Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Australia & NZInterviews

Meet the Fabulous Adam Richard – Part Two

Luka Musicki

This is a continuation from Part One of the Interview with the Australian comedian, actor, radio presenter, writer and first openly gay Australian media personality. It is, of course, the Fabulous Adam Richard! If you want to read Part One, click here.

L.M.: So, tell us more about the acting and writing part? So, you are a writer for Hard Quiz, and acting on True Murder, Outland, and Celebrity Splash!

A.R.: Yeah, as mentioned, have been writing for Hard Quiz since the pilots and the first series of ten episodes back in 2016. Outland was a narrative comedy series I co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in for Princess Pictures and ABC TV, where I learned so much about acting on the job. I’m not great at it, but having experienced artists like Toby Truslove, Ben Gerrard, Roz Hammond and Christine Anu on set meant I was spoiled for choice when it came to learning the craft. The director, Kev Carlin, I had worked with years earlier on oz.com.edy and his advice was also invaluable. I mean, this is the guy who directed the sketches that introduced Kath & Kim, and he created the look of Wentworth as the director of the first episodes of that amazing series. We were truly blessed to have him. True Murder was a comedy special made for the ABC’s Fresh Blood initiative, written by the hilarious Becky Lucas and Cameron James, and directed by the wonderful Greta Lee Jackson. That was essentially an afternoon mucking about with some comedy mates, so I don’t know if that counts as acting… As to Celebrity Splash, I know people presume that reality TV shows are all acting, but we really did go up to the top of the towers in the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, and we really did dive into the water in front of a live audience and we really were judged by Olympians like Matthew Mitcham, Greg Louganis and Alisa Camplin, and I really was trained in how to dive by Olympic medalist Loudy Wiggins, so there was too much blind terror about plummeting into clear water from a five meter platform to allow any room for acting.

L.M.: And how accurate is Wikipedia about yourself, or was it a mistake to do research on Wikipedia? This is the thing though, Wikipedia might be good for a quick bio, but never truly relatable. I am aware of the Creative Representation CV covering my research here. I have a LGBTIQA+ and Modelling CV/Resume, other than a work one, it might hard to keep up with various media projects, right?

A.R.: Look, we have blanket ‘no Wikipedia’ rule at Hard Quiz, and most quiz shows I’ve worked on, but that’s not because it’s inaccurate. It’s because it can change when you’re not looking. Anybody can change it. You can make it a list of horrifically libellous things, if you want to, and they’ll stay there until someone changes it. My Wikipedia entry is mostly true, today, except for the bit about completing the Professional Writing and Editing diploma at RMIT University. First off, it was RMIT TAFE, and secondly, I didn’t finish. I started getting standup comedy work, and regularly paid work at that, so I figured as a TAFE course it had done what it set out to do, which was get me into gainful employment, and I never got around to completing some of the compulsory subjects.

Yeah, I’m 54. Ten years of breakfast radio hours and the lack of sleep inherent in doing them is detrimental to the memory. And I’ve had covid a couple of times. It’s like swiss cheese up there between my ears now, but I remember most of the good things, some of the bad. If you gave me a list of things I’ve done, it’s probably a lot more than I recall.

L.M.: Do you have a coming out story, or were you naturally fabulous throughout your career?

A.R.: I mean every gay person knows you never come out just once. You’re constantly coming out. It’s why we wear rainbow lanyards, so we don’t have to come out to yet another person at work. Also, that was part of my standup act for a very long time. I’d do a minute or so of jokes, get some decent laughs and then mention that I was gay, which I presumed everyone in the audience had already worked out because of my accent, given that I was from Poofterland. So I essentially came out almost every night of my performing career, in many different cities and countries. No wonder I was exhausted after 22 years of that!

L.M.: Speaking of fabulous, so on Facebook, you are the Fabulous Adam Richard, while I am the Fabulous One (as a nickname….to myself, sigh). So how did you get so fabulous throughout your career?

A.R.: Fabulous Adam Richard was a name I came up with when they were deciding what they should call me at Fox FM. They were cycling through things like Mister Gossip and all that kind of thing, and I really just wanted to use my name. ‘Fabulous’ is a way of saying ‘cock hungry bum slut’ with a PG rating.

L.M.: Would you say being a bear has helped or hindered your career? Is your audience primarily bears?

