Tom Gleeson

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Roles:

Taskmaster

Biography

Thomas Francis Gleeson (born on 2 June 1974) is an Australian stand-up comedian, writer, and television and radio presenter.

His first stage appearance was as the character 'Malcolm', dressed in a flannelette shirt, tracksuit pants, and a wig. He later went on to perform at major comedy events including the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Adelaide Fringe, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Perth Fringe World, Edinburgh Fringe, and Montreal Comedy Festival.

From 2003 to 2004, he appeared in Network Ten's comedy sketch programme skitHOUSE, playing various characters including the 'Australian Fast Bowler', a parody of Dennis Lillee.

Between 2004 and 2005, he presented the Sydney and Melbourne evening radio programme Tom & Subby, with Subby Valentine, on Triple M.

In 2006, he won Australia's Brainiest Radio Star.

In 2007, he entertained Australian troops on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wrote of this experience in his book Playing Poker with the SAS: A comedy tour of Iraq and Afghanistan, which was published in 2008.

In 2008, he was a panellist on the short-lived TV show Big Brother's Big Mouth.

He made several appearances on Good News Week between 2008 and 2011.

In 2009, he presented the Melbourne radio breakfast programme Mix Mornings, with Brigitte Duclos, on Mix 101.1, and appeared in the They don't get it in Australia advertising campaign, where he asked people in the US about Red Rooster.

In 2013, he co-hosted Australian comedy chat show This Week Live, with Tommy Little, Dave Thornton and Meshel Laurie.

In 2015, he appeared on the ABC satirical television news programme The Weekly, with Charlie Pickering, hosting the segments 'This Is What You Think', 'Go Away' and 'Hard Chat'.

In 2016, he began presenting the show Hard Quiz, a spin-off of his 'Hard Chat' segment from The Weekly.

In 2017, he was credited with the decision to cast Sophie Monk as the lead in The Bachelorette Australia.

Three of Tom's stand-up shows have been nominated for the Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performer: Tom On! (2007), Up Himself (2011), and Quality (2014). His stand-up show Joy (2019) won Best Comedy at Perth Fringe World, and his show Lighten Up (2020) won Best Comedy at the Adelaide Fringe. In 2019, he won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Television.

[Source: Wikipedia, 09/10/2022.]