Funny friends make Mamamia Today

Em Rusciano and Dave Thornton talk of a life lived between stage and studio

The Today Network wasn’t the first to discover there was a market for a niche program designed to reach women between 3 pm – 4 pm when many would be in their cars picking up kids from school and running other household errands and likely listening to radio. In fact when Mamamia Today first launched in August last year it was put into an early evening timeslot. But within a month it was moved to afternoons pitting it against the ARN Mix Network’s 3pm Pick-Up with Chrissie Swan and Jane Hall.

Em and Dave are both long time SC Austereo employees. She’s done breakfast on Perth’s 92.9 and then SA FM as well as TV stints on The Circle and The Project. He’s been in Brisbane at B105 and worked with her at SA FM where they struck up an  enduring friendship.

When we caught up with them at Fox in Melbourne they were both busy with comedy festival commitments in various states. It’s the first day in two weeks that Dave has actually been in Melbourne having been in Adelaide for the past two weeks and on his way to Brisbane for another week away.

Dave: I feel like I just want to drop into IT to show them the man behind the Skype.

Em: We’ve been doing it remotely for two weeks. I miss him terribly. Now I’ve got him for a day.

Dave. It’s been good doing live performances in Adelaide because we just sit here (in the studio) and it’s easy think we’re just making each other laugh and that’s it. But when I was doing it live, a lot of people turned up and laughed.

Em: I’m always shocked when people say they actually listen to the show and they love it. We have the best job in radio- we get in at 12;30 and leave at 4. It’s awesome hours.

radioinfo: It seems the stand-up scene has really taken off of late …

Dave: I think its because we’ve grasped the festival idea. Its like this flock of locusts that just infests and then moves on to the next thing

Em: But I only got into it because I was mates with these guys- I was kind of caberet. This was my first comedy festival.

Radioinfo: They say that stand-up is a lonely business. You work alone, no band. You don’t need equipment

Dave: And some can misconstrue that as selfishness. You’re on stage and all the adulation’s for you. You don’t share the profits, but there is no one to share the blame with either.

Em: I’ve got a guitarist and a director and a lighting guy- I have a team.

Dave: Is it lonely? Yes and no- we’ve got a community where we all hang out .

Em: We’re all really close.

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radioinfo: How do you go about creating material?

Em: Whenever something happens to me I write it down. I will either write about it for my website, I will say it on air or I’ll say it on stage. They meld effortlessly together, the mediums I’m involved in. The same with him.

Dave: And because radio is much more  hungry then stand up is – stand up has a turnover of about an hour a year – this is an hour a day and it makes you dig a little deeper. But then ultimately you’re finding out what interests you, what your ideas are, so by the time I go back to stand up, I probably know more about myself than I would otherwise. I mean, we all know a topic but what’s your view on a topic? That’s the point of difference.

EM: Yes, we’re  forced to do that in this job. But it means I have more things to reach into for improv if I’m on stage and trying to make a quick cultural reference because I’ve read so much during the day and the week, which I wouldn’t normally do if I wasn’t doing the radio. It helps me have a bigger scope. Stuff to reach into to make funnies out of. And I love him (Dave) and that’s very rare in radio. We adore each other.

Dave: We do trust exercises every day.

Em: We’ve been friends for a long time and I really, really enjoy working with him and laughing every day.

Dave: To get that energy, you’ve gotta make sure you make each other laugh – make sure you’re comfortable.

radioinfo: A friendship like that must have been a bonus for you compared to many other duos who start a show hardly knowing each other and have to develop a chemistry along the way…

Dave: For us it was like – we get along – we just had to figure out how to get along in four minute breaks.

Em: We’ve gotten better at shutting up

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