FOR more than 20 years Osher Gunsberg has been a regular face on our television screens.
He's been everything from a metal-loving music guru on Foxtel's now-defunct Channel V to a reality TV host of commercial network juggernauts Australian Idol, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and The Masked Singer.
But what viewers haven't seen before is Gunsberg's funny side.
That's all beginning to change with the launch of Gunsberg's live comedy show, Night Time News Network Nightly News, or NTNNNN.
It's a satirical news program which examines and mocks the issues of the day with Gunsberg as the host and a cast of improvisers, including Clare Cavanagh, Alex Reynolds, Orya Golgowsky, Josh Magee, Jeeves Verma, John Glover, Hayden Wright and Kate Coate.
Gunsberg, 49, writes each show to examine different part of the 24-hour new cycle to ensure no two shows are the same.
"Let's be honest, the news is pretty grim," Gunsberg says. "There are parts of it if you don't laugh you might just flip, so let's have a laugh. Why not find the part that is hilarious about the things that are not funny at all.
"It's really interesting where people laugh. They tend to laugh in the really dark stuff because no one has given them permission to laugh at the really dark stuff."
NTNNNN appeared at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in April and was performed in Sydney back in January.
Next up is the Newcastle Comedy Festival, where NTNNNN will be performed on June 3 at The Gal in Hamilton.
Gunsberg promises there will be some Newcastle-specific news content and an special guest local celebrity.
Previous shows have featured the likes of Larry Emdur, Sylvia Jeffreys, Dannii Minogue and Tony Martin.
There is an ultimate plan to Gunberg's show. It's basically an elaborate pitch for a new TV show, which he hopes will be commissioned by a network next year.
"I've always wanted to host a late night satirist news show, for like 30 years," he says. "I've wanted to do this for a long time.
"I started to realise no network is gonna ask me to do it. They're not gonna give me this show, I have to make this show. So I made it and we started doing it."
Gunsberg has filmed each performance of NTNNNN and is cutting the pilot, which he will pitch to the networks.
"What you'll see in Newcastle is you're part of something that hopefully, fingers crossed, is going to get up and you'll be able to go, 'I saw that when it was in its development phase', because all TV has development," he says.
"Rarely does anyone do it in front of a live audience because the stakes are so high, but I have no time to waste. If I do it in front of a live paying audience and they don't laugh, then shit I better change something. It's terrifying, but amazing and so fun."
Gunsberg - who was formerly known as Andrew G before he changed his name to Osher (meaning happiness in Hebrew) at 38 - says he's not above satire. His long association with The Bachelor often comes in for mockery.
"It's so funny because it deserves to have the piss taken out of it," Gunsberg says. "At the same time it's very serious and people fall in love and I love the job, and at the same time it's completely ridiculous.
"They are ruthless with me. They destroy me nightly, and it's great. What people see on TV is not me."
While NTNNNN is satirical in the spirit of Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell, it's also a serious comment on the sensationalism and commodification of news, as the tagline "real stories fake news" suggests.
"There might be a story reporting on the same set of facts that makes you feel terrible and we should be doing something to help these people because we're a country that helps people and we love to give people a fair go," Gunsberg says.
"You might read those set of facts in one outlet and then in another your reaction might be, 'f--k off, we're full.'
"It's the same set of facts and I personally think that needs to be held to scrutiny because we're seeing a really interesting time with our media and news reporting.
"News is a product and the sensational things are chased down and it gives people an altered view of what the community feels or what's actually going on."
Osher Gunsberg's NTNNNN comes to The Gal on June 3.
