WHEN ABC television presenters and political journalists Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales began putting together in 2015 podcasts in which they discussed what they were reading, watching, cooking, listening to and exhilarated by, they had no idea how popular they would become.
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The podcasts, Chat 10 Looks 3, are put up on a Facebook site which has 33,000 subscribers, with 100,000 downloads a week. They are recorded at weekends in large venues around Australia, regularly attracting audiences of more than 1000 people who find the comments made by Crabb and Sales to be very engaging and interact with them.
The money raised by the ticket sales pays for the costs that the Chats 10 Looks 3 company the two established to develop the podcasts incurs, with some of the proceeds also being donated to charities.
Newcastle will have its first Chat 10 Looks 3 session at the Civic Theatre on Saturday, February 22, at 7.30pm. The interval-free show will have Crabb and Sales onstage for about 85 minutes, and meeting audience members after the curtain call.
The session, which will see the recording of episode 127 of the podcast, has the amusing title No Sleep Till Bogey Hole Tour 2020, which is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that Newcastle is the only tour venue.
The previous episode was recorded in Canberra on December 8, which had traditionally become the close-to-Christmas venue, and the next podcast will be in Brisbane on March 20.
Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales became close friends when Crabb began working as the chief online political reporter at the ABC's Sydney office in 2009 and was seated at a desk alongside Sales.
Crabb, whose ABC duties have included being one of the presenters on The Drum and interviewing countless politicians, has written articles for several capital city newspapers. Her ability to cover major events led to her being flown to London with Jeremy Fernandez in 2018 to host coverage of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for the ABC.
Sales, who grew up in Brisbane, joined the ABC there at age 22 in 1995. Her many roles have included being the ABC's Washington correspondent from 2001 to 2005, anchoring the current affairs program 7.30 since 2011, and hosting the ABC's federal election and federal budget night broadcasts.
Both Crabb and Sales have won Walkley Awards for articles they have written about political issues. They have also had books about political and other topics published. Sales in 2019 was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to broadcast journalism.
The name of their podcast and company is drawn from a comical number, Dance Ten, Looks Three, in the musical A Chorus Line, which has a character called Val Clarke telling the tale of her myriad audition failures. At the end of her tether trying for a role on Broadway, she swipes her dance card from the judge's desk to see where she's going wrong - and finds she scored ten marks for the dancing, but three for the looks. Plastic surgery ensues.
Amusingly, while Leigh Sales loves show tunes, Annabel Crabb hates them. But Crabb got her own way when they chose a group mascot. It's a fairy wren, a blue bird that hung around Sales' former house, with Crabb ecstatic about them, but Sales indifferent. And they often have fairy wren pins on sale at their shows, as well as signed aprons.
The pair sometimes wear an interesting mix of costumes at their podcast shows, with one in conventional garb and the other in something unexpected.
In a November, 2019, Melbourne podcast performance, for example, Sales made Crabb dress up as Brian May, from Queen. They also get to wear frump nighties, incredibly unattractive albeit comfortable nightwear, on occasions.
And they get to sing songs during the shows, with one at a piano and the other standing behind.
Tickets for the Newcastle Chat 10 Looks 3 show are $43.90. Book through Ticketek or ring 4929 1977.
Raw Comedy heat
THE Newcastle heat for Raw Comedy 2020, a national event put together by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, will be held at the Civic Playhouse on February 21 at 8pm.
Entrants must be Australian citizens, aged 17 years or older, and must have earned no more than $500 from performing in live comedy gigs or shows. They can have appeared in Raw Comedy before, but in no more than three events. And if they have been in the national final or two state finals they won't be eligible.
All forms of comedy - stand-up, music, sketch - are welcome, but they must be original and run for no longer than five minutes.
Heats are compered by a professional comedian, with the public welcome to attend. The selection committee programs the state and national finals with the best acts they've seen up to that point across the whole competition.
The NSW final will be held at the Comedy Store in Sydney's Moore Park on March 17 at 8pm, with finalists from a regional centre responsible for their own travel to the final. But the Melbourne Comedy Festival will take care of flights to Melbourne for those who get into the national final.
Entry registration can be made online at comedyfestival.com.au/raw/competition. Tickets for the Civic Playhouse heat are $33.90, concession and student $29.90. Bookings: 4929 1977.