Paul McDermott (comedian)

Paul McDermott
Paul McDermott at the DAAS Kapital DVD launch, April 2013.
Born	(1962-05-13) 13 May 1962 (age 54) Adelaide, South Australia
Medium	Stand-up, television, radio, books
Nationality	Australian
Years active	1985–present
Genres	Musical comedy, news satire
Subject(s)	Drama, art
Partner(s)	Melissa Lyne (1 child)
Notable works and roles	Doug Anthony All Stars, Good News Week

Paul Anthony Michael McDermott (born 13 May 1962) is an Australian comedian, actor, writer, director, singer, artist and television personality. As a comedian, he is best known both for Good News Week and for his role as a member of the musical comedy group the Doug Anthony All Stars, which disbanded in 1994 but reformed in 2014; he has also performed individually and as a part of GUD. He has frequently appeared at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and taken part in its two major televised productions, the Comedy Festival Gala and the Great Debate. He has also hosted two other ABC programs and briefly featured on Triple J as a morning radio presenter between 1996 and 1997. He hosted Good News Week until 2012, and has since pursued his painting career, and given a series of concerts featuring self-penned songs of a more serious nature.

McDermott is a published author, having released several books both in collaboration with the Doug Anthony All Stars and individually. He has written as a columnist for a number of Australian newspapers and a selection of his columns have been compiled into a book, The Forgetting of Wisdom. He has also written and illustrated two storybooks, both of which have been adapted into short films with McDermott scripting, directing, performing and painting all of the animations.

McDermott was born in Adelaide, South Australia, a fraternal twin and one of six children in a Catholic family. His father, John, was a senior public servant and his mother, Betty, a home manager. The family moved to Canberra when McDermott was three. He attended Marist College Canberra, where he describes himself as having been painfully shy and a "bit of a loner"; Dickson College; and the Canberra School of Art at the Australian National University, where he studied art for four years. He describes painting as his first love, and still considers his final year piece at art school to be his finest work. Indeed, he only started performing at the age of 25 because he needed money to buy canvases. "It was either that or waiting on tables and I thought I'd soon get pissed off with people doing that," he says. Privately, McDermott maintains his interest in art through painting, drawing and hand-crafting books. He works under the alias of artist 'Young Master Paul'.