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Pizza boy’s tasty offering

FORMER pizza delivery boy Paul Fenech probably never imagined he’d one day be scoffing down the “fat and cheesy” stuff with admiring fans.

In Adelaide yesterday to promote the forthcoming Fringe stage show, Pizza—based on his bad-taste TV comedy series of the same name—Fenech’s photographic stint was soon interrupted by an impromptu autograph-signing session on the streets.

Pizza was the top-rating program for SBS last year with almost 700,000 weekly viewers.

The stage show, which runs at Thebarton Theatre from March 8 to 11, was a big success in Sydney, playing to more than 30,000 in just a few weeks.

Writer, director and star Fenech promises the stage version will serve up the usual lashings of “sex, drugs and violence”.

“I’ll be doing my own stunts again—there’s a big fight scene with (Osama) bin Laden,” he says.

“They should have just sent me and a few of the Marrickville boys over to Afghanistan and I reckon we would have found him quickly.”

A former amateur boxer (eight wins, two losses), Fenech—no relation to Jeff—got his start in TV sweeping floors for the ABC.

“I just kept kind of moving up from there, stagehand, assistant director. I used politics as the yardstick to success and I realised that bull…t is the secret to success and I just kept bull…ting everybody,” he says.

Fenech believes Pizza is one of few shows to reflect the festering madness in society today.

His favourite pizza? “Mexican, because it’s hot and spicy, just like the chicks on the show.”

By Simon Yeaman
January 15, 2002
The Advertiser