There's certainly a lot of comedy in it. It's just the songs aren't comedy songs. I still talk to people and still discuss stuff and tell stories. And certainly people aren't pissing themselves laughing when they're hearing those stories. The songs are very beautiful, we've had people crying at the shows which is interesting. I've had people cry at my comedy before, but not in this way. But some of the songs are affecting and touching. The comedy's good, the songs are great, the singing's beautiful, the band are superb.”

Many of the songs are from McDermott's Doug Anthony All Stars days and some are drawn from Good News Week. “Most of the songs have never been performed live, they were just written for television and forgotten about and so it's great to bring them back to life and have another look at them,” says McDermott. “There's dozens more out there too, ones that I know we've performed but I can't write music so I never write down any chords or anything, so we have to construct them again from scratch because we can't find them on YouTube.”

But he is grateful that YouTube didn't exist when he first started out. “The first time we did this Paul Sings show, it was up on YouTube the next morning. Which is just part of the new world, I suppose, you can't stop the tide. Now, when we do these shows, especially when we perform out in the street, everyone has an iPhone or a camera, and everyone's filming and they're not looking at you so much as much as they're looking at the footage on their iPhone. I find it very bizarre. I'm just grateful it wasn't around when we were starting out, because we did some terrible things. We would have had jail time with some of the things we did when we were young.” Will anyone be offended by his current show? “Well, I do swear a lot. I enjoy swearing. And some of the stories are quite graphic. But it is comical.”

WHAT: Paul Sings
WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 2 to Friday 3 May, Enmore Theatre