Denton: The creative dynamo

The recent announcement that Andrew Denton has stepped back from his production company came as little surprise to those in the industry. In a piece that first appeared in Encore, Amanda Meade revisits the career of a creative dynamo and asks if he will be back.

If Andrew Denton had only been the funny front man – a brilliant TV presenter and comedian in the 1980s and 90s – history would still judge him as having had a stellar career. But the creative dynamo that is Andrew Christopher Denton has had multiple stellar careers and has arguably had more impact on the Australian TV industry than anyone else.

After his early years as a performer and writer for radio and TV, Denton went on to create more lofty television, an award-winning ABC TV interview series Enough Rope, and was the brains behind a string of innovative television shows as diverse as comedy, documentary, talk and current affairs.

He encouraged The Chaser writing team to make a TV show with him in the late 1990s and created a new pool of TV talent in ABC TV’s Hungry Beast a decade later. Along the way Denton picked up several AFI awards as well as Logies and was arguably the best host of the TV Week awards bash, which he reluctantly fronted in 1999 and 2000. The highlight was the diminutive host sitting on then media mogul James Packer’s knee. Fearless as ever.