Tom Gleeson

“I’ve been given this privileged position, and I have to abuse it.” From tormenting nerds on Hard Quiz to putting fellow comedians through their paces on Taskmaster, telly’s reigning king of comedy Tom Gleeson may have a tough facade, but behind the scenes he tells us he’s a normal dad who loves trigonometry – and swears he’s on good terms with everyone he’s ever made a mean joke about.

More highlights in this edition:

• • Say g’day to Stephen, the Canadian street paper vendor who travelled all the way to Brisbane to achieve his boyhood dream: to meet a koala.
  • Ione Skye tells us that compared to being a 90s It girl, she lives a “weirdly normcore” life in her Letter to My Younger Self.
  • Richard Roxburgh plays imprisoned journo Peter Greste in The Correspondent and hopes the new film will draw attention to the journalists “paying a huge price” to tell the truth.
  • Photographer Valery Poshtarov has been asking fathers and sons across the world to simply hold hands, capturing emotional portraits of love, masculinity and time’s strange passage in The Big Picture.
  • Singer-songwriter Marlon Williams reflects on returning to his roots with his first album sung in te reo Māori, Te Whare Tīwekaweka.
  • Director Philip Barantini and writer Jack Thorne of streaming sensation Adolescence hope the conversation on toxic masculinity’s impact on young people doesn’t end once the TV is turned off.
  • Jessica Stanley’s homesick, lovesick characters are trying their best in new novel Consider Yourself Kissed. Caught between Melbourne and London, their author relates.
  • You wouldn’t eat a chocolate cane toad… That’s the pitch behind Australia’s own Easter Bilby! The local twist on the despicable Easter Bunny is the star of this issue’s
  • Sarah Di Lorenzo shares her Papou’s recipe for Stuffed Capsicums, bringing a taste of the Mediterranean down under in Tastes Like Home.

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