Tonight is Your Night, Bro

Press release time!

Late-Night Talk Show Darren & Brose Coming Soon To ONE.
Premieres Thursday, July 2, At 11pm.

Network Ten is set to give local comedy television a shot in the arm with the launch of the exciting new late-night comedy chat series Darren & Brose.

From writing, producing and performing team Darren Chau and Brose Avard, Darren & Brose is a local, half hour late-night comedy show, combining celebrity chat and desk segments with mix of sketches, parodies, pranks and music.

The first episode will feature Australia’s first lady of comedy Julia Morris, dual Gold Logie winner Denise Drysdale, television soap icon Stefan Dennis, Logie Award winning presenter David Reyne, comedians Dave O’Neil and Lawrence Leung and an Aussie sporting anthem from Mike Brady.

Upcoming guests include sporting legend Max Walker, rocker Brian Mannix, marathon great Steve Moneghetti, comedian Sam Pang and the very cheeky Dickie Knee, with more announcements to come.

Darren said: “We want to give people laugh to end their day and there’s not
much we won’t do.We even crashed a1500-seat event and arrested innocent people for crimes against fashion.”

Brose added: “The sketches have been really fun to make and as bloke in my thirties, I’ve discovered that it’s never too late to start dressing up as an Avenger.”

“We’re massive fans of both late-night talk shows and sketch comedy shows,so we’re very excited about bringing them both back to Aussie TV with our show Darren & Brose,” said Darren.

Darren & Brose premieres Thursday, July 2. 11pm.On ONE.

About Darren Chau And Brose Avard.

Darren and Brose met at university, have performed sell-out seasons at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, hosted one of the highest rating shows on Channel31 and were selected as a finalist for Network Ten’s‘ Eleven out of Ten’ pitching competition at SPAA, beating out thousands of submissions nationwide.

Brose Avard is a successful TV warm-up performer, he has starred in several national advertising campaigns and his comedy acting credits include Prank Patrol and Kath &
Kim.

Darren Chau has created a dozen TV shows, co-created a FOXTEL channel, broken numerous ratings records, won several awards including the ASTRA for Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program and been an official judge of the International Emmys.

Dickie Knee’s coming back! Why didn’t they lead with that?

At an extremely moribund time for Australian television comedy – but more on that in the coming days – this is the closest thing to exciting news we’ve seen in a while. It’s (relative) newcomers getting a shot on commercial television! In a timeslot where presumably it doesn’t matter if they don’t get a million viewers in the first week! It might even be good!

Ok, maybe not. There’s a bunch of decent reasons why talk shows have struggled for a long, long time in Australia, and this probably isn’t going to turn the ship around. Because it’s sinking. And you can’t turn… ah, let’s move on. Maybe Network Ten is the ship that’s sinking here? Trying this kind of show in 2015 really is the kind of move you’d only expect from a commercial network in dire straights.

(also, while we’re rambling: arresting people for crimes against fashion? Isn’t that the kind of thing The Chaser were doing a decade ago?)

Still, all that really matters is that for once we’re getting some comedy on a commercial network in a timeslot where (hopefully) the talent will be given the leeway to actually be funny. And at a time when Australian television comedy seems mostly just going through the motions, any risk-taking at all is to be applauded.

We’re just hoping when the applause dies down we’ll be able to laugh at it.

Similar Posts
Stand (up) In The Place Where You Live
Earlier this week 10 broadcast a stand up comedy special from Aaron Chen, If It Weren’t Filmed, Nobody Would Believe....
The Australian Roast of John Cleese with leastest
The Australian Roast of John Cleese, which aired recently on Seven, had a few decent laughs in it, but, mostly,...
Old News is No News
As previously mentioned, currently Australian television is serving up one (1) new Australian comedy series: The Weekly with Charlie Pickering....

2 Comments

  • Billy C says:

    The first ep and possibly the second was shot about two years ago I think as a pilot of community tv show, so I’d give them a bit of a break till it gets into the stuff that’s recent and was actually shot for broadcast.

  • yeps says:

    ‘Australia’s first lady of comedy Julia Morris’

    Yikes. I didn’t know gurning was that prestigious.

    But while I share the cautious optimism, I can’t help but wonder what this show could possibly be like with such an …eclectic selection of guests. At the moment it reads like a Frankenstein’s monster of network interference, as if a cabal of Ten executives just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick.

    You’ve got the obligatory Neighbours cross-promote (Dennis may be a hilarious get, I don’t know); the ubiquitous Dave O’Neil (can Langbroke be far behind?); personality vortex David Reyne; perpetual-self-promotion-machine Morris; sketches; music; Chaser pranks; someone deciding to drag Dickie Fucking Knee out of the shame-grave our communal consciousness dug for the little bastard… At the end of that mystifying list it’s hard to know what this thing will be.

    Hopefully that’s good. Chau and Avard might have the freedom to shape their bit of televisual clay into whatever they need. A few names in that guest list are quality interviews (Pang and Leung leap to mind). And being on channel ONE might mean the network leaves them the hell alone for a while to build their audience – but given this country’s history of humourless executives deciding they can tinker with what’s not broken, I fear for their chances.

    Prove me wrong, television!

    Please.