KEY POINTS:
The face looks vaguely familiar but the voice is like an old friend - and so is that one, and that one, and that one ... This is a one-man cricket commentary team that can fill a commentary box.
The answer to the riddle, of course, is Billy Birmingham, the Sydneysider who sends up Channel Nine commentators on recordings that rocket to the top of the Aussie charts and are a big hit in this country.
Aussies Richie Benaud and Bill Lawry and South African-cum-Englishman Tony Greig are the stars of Birmingham's work but just about everyone with a microphone has been given the treatment by Birmingham, in his 12th Man guise.
Birmingham lives in Bowral, home of Sir Donald Bradman, but his colourful cricket revolution is a world away from days when players wore whites.
As a kid, Birmingham mimicked TV characters, then progressed to taking the micky out of his school teachers - so he has made the most of his education in an unexpected way. The latest offering is Boned (an obscure Australianism for sacked), which comes five years after The Final Dig, which Birmingham thought would be his final dig.
Endless references to the "keenly anticipated Ashes", coupled with certain Sydney media events involving the "boned" word meant Birmingham found it impossible to resist another walk out of the tunnel and into the bright light.
Boned is a super shot, as Richie Benaud might say. The plot involves Channel Nine replacing the entire commentary team with Birmingham, leading Richie and co. to launch a Kill Billy campaign. But Billy Birmingham is alive and mimicking.
He is as entertaining in a hotel lobby chair as he is hopping around the commentators' chairs. Richie and Bill and Tony turn up at the drop of a Panama hat. We caught up with this former record company promotions man who has engineered his own record sales before he set off for Eden Park yesterday.
The 12th man has been good to you.
It's unbelievable. Where in the world would a nation let someone with my material have seven number ones in a row. To see a chart with the 12th man, Madonna, U2, Elton John ...
Where did it start?
I wrote a piece in 1983 for an Australian comedian called Austen Tayshus and it went to No 1. I was stoked and thought, "What else can I do?"
When Kerry Packer rescued cricket with his World Series, the first thing I noticed was Richie Benaud's voice. I'd known him for years as an Aussie hero, former skipper, a player who wore the shirt undone to the waist, his nipples showing when he rolled over the arm. But he had this bizarre voice.
For six years we'd all been doing Richies and everyone reckoned I did the best. One day I went into the backyard and wrote this piece where Richie welcomes the viewers and drops **** into a sentence as a completely natural thing to do.
And the rest is history ...Richie and Billy, Billy and Richie. You are entwined forever. Is he your favourite voice?
He's been the cornerstone. I've always described him as someone who has had his voicebox taken out, jumped on, and put back in ... but I didn't come from the point of view that, jeez, Richie is a joke. He's fantastic. No umm or arrs, no script, very few in the world can do that.
But we hear your humour bounces way over Richie's head?
Richie's enthusiasm for my stuff has dwindled with each release. I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me. That's why I've got him saying "That dickhead isn't worth a pinch of s%@*. He's a comedian and he's got no credibility."
Tony Greig?
Tony has acknowledged that I've given him a cult following, that the popularity of the commentary team has been heightened by The 12th Man. But he keeps mentioning royalties. It bugs him that I've been able to make money and he hasn't made any out of me. That's why I've got him telling a radio journalist that "We were a big pooort of giving him a stooooort and we should have hoooorf of his royalties." Tony and Bill had this aggro thing going but I don't even think they realised it until I made a big play of it.
Bill Lawry?
Everything is "bang" with Bill. A guy leans on a gentle drive and Bill says "Bang". He's said it about 50,000 times this summer.
The toughest voices?
I try to come as close to the voices as possible but I've never practised a voice in my life.
If I can't find something in a voice pretty quickly then I don't do it, or I give them a small part, or I ask the person to do it.
Merv Hughes appeared on my records. I've got friends who are impersonators who study voices using headphones. I've never done that. I call my stuff satire. It's done entirely for fun. I've got a schoolboy humour. Do the voices take over in your head? For eight or nine weeks I turn my life upside down. I move out or the family does. I become a reclusive studio animal with my long-term recording engineer Froggie. We live like bachelors. It starts with him playing his guitar and me circumnavigating, trying to make him laugh. I wake up with voices in my head. I go to sleep with Richie in my head.
Super ... do you actually love cricket?
No. I like it. I also like rugby union, rugby league ...
Not a cricket stats man then?
No. I can't remember things like who scored what in some city in 1988.
What about your own stats for "Boned"?
Everything is handwritten. I went through 10 HB pencils, the script is 100 pages, and the story is two and a half hours long.
To the big one. What would Richie Benaud think of Australia after their tri-series hammering?
I think he'd say [Birmingham puts on his best Richie Benaud voice at this point], "They are on the crest of a slump".
