Greig Pickhaver

Last updated

Greig Pickhaver
Greig Pickhaver.jpg
Pickhaver in 2010
Born (1948-02-10) February 10, 1948 (age 75)
Myrtle Bank, South Australia
Other namesH. G. Nelson
Occupations
  • Television host
  • writer
  • actor
  • radio host
  • theatre actor
  • author
Years active1986–present
Known for This Sporting Life 1986–2008
Club Buggery 1996–1997
The Dream with Roy and HG 2000
Parent(s)Gordon Pickhaver
Beryl Skuce

Gordon Greig Pickhaver AM (born 10 February 1948) [1] is an actor, comedian and writer, who forms one half of the Australian satirical sports comedy duo Roy and HG as the excitable sports announcer HG Nelson. [lower-alpha 1] The award-winning duo teamed up in 1986 for the Triple J radio comedy program This Sporting Life, and were broadcast nationwide for 22 years, leading to several successful television spinoffs. [2]

Contents

Personal life

Pickhaver was born at Walwa private hospital, [1] Myrtle Bank, South Australia, to parents Gordon Samuel Pickhaver, [3] and Beryl Marion Rebecca Pickhaver née Skuce. His father was a World War II veteran who saw action in the Middle East and on the Kokoda Track and whose career was in the South Australian dairy industry. [lower-alpha 2] Pickhaver has three sisters (Jane, Anne and Mary) and a brother, Mark. Pickhaver lived on Morphett Road, Warradale, South Australia [4] up to the age of 15, and then the family moved to the suburb of Prospect, where he lived until the age of 22. He attended Oaklands Park Primary school, Brighton Secondary School, and for the last two years of high school Adelaide High School. He graduated from Flinders University and describes himself as dyslexic, having always relied heavily on memory and recall to achieve any academic results.

Radio career

Pickhaver performed in plays at school and at university. After a stint as a roadie for Australian rocker Billy Thorpe in the early 1970s, he became involved in the Melbourne theatre co-operative The Pram Factory. He moved into radio broadcasting on 3RRR in Melbourne and developed the HG Nelson character while performing in the Melbourne radio sports comedy show Punter To Punter in the early 1980s.

Pickhaver met John Doyle in 1985 while both were playing minor characters in an SBS TV show, and they teamed up as Roy (aka Rampaging Roy Slaven) and HG in 1986. Their radio comedy program This Sporting Life was broadcast initially in Sydney and later nationally on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Triple J youth radio network. It was continuously on-air for a 22-year period till 2008. This Sporting Life was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2013. [5] Since March 2020, the Roy and HG characters have broadcast 'Bludging on the Blindside', on ABC radio on Saturdays through the football season, a sports program whose main focus is both celebrating and lampooning the culture and business of rugby league in Australia. [6] [7]

Television and film career

With John Doyle as Rampaging Roy Slaven, Pickhaver has appeared on television shows such as The Dream with Roy and HG , This Sporting Life , Blah Blah Blah , Club Buggery , The Channel Nine Show , Planet Norwich , Win Roy and HG's Money , The Monday Dump , The Nation Dumps , The Ice Dream with Roy and HG , The Cream, The Dream in Athens , The Memphis Trousers Half Hour , and Roy and HG's Russian Revolution .

Pickhaver hosted It's a Knockout from 2011 to 2012 alongside former Hi-5 star Charli Robinson and sports presenter Brad McEwan. Pickhaver joined Stephen Quartermain and Alisa Camplin for the Sochi Tonight show during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics in February 2014, and was featured in the SBS series Who Do You Think You Are? in September 2015. Many of his television opportunities have been "alternative" sports presentation coverages of the Summer or Winter Olympics.

Pickhaver starred in the cult 1993 Australian comedy film This Won't Hurt a Bit [8] opposite Jacqueline McKenzie. In 2003, he appeared in the political comedy The Honourable Wally Norman .

Published works

Notes

  1. ↑ Pickhaver is adamant in pronouncing the "H" in "HG" as "haitch". This is contrary to the "aitch" as generally accepted in his home state of South Australia.
  2. ↑ Gordon S. Pickhaver was co-author (with James Dez Marshall) of People, Places and Cheese in South Australia 1842–1984 Pagel Books 1986

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABC Radio Melbourne</span> Radio station in Melbourne, Victoria

ABC Radio Melbourne is an ABC Local Radio station in Melbourne, Australia. It began transmission on 13 October 1924, and was Melbourne's second licensed radio station after 3AR.

