True Dinks

Press release time!

True Story with Hamish & Andy, the breakout smash hit from 2017, returns for its eagerly awaited second series on Tuesday, August 7, at 8.40pm on Nine and 9Now.

This original format brings to life the best Australian tales you’ve never heard, told by the very people who experienced them and then humorously and cinematically realised through dramatic recreations.

In each half-hour episode, Hamish and Andy meet one regular Australian storyteller who recounts their amazing, surprising, funny and above all true story, which is simultaneously recreated by a cast of Australia’s most renowned performers.

The carefully scripted recreations produce a dramatic and heightened reality that brings a sense of the epic to these everyday stories of glory … or perhaps more often than not, complete humiliation.

The first series was a ratings smash hit, acclaimed by critics and viewers alike. Each episode attracted an average audience of almost two million viewers (including encore screenings and streaming on 9Now), making True Story with Hamish & Andy one of the most successful new program launches in recent years.

An all-star lineup of actors has been assembled for series two including Essie Davis, John Waters, Dan Wyllie, Bruce Spence, Rob Carlton, Rob Sitch, Mark Mitchell, Jane Allsop, Stephen Hall, Dave Lawson, Anne Edmonds, Katrina Milosevic, Georgia Love, Sam Pang, Susie Youssef, Debra Lawrance, Richard Davies, Brian Mannix, Shareena Clanton, Kate Jenkinson, Jessica Tovey, Ian Meadows, Denise Scott, Michala Banas, Toby Truslove, Santo Cilauro, Nicholas Bell, Dilruk Jayasinha, Kate McCartney, Luke McGregor, Mandy McElhinney, Dave Hughes, Christie Whelan-Browne and Genevieve Morris.

In Episode One we meet Carol.  Despite Carol’s visual impairment, her mum has always told her that she can do anything. In 1986, when Carol was 15, she was given an English assignment that required her to write out and analyse 40 poems. But the night before the due date, she hadn’t even started. And with reading not her strong suit, Carol decided that her only way out was to fake an illness and miss the next day of school. What we learn in this amazing True Story is that once Carol is committed to something, there is no going back – even if what she has committed to is entirely fictitious. Will the highly trained medical fraternity catch Carol out, or will the wily teenager fool them all, just to get out of an English assignment?

True Story with Hamish & Andy, made with the assistance of Film Victoria, is created and produced by Tim Bartley, Hamish Blake, Andy Lee and Ryan Shelton, and written by Hamish Blake, Andy Lee and Ryan Shelton.

Guess we all knew this was coming, but it doesn’t hurt to having it down in writing. Especially as they don’t seem to be flogging it quite as hard second time around; sure, we’ve seen some ads, but compared to the return of Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures – which you’d have to be in the grave to no know is back this Sunday evening – it’s definitely flying in under the radar.

So here’s to our favourite not-quite Drunk History series: the cast may not be quite as high-powered as the first season, but presumably this time around they have a been idea of what works so the stories themselves will get the job done. And if no, they can always bring back the crime kid from season one: presumably his scams only got more advanced once he made it to high school.