Tommy Little

26 March 2014 | 8:49 am | Baz McAlister

"I’m doing things like, ‘Oh my god, I’m buying red meat’, and I’m paying rent on time, it’s out of control.”

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In naming his comedy festival show this year, it seems Tommy Little is a victim of his own success. When he submitted the show's name many months ago, he called it Middleclass Gangster, with the aim of taking a swipe at the middle classes from below. 

“But in these 12 months I've got jobs, I've started making money, and I'm the exact thing I was going to take the piss out of!” Little says. “I just spent five years living in what can only be described as a 'derelict crack den'. The cracks in the walls were so big the breeze came through. The back door didn't open so you had to climb out the window. So this year has been the first time I've moved into a place with heating! I'm doing things like, 'Oh my god, I'm buying red meat', and I'm paying rent on time, it's out of control.”

Little's new jobs include a recently-scored breakfast radio gig on Nova with Meshel Laurie, and a stint as part of the Channel 10 show This Week Live. When The Music calls, he's also recovering from a weekend of “trashing cars and having fun” in the Celebrity Grand Prix, in which he had “a three-way in the sand” with Rachael Finch and Torah Bright. It's quite a coup for a lad with humble beginnings in the suburbs. “I grew up in the 'burbs,” Little says. “We were working class, then Mum went back to work. I remember distinctly one point in high school when Coco Pops became an option at breakfast, and I remember going 'Hang on, I think we're doing a bit better than we used to be doing'.”

Little's promo shots this year, featuring him clad in a yellow Tyvek suit, reference the ultimate middleclass gangster in pop culture: Breaking Bad's Walter White. Super fan Little reckons the show was so huge because it was empowering. “It said, 'You're not confined to what you thought you were going to be for the rest of your life'. That you can just snap and set up a meth lab, which, let's be honest, is the dream. Everybody thinks they have a little bit of that in them. Everybody thinks 'If it came down to push and shove, I reckon I'd go all right in prison. I'd hide a cheeky knife in my sock...' In reality, last time the cops walked by me, I tucked my shirt in.”