John Patrick Doyle AM is an Australian actor, writer, radio presenter and comedian best known for his character Rampaging Roy Slaven.

Roy and HG are an Australian comedy duo, comprising Greig Pickhaver in the role of "H. G. Nelson" and John Doyle as "'Rampaging' Roy Slaven". Their act is an affectionate but irreverent parody of Australia's obsession with sport. Their characters are based on stereotypes in sports journalism: Nelson the excitable announcer, and Slaven the retired sportsman turned expert commentator. In his 1996 book Petrol, Bait, Ammo & Ice, Pickhaver summarised the duo's comedic style as "making the serious trivial and the trivial serious".

The Dream with Roy and HG was a sports/comedy talk show, broadcast every night during the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympics, presented by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Taylor (comedian)</span> Australian comedian, writer and radio host

Christopher Thornton Taylor is an Australian comedy writer, performer and broadcaster from Sydney. As a member of The Chaser, he is best known for co-writing and appearing on satirical ABC Television shows CNNNN (2002–2003) and The Chaser's War on Everything. He formerly co-hosted the drive radio show Today Today (2004–05) on Triple J with fellow Chaser member Craig Reucassel, and in 2007, he wrote the musical comedy Dead Caesar. Taylor also hosted the mini documentary series 'Australia's Heritage: National Treasures'. In 2010, with his Chaser colleague Andrew Hansen, Taylor made a musical comedy series for Triple J titled The Blow Parade, which became the number one podcast in the country, and won the 2010 ARIA Award for Best Comedy Release. In 2019, Taylor was the creator and co-writer of the drama Upright starring Tim Minchin. The series screened to critical acclaim in both Australia and the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat</span> An unofficial mascot

Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat was an unofficial mascot of the 2000 Summer Olympics created by Sydney cartoonist Paul Newell with Roy and HG from the Australian Channel Seven sports/comedy television program The Dream with Roy and HG. Fatso is a wombat with a lazy, cheerful expression and comically pronounced rump. It usually appeared on The Dream broadcasts, sometimes as a life-size stuffed toy on Roy and HG's desk.

This Sporting Life was a culturally iconic Triple J radio comedy programme, created by award-winning actor-writer-comedians John Doyle and Greig Pickhaver, who performed as their characters Roy and HG. Broadcast from 1986 to 2008, it was one of the longest-running, most popular and most successful radio comedy programmes of the television era in Australia. Undoubtedly the longest-running show in Triple J's programming history, it commanded a large and dedicated nationwide audience throughout its 22-year run.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABC Radio Sydney</span> Radio station in Sydney, New South Wales

ABC Radio Sydney is an ABC radio station in Sydney, Australia. It is the flagship station in the ABC Local Radio network and broadcasts on 702 kHz on the AM dial. The station transmits with a power (CMF) of 3,110V, which is equivalent to 50 kW from a site 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of the Sydney CBD.

Club Buggery is an Australian television series made in the 1990s. It was created and performed by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG and broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) network in 1996 and 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Nankervis</span> Australian comedian

Brian Nankervis is an Australian writer, actor, radio host, television producer and comedian. He is one of the co-creators of the music quiz show, RocKwiz and co-hosts The Friday Revue with Jacinta Parsons on ABC Radio.

Broadcast on the Triple J radio station to simulcast with the annual three-game rugby league State of Origin series, Australian comedians Roy and HG provide a commentary of the match at hand. An extension of the duo's This Sporting Life radio program, also on Triple J, Roy and HG's use of comedy makes their sporting calls unique from that provided by other media sources, and has earned a cult following. With the duo's move to Triple M radio in 2009, and the end of This Sporting Life, the State of Origin commentary is currently on hiatus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold George Nelson</span> Australian politician

Harold George "H. G." Nelson was an Australian politician and trade unionist who was the first person to represent the Northern Territory in the House of Representatives. He arrived in the territory in 1914 to work as an organiser for the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), and was a leader of the Darwin rebellion of 1918. He subsequently served in the House of Representatives from 1922 to 1934, initially as an independent and then as a member of the Labor Party.

