Monday, December 5, 2016 —

ABC will keep Australian audiences entertained throughout the long summer days with a stocking full of specials, premieres and events throughout December and January.

The festive fun kicks off with ABC iview’s Binge on the Best of Australian Comedy featuring some of Australia’s best comedians and actors in shows that will keep audiences laughing. These include (amongst many others) Josh Thomas’ Please Like Me (all 4 series), Luke McGregor and Celia Paquola’s loveable new comedy Rosehaven, Shaun Micallef’s unique political comedy The Ex-PM, side-splitting satirical kitchen comedy The Katering Show (both series) plus two new series Fancy Boy and Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am will premiere.

Wrapping up 2016, Charlie Pickering, Tom Gleeson and Kitty Flanagan dissect the year with their trademark caustic humour in The Yearly with Charlie Pickering. A range of Christmas specials will delight audiences including the convivial Steven Fry in the QI Christmas Special (his last ever!), the comic Would I Lie to You? Christmas Special, [etc etc let’s cut it off here – ed]

Here’s pretty much the only new news in all that:

The Yearly with Charlie Pickering – Wednesday 14 December at 8.30pm

Notice we didn’t say “good news”.

There’s also New Year’s Eve coverage mentioned, but no names are as yet named – and considering the controversy that’s regularly erupted every years that the ABC has put comedians in that slot, it’s probably reasonable to assume that whatever they’ll be saying while waiting for the Sydney Harbour fireworks to go off, it won’t be funny (or even “funny”).

But hey, when the ABC is giving us the chance to binge on the best of Australian comedy, who are we to complain?