“She helped me completely dismantle a media personality I constructed and wasn’t happy with. It was a media personality I constructed to be a television presenter. To be sort of charming, maybe trying to be funny, trying to be a smartass here and there. But it was a struggle because it wasn’t who I really am.” 

Richard Fidler’s had more careers than most. He’s best-known as a host of the ABC’s most popular radio show and podcast Conversations.  

But he came to radio via a career as a TV presenter, a stint in the irreverent comedy trio The Doug Anthony Allstars, and now he’s an author of several best-selling history books. 

One day back in 2005 he was sitting in the ABC office when his producer came to him with an idea to turn his popular radio show into a podcast. There was a catch: No one had heard of a podcast. And the iPhone hadn’t been invented yet. But his producer insisted the podcast would one day be a juggernaut. That producer was Curveball host Kellie Riordan. 

Richard joins Kellie for a rare and wide-ranging discussion on why he once thought a nuclear holocaust would end his life, the moment he literally caught on fire, and how fatherhood changed his once snarky outlook on life. 

Richard’s new book is The Book of Roads and Kingdoms. 

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Curveball is the show where extraordinary people share the twists and turns of their rise, those curveball moments that have made them. It’s a production of Deadset Studios.  

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This episode was produced by Liam Riordan. Executive producers are Rachel Fountain and Kellie Riordan. 

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the land on which this show was made. 

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