Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtian

You learn something new every day. But while this letter was informative, it also raised another question: how much attention should we (the media in general, not us: who cares what we have to say?) be paying to the directors of Australian television comedies? The performers get the spotlight, and the writers occasionally get a nod (especially as in these days of shrinking budgets they’re increasingly one and the same), but the directors? They barely rate a mention, even from self-proclaimed experts like… well, us.

It’s not like Australia doesn’t have a proud tradition of comedy directors either. There’s the twenty year career of Ted Emery for one.  Now that Full Frontal series four and five are out on DVD, it’s possible to trace his sketch comedy work with Micallef right through to the end of The Micallef P(r)ogram(me) – and see the way his style shifted to grow with Micallef’s expanded ambitions. Or was it the other way around?

(Emery’s also directed episodes of Welcher & Welcher, Hamish & Andy’s first show on Seven, Kath & Kim and Whatever Happened to That Guy. He’s supposedly now at work on the upcoming Kath & Kim movie, making him for the most part a name to watch out for)

At the other end of the spectrum there’s Ted Robinson, the man behind Good News Week, The Big Gig, The Gillies Report, Good News Week knockoff The Glasshouse, Big Gig knockoff The Sideshow, Good News Week again, Big Gig spin-off In Harmers Way, Big Gig spin-off Kittson Fahey, Big Gig spin-off DAAS Kapital, Big Gig/ Gillies Report spin-off Three Men and a Baby Grand, Gillies Report spin-off Gillies and Company, Gillies Report spin-off The Dingo Principle and Live & Sweaty. So again, he’s a name to watch out for.

More recently, Chris Lilley’s worked with director Stuart McDonald on both Angry Boys and Summer Heights High (McDonald’s done a fair bit of  ‘straight’  drama too, including episodes of Tangle and Rush), though oddly he hasn’t worked with We Can Be Heroes director Matthew Saville (who’s also directed episodes of Tangle, as well as the currently on-air Cloudstreet) again. If we subscribed to the currently fashionable idea that WCBH was Lilley’s peak and it’s all been downhill from there, this could be interesting. Sadly, we don’t: WCBH was just as painful as Lilley’s later work, and being shorter and tighter doesn’t really change that.

That’s where this theory about the importance of directors falls down. Well, actually it falls down with the example of Laid. It was a crap not-quite comedy directed by Trent O’Donnell, who also directed the much, much funnier Review With Myles Barlow. Different writers. different performers, different result. Of course, directors are vitally important when it comes to getting a television show made. It’s just that when it comes to getting a funny television show made, they’re way, way down on a list that really only contains those two jobs we just mentioned: writers and performers.

Another example: Tony Martin’s a very funny guy. He’s got a unique comedy style. He directed two episodes of the last series of Very Small Business (edit: as pointed out below, we mean The Librarians), and it’s all but impossible to tell which ones without checking the credits. That’s because in television a director’s job is to get the shots needed to get the show made: pretty much all the big creative decisions have been made in the writers room or are made by the performers on the day.

Why? To a large extent it comes down to money. There just isn’t the money to spend messing about with a director’s creative whims. Writers can come up with anything then change it with a press of the delete key. Performers can tweak their work in an instant. Directors are an important sounding board and – of course – contribute a lot to the finished product. They just don’t do as much as writers and performers, especially when you’re talking about experianced writer-performers like The Chaser or Micallef with dozens of hours of television under their belts. After all, Working Dog have been directing their own stuff since Frontline.

So much as we’d like to usher in a new director-focused focus here, we… nah. Clearly there’s mileage to be had in taking a closer look at the behind-the-scenes teams putting together our comedy. No doubt we’ll trumpet their good work from time to time. But when Angry Boys is tanking so badly in the ratings (last week was down to almost a third of the week one figures) that the ABC seem to be pulling the tried-and-tested ratings-boosting swifty of bunging on repeats within the same week in the hope of bumping up viewer numbers, you’ll forgive us if our attention (and our snark) remains focused elsewhere.

*and yes, they’re also co-hosting TripleJ’s breakfast show this week, making them officially at least as friendly as Judith Lucy and Helen Razer were when they worked together on JJJ