Natalie Garonzi is an Australian actress, writer, comedian and TV presenter. She worked both nationally and internationally as a model for many years appearing in campaigns and on catwalks around the globe for the likes of Chanel, Armani and Vera Wang and international publications like Elle Magazine, Cosmopolitan and Grazia. She then began her television career on Nickelodeon Australia, where she appeared on Saturday Nick Television and Sarvo. She has also presented numerous other television shows, including Wedding Switch as well as the Australian version of the US series of Playing It Straight and X Factor Australia on the Seven Network.

Five Times Dizzy is a children's novel by Australian author Nadia Wheatley It was first published in 1982. In 1986 it became an Australian children's television series.

H. G. Nelson may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian comedy</span> Australian television series

Australian comedy refers to the comedy and humour performed in or about Australia or by the people of Australia. Australian humour can be traced to various origins, and today is manifested in a diversity of cultural practices and pursuits. Writers like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson helped to establish a tradition of laconic, ironic and irreverent wit in Australian literature, while Australian politicians and cultural stereotypes have each proved rich sources of comedy for artists from poet C. J. Dennis to satirist Barry Humphries to iconic film maker Paul Hogan, each of whom have given wide circulation to Australian slang.

Roy and HG's Russian Revolution was a sports/comedy talk show, broadcast every night during the Sochi 2014 Olympics, presented by Australian comedy duo Roy and HG.

<i>This Sporting Life</i> (Roy & HG album) 2016 compilation album by Roy & HG

This Sporting Life is the fifth album by Australian comedy duo Roy & HG. The album was released in August 2016 and peaked at number 6 on the ARIA Charts.

Secrets of Our Cities is an Australian factual television show that looks at the history of Australian suburbs and towns. This observational documentary series began on the SBS on 26 September 2017. It follows Greig Pickhaver uncovering the hidden history and unsung residents who have helped shape suburbs and towns into the places they are today. A second series began 22 February 2020.

References

  1. 1 2 "Family Notices". The Chronicle (Adelaide) . Vol. 90, no. 5, 122. South Australia. 19 February 1948. p. 32. Retrieved 10 July 2023– via National Library of Australia.
  2. ↑ Biographical cuttings on Greig Pickhaver, broadcaster and entertainer . Retrieved 9 April 2009– via National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ↑ Sands & McDougall's Directory of South Australia. 1962. p. 1252.
  5. ↑ National Film and Sound Archive: Sounds of Australia.
  6. ↑ "Bludging on the Blindside". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 28 October 2023.
  7. ↑ McMillen, Andrew (1 July 2022). "Blindside Bludgers Still Packing Down After 36 Years". The Australian .
  8. ↑ "This Won't Hurt a Bit". IMDb.
  9. ↑ Nelson, H. G.; Roy Slaven (1989). Pants off, this sporting life. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: ABC Enterprises for Australian Broadcasting Corporation. p. 143. ISBN   0-642-12888-X.
  10. ↑ Nelson, H. G.; Tobacco Interagency Committee of the A.C.T (1994). "Where it all went wrong (sound recording) : address delivered by H. G. Nelson, anti-smoking activist, to the National Press Club, Canberra on World No Tobacco Day, 1 June 1994". 1 Digital Audio Tape (Ca. 47 Min.). Retrieved 9 April 2009.
  11. ↑ Nankervis, Brian; Slaven, R.; Nelson, H. G. (1994). Boys and balls. St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin. p. 257. ISBN   1-86373-738-3.
  12. ↑ Nelson, H. G.; Roy Slaven; Reg Mombassa (1996). Petrol, bait, ammo & ice. Pan Macmillan. p. 220. ISBN   9780330357906 . Retrieved 9 April 2009.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  13. ↑ Nelson, H. G.; James de Vries (1999). It's yours for a sawn-off! : Sameranch's Sydney. Random House Australia. p. 92. ISBN   9780091840198 . Retrieved 9 April 2009.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  14. ↑ Nelson, H. G., ed. (2005). The really stuffed guide to good food 2006. Sydney: Pan Macmillam Australia. p. 233. ISBN   1-4050-3697-4.
  15. ↑ Nelson, H. G. (2008). Sprays. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia. p. 225. ISBN   978-1-4050-3883-6.
  16. ↑ Nelson, H. G., ed. (2011). My life in SHORTS. Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia. ISBN   9781405039451.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.