[rove home] [rove episode guide] [rove transcripts] [rove/pete/corinne/dave pics] TVS MOST WANTED - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - THE GUIDE - BY MICHEAL IDATO After fielding offers from all three commercial networks, Rove Mc Manus launches his new show on Ten tonight. "I feel like a kid in a candy store," he tells Micheal Idato. Rove Mc Manus is a man with a price on his head. Arguably the most promising new TV talent to emerge in the best part of a decade, Mc Manus burst onto the small screen in 1999. He was wooed from the obscurity of community television by Nine, which handed the virtual unknown his very own self titled show. A year later he walked away (well...actually his show actually lasted ten weeks on nine - the last thing he did (on tv) for nine was the millenium special on new years eve - epod) The reaction was intense and immediate. Mc Manus was a wanted man, courted by all three commercial networks - including Nine, which had made the staggering miscalculation of losing him in the first place - with promises of money and varying degrees of creative freedom. "It was nice to think that what I had been doing was being appreciated," the 26 year old says, looking back on the experience. "Or at least that they had watched it enough to say, 'We know who you are and would you like to come and play with us?' However, it wasn't anything that made me feel lke I was suddenly the next big thing." Of the three commercial TV suitors, it was Ten that won his hand in a corporate marriage both parties hope will bear fruit. His new show, titled 'Rove Live' (with the emphasis on "live"), starts this week. It has been a long journey from the underfunded television studios of Melbourne's channel 31, a community station that airs a curious blend of local football, music videos and a live comedy show called, 'The Loft'. When Mc Manus auditioned for a segment on that show in 1996, he didn't just get the gig, he got the gig, being asked to become its host. "He didn't quite know what he wanted", Mc Manus says of the bright eyed young man who, for two years , was the wunderkind of community television. "He knew he wanted to be in television, but didn't quite know what the vehicle was going to be." Mc Manus never really expected the commercial television industry to come knocking and he says he was quite happy where he was. "Now I get paid to do it, which is just a bonus, but I would probably still be on community television if I hadn't been signed. That's what it comes down to : I am doing it for the fun and the love of it." Rove Mc Manus is a nice guy. It's difficult to form any other impression of him. Even at Nine, where he was loved and lost, he is still reffered to fondly - a rare thing in television. He's shy, but immediately friendly. He's also self depreciating, almost to a fault. Give him an opportunity, any opportunity, and he will fire off a joke, the punchline invariably coming at his own expense. Of his own career, he says: "I had found the vehicle that would drive me as far as I wanted to go; we've broken down a few times, but we're getting there." He's being hard on himself - his show on Nine was a commercial success and the fact he was courted by all three commercial networks speaks volumes about his reputation - but it's a typical Mc Manus observation. He has a refreshingly down to earth attitude to showbusiness, wary of the hurricane of hot air industry power brokers are famous for blowing. He might be young, but Mc Manus has learned quickly to take most of it with a grain of salt. "You get a lot of proposals from people and you hear a lot of people who come up and say, 'We have this idea for you', 'We reckon you'd be great for this vehicle or project,' and you soon learn that most of them don't happen. Even if that offer is coming from the biggest network in the country, you still go, 'Right, we'll see'. I never expected it, so it always, and still does, come to a surprise when someone asks me to do anything. A pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless." Fresh from the nursery of community television, his first tast of commercial TV meant playing with the big boys. Melbournes GTV-9 is the television industry's answer to Oxford University, where ancient tradition prevails and the walls are peppered with gods - some living, many dead. The experience, according to Mc Manus, was one he'll never forget. "It didn't disappoint me at all - it's as glamourous as you think it is," he says. "At the same time it's more real than you would think it is. It's not all just stars and the set from whatever program in the loading dock; there are also real people you get to know and become friends with - the crew, the props department, wardrobe. There is this other side, which the outside world sees and you see from the inside, and that's great. But it's not something that is rotten on the inside. I love being there and being a part of it." Despite Nine's preference for clause heavy, long term contracts, Mc Manus was signed only for the year. By the time the contract lasped, there were grumblings from within the Nine bunker. According to sources, Nine wanted to rope the Rove show back inside the creative playpen, having been burned badly by 'The Mick Molloy Show'. Molloy, a successful radio comedian, had been given enormous creative freedom for his show and Nines generosity exploded in its face. The network watched in horror as the costly production wallowed and finally drowed in a pool of lazy comedy and toilet humour. Australian audiences, despite their historic love of a fart joke and the alarming speed at which they embraced 'Russell Gilbert Live', didn't take to the idea at all. Mc Manus is guarded about his departure from Nine, pausing and simply saying: "It was more a case of when they stopped paying me, I went : 'I don't think they want me any more.' It was their call and so I left. After I had left there were discussions, but we couldn't come to an agreement so I decided to look elsewhere." Elsewhere across town at Channel Ten. Mc Manus says the network ofered the most attractive package, but there was also its comic reputation, established by the 'Good News Week' team and 'The Panel'. The show Mc Manus has developed with Ten is more tonight show than straight comedy. "There will be guests, bands, comedians, sketches - the same as last year - but there will be more concentration on the live element, the studio audience, which we didn't do last year. And from what I hear, I'm still in it, which is a relief," he jokes. "Channel Ten has a very good sense of television comedy which I like. From the talks we have been having I feel there is a lot of support for me and what I want to do. And Bert Newton is there, which will always get any network across the line." Ah yes, The Bert Factor. The comparison pops up frequently, particularly in the Melbourne press, where Newton, and his peer Graham Kennedy, are regarded as broadcasting gods. "There's no pressure, right?" laughs Mc Manus when the comparison is mentioned. "But I would always rather be the first Rove Mc Manus than the next anyone else. There already is a Bert Newton and he does well enough to not have anyone like me come along and try to do what he does." Is this all just part of the Mc Manus schtick? The adoration of Bert, the love of wrestling, the constant homage to pop culture? Mc Manus denies there is a schtick, insisting that aside from some small measure of inflated performance, what you see - the self depreciating, cheeky, pop cultural Rove is what you get. "That's pretty much me," he confesses. "I maybe talk about wrestling more when I'm at home than I would on television, though I probably talk about it too much anyway. The way I am on televison is pretty much the way I am in real life - you just up it that extra notch because you're on camera. It's not a character." Fame, however represents a more complex challenge. Asked about it, Mc Manus fires off the quickest joke he can lay his hands on : "Fame - good tv show. I liked the charater Leroy and there should be more leg warmers on television." Boom, boom. But seriously folks. "Fame is such a weird word," he says, pausing. "I am still the same guy I was, before people knew who I was, before I had a TV profile. And I always find it so strange that because you now associate with people that non television people see as stars, instead of bringing celebrity X down to my level and thinking they must be a normal person, instead I am thrust up to 'You're a big superstar like them', when it's not the case." "That's a strange perception which I still don't understand. That's how I see fame. It's not the reason I do this, so I guess in that regard I don't really think about it all that much. It's not a priority. My reasons for wanting to be in the industry are a little selfish in that I just want to have fun. I enjoy doing thisand there are a million people who would kill, at the very least, to have a job they love so much they would do it for free. "I am doing it for the fun and the love of it, and that's why I do feel like a kid in a candy store, which is good. Only now I have pocket money to spend." [rove home] [rove episode guide] [rove transcripts] [rove/pete/corinne/dave pics] |
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