Getaway host David Reyne on 'staring down mortality' after cancer diagnosis

Exclusive: David Reyne was “staring down mortality” after receiving a scary cancer diagnosis, but he’s come out the other side with a new lease on life.

The Getaway presenter, 67, told nine.com.au he’d recently undergone a lengthy surgery after having prostate cancer.

The host shared his health news just days after Top Gear and Clarkson’s Farm star Jeremy Clarkson revealed his prostate cancer news, saying that story made clear just how many people had been touched by the disease.

“There’s so much of it about. I had prostate cancer, I had to have a major five-hour surgery,” David said.

“You’re staring down mortality [but] I came through with flying colours, fortunately.

“I did a lot of work beforehand – a lot of pelvic floor work! And it just fascinated me. It was all robotic, it’s crazy.”

Now he was “on the other side”, David, who will soon head out on the road for a major tour, had found a second wind.

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“When you’re living with cancer within, there’s always that grey gloom looming in the background,” he said.

“And you come out the other side of it, you say, ‘Yep, everything’s rosy now.’”

That’s very well, as the host, actor and bar owner wears many hats – and that’s just how he likes it.

“I love to keep working. Whenever I think that something’s maybe coming to an end, I think, ‘Well, what am I going to replace it with?’” David said.

“So I always want to have something bubbling along. And it just makes life more interesting, doesn’t it?”

So, his next project arrived at the perfect time.

David is reuniting with his brother, James Reyne, and the other band members of Australian Crawl for a series of reunion gigs across the country this spring, as part of the Red Hot Summer Tour.

He was the band’s original drummer for about 18 months, leaving in 1979, before they made the big time, to follow his acting dreams.

“I’ve come out of that [surgery] with this outlook which is just all sunny and joyous,” David said.

“So then to have this slot in at this particular time, it makes my heart sing, really.”

Australian Crawl will be joined by an incredible all-Aussie line-up of Men at Work, Birds of Tokyo, Vika & Linda and more.

After his health scare, David was looking forward to simply having a good time.

“I said to James, I’m only going to do it if we can just have fun and it’s reminiscent of the early tours that we used to do, which were just fun,” he said.

“We would play the lifesaving clubs and the beaches and everything like that. We just had fun, and so did the audience. That was the essence of what made Australian Crawl what it is.”