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.