Short Order

Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery finished up last week after just five episodes. Five is an odd number of shows to make in this sort of series but its shorter than usual run is probably more to do with it needing to make way for the almighty force of comedy that will be Ja’mie: Private School Girl than anything else.

While we weren’t too keen on the first couple of episodes, the latter ones with Noeline Brown and John Safran were worth a look. This is the kind of show that needs a good autobiographer as a guest, and both Brown and Safran had some well-honed stories to tell.

What also worked particularly well in the Safran episode, and in the third episode of the series with Shane Jacobson, was that the show diverted slightly from the “visit the childhood home, then the primary school, then the high school formula” of the other episodes, and took Safran and Jacobson to other locations they’d frequented as a child. In the case of the Safran episode, the religious bookshop and Safran’s vivid description of the bizarre titles he’d purchased there showed the, er, genesis of his comedy career.

For the second series, and we’re assuming this program will be back, it will be important to get good talent who’ve got something interesting to say about their early lives and their hometowns, ideally people who can really articulate the ways in which their childhoods shaped their careers. Shaun Micallef, Judith Lucy, Andrew Denton, Hannah Gadsby, Fiona O’Loughlin, and even Josh Thomas would all be ideal subjects. (As would Tony Martin, but we kinda promised not to talk about him.)