HE'S ONE of Australia's most beloved performers but if you walked past him in the street, you probably wouldn't recognise him at the moment.

Paul McDermott was on Today Extra this morning and joked that he's now sporting a "Castaway look".

The former Good News Week host and 2010 Gold Logie nominee was on the Channel Nine show to promote the current tour of his comedy group, The Doug Anthony All Stars, which currently consists of McDermott, Tim Ferguson and Paul 'Flacco' Livingston.

The group recently performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with The Vicar of Dibley's Dawn French raving about the trio's performance.

"She certainly loved it and afterwards came up and embraced me and was incredibly effusive about the show," McDermott, now 55, told the Today Extra hosts about French.

Speaking about The Doug Anthony All Stars current show, McDermott said it's quite dark and their aim isn't just to make people laugh anymore.

"The show we're doing at the moment does take people though a gamut of emotions so people have been moved to tears in parts of it," he said.

"There's lots of laughter all the way through but it has the whole spectrum of emotion now."

The Doug Anthony All Stars are performing in Western Australia later this month. You can check out their tour dates on Facebook