This time round, it almost feels like a school reunion, where he gathers the usual suspects. “Everyone gravitates together and has this little reunion,” he says.“Things are starting to get real as far as people’s lives go. It’s sort of like Frankenstein’s monster now, I’ve created it and I will see it through. I genuinely don’t know where it’s going to take me now.”

Does his work with the ABC conflict with his work as a comedian? In short, no. “I don’t feel constrained at all, and I guess the day may come when I’m called into Ita Buttrose’s office because I’ve said something ... I think I started the radio trying to combine the two, and that was neither needed nor successful because then we had the pandemic... in my mind now they are very different hats to wear.”

“I treat radio as very much a community setting, positive and joyous and to start the day with a smile, which is a world away from political satire. It’s an interesting line to walk,” he says. “Like John Howard would say, ‘Like me or loathe me, you know where I stand.’”

‘I’ve created it and I will see it through. I genuinely don’t know where it’s going to take me now.’

Sammy J

It has to be said: given he is a high-profile broadcaster known for his work on both radio and television, can Sammy J still be considered Fringe? Very much so, he says. “Because this show started in 2008 when I was nobody. I had to beg and cajole and invite everybody I could think of,” he says. “It has the Fringe in its DNA, it was an experimental show from an unknown artist – now I’m better known but it’s very much connecting with that spirit. The whole notion of the show is me connecting with my past self, so I’m going to get a free pass on that one.”