Life beyond Radford

I live in inner North of Melbourne with my partner and our greyhound Banjo. My career is a mixture of performing, writing, radio, TV, and film making. It’s busy and I don’t always manage my time well but I’m very happy.

Most of my friends have had kids and so my partner and I are enjoying being the gay uncles who get to come by for a coffee, say hello and then get a good night’s sleep!

Doing a David Attenborough impersonation at fashion revue and making some very silly jokes about elephant poo.

Mr Rose once announced to in front of an English class, after I’d been quite a loud smart arse: “Toby, every term there’s a student I choose to pick on. Guess who it is this term?”

It was quite wonderful.

Luc Rose. He was committed to teaching poetry and making students love it. It helped me get passionate about words.

H and Dylan Mordike got me interested in performing, improv and drama generally, and that helped me a great deal.

Mrs Ward and Mrs Wallis (I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know their first names off the top of my head - could we add them in if you know them H?) were wonderfully supportive of me doing debating and English and great teachers. I don’t think I would have had the career I did without them.

When I was 20 I decided I’d turn what I enjoyed and what was important to me into a job.

I enjoyed making people laugh, telling stories and making people think.

I tried multiple things - the law, politics, the public service, but writing and comedy were always the most satisfying experiences. The sense of having written down or performed an original thought or something that evoked an emotion in an audience meant much more to me than prestige, or money, or a safe career.

Not really. I finished a law degree certain of one thing - I didn’t really want to be a lawyer.

The reality of most creative careers is you take opportunities as they come. You work hard, do your best, try to develop and be original, but ultimately sometimes things fall in your lap and sometimes they don’t.

I had dreams when I was younger of working with great comedians. And then I got to work with some of them and found working with them wasn’t necessarily all it was cracked up to be.

I think if you’re unhappy or bored you have to be willing to take a risk and try something new. So that’s what I’ve always done.

That I was okay and I was going to be okay. I had an idea that I was gay at school but didn’t feel I could come out. I was frightened that people would find out or even worse, people wouldn’t ever find out and I’d just stay in the closet forever.

So I’d want a younger me to know that: It all seems pretty scary right now but everyone else is just as scared in their own way. Just try your best, take some risks, treat other people as you’d like to be treated and it’ll generally work out.

Life’s a marathon not a sprint. And, though it doesn’t seem like it, the only person you’re really racing is yourself. So run at your own pace.

Also:
- Pate doesn’t taste as good once you know how it’s made
- Clean your phone, it has more bacteria than a toilet seat
- Drugs aren’t as cool as people pretend.

Don’t send take pictures of your genitals and definitely don’t send them to anyone. Before you send a picture - ask yourself “how would I feel if my mum saw this?”

Be tolerant and understanding of people - everything gets recorded now and yesterday’s acceptable meanness could be tomorrow’s bigotry.

Help people who need it. Some things go out of fashion but being a decent human is always on brand.

—-
Alternates:

If you’re emailing something it’s forever.

The Smithsonian Museum in America is attempting to archive everything on the internet - do you really want part of your section to include a naked picture?