‘That aircheck changed my life’: The tough feedback that made broadcaster Richard Fidler

Broadcaster and author Richard Fidler was sitting down for a birthday dinner with his family when he suddenly caught fire. Literally.

Their ‘Bonfire Beef’ had erupted into a massive fireball, landing him in hospital with severe burns. Racked with intense pain and drifting in and out of consciousness, Richard lay in a darkened hospital room for weeks. He needed to take his mind off the pain. A way to pass the never-ending hours. The salve? Episode after episode of the podcast This American Life.

A lesson crystalised for Richard: there is no place for what Glass calls ‘the mask of omniscience’, where a presenter acts like they know the story before they even introduce it. “That changed the whole way I do what I do. To pretend we know everything already is preposterous, and it’s too much of a burden to carry,” Richard says.

I’ve known Richard Fidler for a long time, but he still managed to surprise me when he joined Curveball for a revealing discussion. This is what I learned from him about being yourself, the art of conversation, and pushing through pain.

Collaboration yields incredible energy?

Growing up against the backdrop of the Cold War, Richard was convinced the world would be plunged into a nuclear conflict. It was a matter of when, not if. “I didn’t think I’d live to see 30. So you might as well tear it up, start something, do something – don’t sit there, cowering in the corner,” he says.

He threw himself into an arts degree, where he met fellow comedic performers Paul McDermott and Tim Ferguson. The three “nerdy boys” joined forces to form pioneering Aussie comedy/musical group the Doug Anthony All Stars .

“We were always creating art, music and comedy and saw it as a way of life, a way of performing a total cultural assault. It created this enormous amount of energy, as really good collaborations do”.

They were having a blast, but they were also disciplined. Their hard work took them from busking on the streets of Canberra to performing under the bright lights of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987.

That gig opened the door to television appearances, and took the trio to Europe and the UK. Exploring the world was a joy for Richard, a history and travel buff. He watched as the Berlin Wall came down, the Velvet Revolution ended communist rule in what was then Czechoslovakia, and the Iron Curtain began to dissolve.

“People of my age were so happy because we felt we had our future given back to us,” Richard recalls.

Being open to constructive feedback helps you grow

After finishing with the Doug Anthony All Stars, Richard hosted groundbreaking reality ABC TV show Race Around The World and then made his way to radio.

While working on Nightlife at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he was invited for his first ‘aircheck’. This is a process where a radio manager listens back to a show with a presenter, to do a kind of post-mortem: what went well, what can be done differently, how things can improve. I’ve done more than a few airchecks with radio presenters, and most find it incredibly difficult and confronting.

Richard’s aircheck, with radio manager Wendy McLeod, was illuminating.

“That aircheck changed my life. It’s true. I was having closed conversations with guests. And she said, ‘Can you hear how you’re leaving out the listener here?’ And I absolutely could”.

“She helped me completely dismantle a media personality I constructed and wasn’t happy with. It was a TV personality – trying to be charming, trying to be funny, trying to be a smartass here and there. It wasn’t who I really am.”

Richard let himself become more natural. More curious. More open to discovery. This served him well when he became the host of Conversations in 2005 (with yours truly as his producer!)

Conversations is now a juggernaut of the podcasting world, amassing millions of downloads every month (Apple Podcasts crowned it the top show in Australia again this year). The show has always struck a chord, telling the stories of ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. Richard finds ‘real people’ more interesting to interview than movie stars. The one “great and wonderful exception”, he says, was movie star Angela Lansbury.

Doing his research on the now late actor, Richard realised that despite her incredible career, no-one had given her the kind of in-depth interview she deserved. Richard remembered Ira Glass and the ‘mask of omnipotence’ and resolved to do it differently.

“And at the end of the interview, it was really weird. I thanked her for joining me and she said nothing. There were tears streaming down her face because no-one had interviewed her properly before. Instead of saying thank you, she put down her headphones, stepped up and reached across the radio console and just held my hand. It was lovely,” he says.

Dealing with pain can reveal the depths of our strength

The Bonfire Beef accident happened as Richard sat around the kitchen table with his wife Khym and their two kids. The name of their dinner offers a clue to the impending terror.

It was cooking on the table, warmed by the flame of ignited spirits. When a little more fuel was added to the fire, disaster struck.

“There was this giant fireball. We now know: don’t add cold spirits to hot spirits. It spattered everywhere and I looked down and my shirt was on fire”.

Richard raced into the bathroom and stood under a cold shower. He could hear mayhem out in the living room; the curtains had caught fire and Khym was desperately trying to put them out.

“The skin on my right forearm was badly charred. It looked really bad.The skin across the front of my fingers was similarly charred. The first thing I thought was, ‘This is bad, but I’m not going to die.’ And then I thought, ‘What about my family?’”

He started shouting out, frantically asking if the kids were OK.?

“This awful pain was coming through my arm at this point. Eventually Khym said, ‘Yes, they’re fine. And then – this is a really strange thing. The nature of the pain changed. The pain was terrible, but somehow it didn’t hurt as much,” Richard says. “Once I knew the kids were OK, and that I wasn’t going to die, it was alright.”

Richard had two major skin grafts, and today his arm looks a little like he’s been lying against something that has left an imprint on his skin. The experience feels scarier as time goes on, as he thinks how close his kids came to being hurt – but it has gifted him with a real sense of what matters.

Curveball is a production of podcast consultancy and production company Deadset Studios . Curveball’s host Kellie Riordan is a leading podcast strategist and former head of podcasts at the ABC.?