Josh first honed his unique brand of quick-witted live comedy as a university debating champ, reaching the Finals of the Australasian University Debating Championships in Manila, the Philippines.

Resolving then and there to use his comedic powers for good rather than evil, he abandoned debating in favour of Theatresports and improvisational comedy. Josh trained with Theatresports world champions Rob Carlton and Rebecca de Unamuno before performing a sell-out season of improvisational comedy at The Cellar. In his first year of Theatresports, he won the University Theatresports Championships.

While editing the student newspaper at university, Josh was offered a full-time position by Rod Quantock in the ABC’s Television Comedy Department in Melbourne. He moved south to work as script asisstant on the first season of BackBerner, now one of Australia’s most successful television satires.

Josh’s broadcasting commitments expanded when he was selected to be the official voice of Olly, the kookaburra mascot for the Sydney Olympic Games. He was flown around the country for promotional purposes and to record a children’s album of official Olympic songs for John Farnham’s producer, Glenn Wheatley.

Meanwhile, Josh continued to voice regular weekly promos as the psychedelic cockney announcer on Foxtel’s UK·TV.

After returning to Sydney to finish his Communications degree at UTS in 2000, Josh wrote and directed a 12-minute comedy film starring Nadia Townsend, Barry Crocker and himself. The short film was snapped up by several film festivals and was nominated for four GoldenEye Awards in 2001. It won Best Picture.

With university behind him, Josh joined Howard Sattler’s controversial talkback show on 2SM. His occasional on-air banter with breakfast host Clive Robertson – combined with off-the-wall radio stunts such as abseiling down a skyscraper live on air for charity – earned Josh a guest hosting position on the FM Super Radio Network.

While concurrently producing talkback, doing voice overs and writing broadcast comedy, Josh was invited to star in the preview of the stage musical Eureka! opposite Rob Guest.

In 2001 Josh left talkback in order to focus his efforts on comedy. After starring in several TV ads including an American campaign, Josh hosted his first network TV pilot in August 2001, with Channel V’s Jabba. dateXpress was a comedic game show for Channel Ten co-produced by Zig Zag Productions and Columbia Television in L.A.

Josh spent early 2002 in New York City, gaining further broadcasting experience behind the scenes on The Ananda Lewis Show at CBS, with Joan Rivers at WOR-AM, on WCBS NewsRadio and with Late Late Show host Craig Kilborn at CBS Television City in LA.

Since returning to Sydney, Josh has appeared as a guest on thecomedychannel’s improvisational comedy show Campaign, with Mikey Robbins, Adam Hills and Kate Fischer.

In April 2002, Josh joined the Alan Jones Show on 2GB, the highest rating talk radio show in Sydney.

At the same time, his performances in a weekly improvisational comedy show at The Laugh Garage, Scared Scriptless, caught the eye of the director of Australia’s improv comedy “Olympics”. Josh’s team was accepted into the Theatresports Cranston Cup at Belvoir Street, and made it through to the Grand Final at the Enmore Theatre. They won Bronze, making them one of the first teams ever to win a place in the Cranston Cup as first-time competitors.

Meanwhile, Josh had left the Alan Jones Show in order to write and perform topical comedy sketches for the Mike Carlton Show on 2UE Drive.

His regular weekly comedy segment, John Howard’s Diary, airs Friday afternoons on Radio 2UE.

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