A.R.: No. I appreciate the bear audience, and I have loved having them at my gigs, and I especially enjoyed the years I worked with VicBears on Southern Hibearnation events. I even once was invited to bestow the leather sash on Mr. Harbour City Bear. However my audience has always been straight people. You’re never going to effect change by preaching to the converted. There was so much inherent homophobia in the comedy scene, on radio, on television, that the only way I could see to combat it was to be proudly me in front of those homophobic audiences. 

As a result, I’ve had people tell me they came out to their parents after seeing me on Hey Hey, It’s Saturday. That hearing their mum laugh at my segments on the radio while dropping them at school meant they knew not to be afraid of coming out to their parents. I had a kid email me and tell me their parents were going to throw them out, and he took my advice and introduced them to his boyfriend, and it completely cleared the air. A large guy from rural Queensland wrote to ask how I coped with being overweight in a world of twinks, and I gave him tools on how to feel comfortable with yourself, and to seek out people who were attracted to him for who he was. If I wasn’t in the wider public eye, and only performing to a small clique of gay people, I would never have had these amazing opportunities to hopefully make life better for people. 

L.M.: Is there any advice that you would give someone (like a bear) would be interested in starting in the entertainment industry, especially in comedy, and what is involved?

A.R.: If you want to be a comedian, you have to do comedy. All the time. When you’re shitty, and depressed, and going through a breakup. You don’t book gigs knowing that crap is going to happen to you, or that you’ll be feeling depressed on that date. When those gigs roll around, you are there to make someone’s night better after a day at work, or on the radio while they’re stuck in traffic. You’re meant to be a good time, all the time. It sounds exhausting, because it is, but it’s also exhilarating. Imagine telling a story at a party and everyone is laughing. Now imagine there are 500 people at that party. And they’re not allowed to interrupt. It’s glorious fun. 

I’ve taught standup a lot, and I’d be happy to teach anyone, because 95% of it is craft, knowing how to do it, only 5% is really based on any kind of talent. The first lesson, however, is to go to a comedy gig every night for a month. Every single night. Great comedy and shit comedy. Big shows by Nikki Glaser or Tom Gleeson, little pub gigs put on by someone who has no idea what they’re doing, professional showcases at the Comedy Store. Every single night for a month. And if you think ‘I can’t, because I have kids’ or ‘I can’t, because I have work tomorrow’ or ‘I can’t, because it’s Aunty Jen’s birthday,’ then you don’t want it. Every other person who is successful said no to all that, and they went to gigs. To learn. To see what other people are doing. To catch up with other comedians. Mainly, however, because they were booked. And every night is no exaggeration. That is the life you are signing up for. I did that for 22 years. I did gigs at midnight, because I was headlining, and the show ran long, and I still got up at 4am the next day to do radio. I went to gigs after funerals, and breakups and screaming fights. I once yelled at my partner that I was furious at them, and that I was going into the next room to record a podcast, and I would sound like I was laughing and having fun, but that was my job, and I was going to come out and yell at them some more because I was furious. It’s fun, but it is still work.

L.M.: Do you have any future comedy gigs that you would like to do a plug here?

A.R.: Nup! I feel like I said everything I ever wanted to say in the form of standup comedy. The future is in very safe hands with incredible talents like Rhys Nicholson, Mel Buttle and Tom Ballard out in the world. I feel like what I came here to do has been done, and I’m glad I could stick my foot in the door long enough to let them in.

L.M.: What are your career goals for the future? 

A.R.: I’m going to keep doing Hard Quiz as long as I can, because I work with a wonderful team, and it is a great show and it really does showcase some of the most interesting people in Australia with their very strange hobbies. Plus, I just love learning new things. I might try tackling a PhD at some point. I want to do more writing for myself, as well as the daily writing I do for television. It’s hard to have goals when I have achieved so much in my life. I have done pretty much anything a queer comic could imagine doing, starting at a time when there was nobody else like me performing. I have been really blessed, and if I tipped off the perch tomorrow, I don’t think there’s much left undone.

Thanks, Adam, for answering your questions. It was an honour to have an Australian celebrity bear to conduct an interview with Bear World Magazine. Now, time for some quick-fire questions.

Luka Musicki

Luka is the Deputy Editor for Australian content for Bear World Magazine, part of Gray Jones Media. Luka is producing interviews with Australian and international bears, producing Australian city guides and interesting fun articles. His vision is to create a vibrant and supportive platform that celebrates the diverse spectrum of human bodies and experiences. His mission is to foster a community where individuals feel empowered to embrace their authentic selves, share their stories, and recognise the bear beauty in vulnerability and feeling great pride in themselves. Luka is also a resident writer for Konnect with Data (an Australian Data company).

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