When Tonightly with Tom Ballard was axed last year, Australia not only lost a show which was delivering a solid half-hour of interesting, passionate and funny topical comedy four nights a week but it a lost a show which had been allowed to be itself. So often, TV executives take a bunch of people who’ve... Read More »
The 25 June episode of The PodRoast started with an interview with The Roast’s Executive Producer Charles Firth, in which he discussed why he left The Chaser, how The Roast came about, and what his comedy ambitions... Read More »
We all knew this day was coming, and it seems “this day” is this Wednesday: Did you notice? No, not that ABC2 is repeating Mad as Hell – too much Micallef is never enough in our book – but that the Wednesday night ABC1 comedy night is no more. Yes, there’s a repeat of QI... Read More »
What with there being an election campaign on, politicians are everywhere trying to get us to vote for them. And what with there being a glut of topical comedies on at the moment, any politicians after the “youth vote” are beating down the doors trying to get on those... Read More »
When did we get so massively oversensitive about comedy? That’s one of the questions that sprung to mind when we watched Shock Horror Aunty the other... Read More »
Here’s a question: when exactly did Australian political comedy go soft? Put another way, when Shaun Micallef, cuddly game-show host and master of light-hearted surrealism, can moderately startle at least one of the hard-boiled Tumbleweeds team by confusing John Howard’s biography with Mein Kampf and making a Tony Abbott joke based on not quite calling... Read More »
In recent years we've seen the ABC attempt to bring a little sparkle and mass appeal to its more serious outputs. Perhaps this was inspired by the phenomenal success of The Daily Show and the many failed attempts by local comedians to make an equivalent... Read More »
Sketch comedy, like radio comedy, is a writer's medium. Performers are important too, but unless the writing is sharp a sketch show is... Read More »
2011 was a bad year for Australian comedy – on television at least – but not in the ways we’ve come to expect. Yes, the energy level was down across the board, with old favourites either tanking hard or stuck in a rut while the fresh faces were shunted off to digital channels where they wouldn’t upset the Spicks & Specks... Read More »
Yeah, sorry about the delay with this one. But hey, it’s not like The Chaser really need anyone rushing to judgment at this point in their career. Their position at the ABC is about as secure as it gets at this stage of the game: if there hasn’t been a mention of what they’ll be... Read More »