It was inevitable that at least one of this country’s female comedians would attempt a Julia Gillard impersonation sooner or later. Sure, someone from Double Take did it last year, but with Gillard now running the country there’s a gap in the market – an opportunity to fill the shoes of Anthony Ackroyd, whose Kevin... Read More »
Earlier this month I argued that it's quantity, not quality that seems to be the watchword at the offices of GNW TV Productions, makers of Good News Week. Now TV Tonight has brought us the news that over-extending each episode by an hour isn't the only way GNW saves on production costs - they film two episodes in one session, saving them money on studio hire and staff fees - at the expense of... Read More »
We've argued before on this blog that The Gillies Report deserves a DVD release. It was enormously popular at the time, it won a Logie in 1986 for Best Light Entertainment Series, it's fondly remembered by those who saw it, many of the sketches still stand up (there are plenty on YouTube), it's a significant series in the history of Australian comedy, and now it seems a future Prime Minister once sat in its audience. What more could you... Read More »
Can you remember the last time anyone produced a full length scripted comedy show for a mainstream radio station? Apart from ABC Local’s lacklustre 2008 new talent scheme The Comedy Hour? You probably have to go back as far as the late 70s or early... Read More »
Every week for more than 20 years John Clarke has been writing two and a half minutes of some of the best satire you'll find anywhere in the world, which he performs with fellow satirist Bryan Dawe. Highly intelligent, stuffed with gags and brilliantly performed, this is at the pinnacle of comedy in this country – and as an insight into Australian politics it puts a lot of serious analysis to... Read More »
Is all Australian TV comedy now a lame panel show with next-to-no laughs? Seemingly thousands of such programmes have either returned or started-up in the past few weeks, with only Hungry Beast and Clarke & Dawe suggesting there's an alternative approach to getting laughs. In this climate I'm almost pining for that STITCH thing 13 schoolyards mentioned in his last blog - at least it'll offer something... Read More »
Things have slowed down a little around here of late, as we work behind the scenes to push the lumbering cart that is The Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2009 into position. Sadly, that means no in-depth analysis on why roughly a tenth of Hungry Beast‘s running time is taken up with fancy promos for a show... Read More »
If there was a running gag throughout this week’s Chaser, it was Andrew Hanson’s furious letter-writer character Phillip Harley of Adelaide complaining about how the the show wasn’t attacking enough religious groups. The Harley character has usually popped-up once or twice in each episode of the current series to complain about various non-issues, but it... Read More »