“Everyone knows she’s the most misbehaved dog on the river,” Myf Warhurst says as we reach the bank of the Yarra, well north of the city in the outer Melbourne suburb of Warrandyte. “Naughty and orange-haired.” As if on cue, Vyvyan – spelt like her namesake from the cult 80s comedy The Young Ones, also naughty and orange-haired – bounds into the water the moment she’s unleashed.
Warhurst is as effervescent and funny in person as she appears on our screens and airwaves, her raspy voice bringing a sardonic edge to her warm, self-deprecating sense of humour. She is a juggler. “I get busy busy busy, and can do a million things at once.” But she’s enjoying the serenity the proximity to the Yarra affords her. After years attached to other people’s projects – Spicks and Specks, but also large chunks of her radio career – Warhurst is finally making her own way.
