Australian kids’ shows can be truly strange. Hell, I should know: I hosted one. Ten years ago this year, I hosted an incredibly ambitious and bombastic kids’ show on the ABC called Steam Punks, in which I played a Dickensian nitwit who trapped children in the belly of a sentient machine, then quizzed them into a stupor. We shot 40 half-hour episodes in three weeks, and it aired for five years. It remains my proudest and weirdest professional achievement.
Because of the bonkers shooting schedule, the first time the kids met me was on camera, in character, screaming at them whilst checking my fob watch and hopping about like a mustachioed maniac. And every time the machine frightened me with her terrible klaxon, I’d take it upon myself to scream like a maniac and yell the name of a person, place or thing I admired. The whole thing was an absolute blast.
