Vale Santo, Sam & Ed
Dirty Laundry Live, a new panel show about celebrity gossip hosted by Lawrence Mooney and Brooke Satchwell, starts in a couple of weeks. “Get ready to embrace the shame of our obsession with celebrity and fame” says the official webpage, perhaps hinting that this show will not so much skewer celebrity gossip as celebrate it. So, kinda like pretty much every other look at celebrity gossip ever. Probably. We really should wait to see the show before passing judgement.
Yet Dirty Laundry Live does sound a little more “breakfast radio” than we’d hoped. Which is a shame, because there’s a way of taking a light-hearted look at the less serious stories in the media whilst keeping your tongue firmly in your cheek. And that way isn’t always to follow the media’s line and go after the subjects of silly celebrity stories – highlighting the stupid things journalists and commenters say is far funnier.
The Santo, Sam & Ed podcast, now taking a break after 24 episodes, usually gets it right. It may look like they’re just finding bizarre clips and playing them to death for cacks (“This is my sausage moment”, “Qatari cash”), but what they’re really taking the piss out of is the level of insight and commentary we get from people in the spotlight these days, or about people in the spotlight. That and they’re taking endless delight in crowbarring Clive Palmer/fat jokes in wherever possible. And very good Clive Palmer/fat jokes they are too.
It’s a shame Santo, Sam & Ed are taking a break, but Ed’s been in LA for several months and only been calling in via Skype for part of the show, and now Sam’s off to Eurovision, and as fun as it might be to have the Santo, Rob & Tom podcast maybe the Working Dog team have something in the pipeline? We’re to “stay tuned”, apparently.
I will reserve judgement on the show but if I was a stand up comic who was a woman I’d be a little annoyed. First we get Tractor Monkeys where they got a radio host as a team leader. Then there was that sports show where they got a sports reporter to be a team leader, then there was Spicks and Specks where they got a music writer/radio host. Now this where they get an actress. There are plenty of good female stand-ups out there. Why don’t they get to be team captains on these shows? Apart from GNW redux I can’t think of an example. Then people wonder why we get stupid “Are woman funny articles?” But when it comes to opportunities to give female stand-up jobs the ABC doesn’t. Apart from Cal Wilson getting that Clue show what other examples do we have? Meshel Laurie hosting a live stand-up show? That’s all I can think of.
Apart from Tractor Monkeys I don’t see why having a female subject matter expert is somehow worse than having a female comedian. In the case of DLL- Brooke is a ‘celebrity’ so I guess she is supposed to offer her perspective on this subject and/or to feed the set-ups. I can’t think of an Australian female comedian who can be considered an out-and-out ‘celebrity’. Perhaps Julia Morris but is she a comedian?
A 16 part comedy game show? Why not make it 26 episodes, just to ensure the coffin lid stays nailed down. Well, at least they are putting it on ABC2 where the Randling levels of humiliation will be more bearable.
This smacks of “perhaps if we have an ex-soap star from a commercial network then people will start watching our shitty comedy panel shows”.
We should have a bet on who makes the first Newton-Satchwell/domestic violence joke. I’d put money on Tom Ballard.
My point is that usually comedians get to be the cast members on comedy shows. The exception seems to be when they want to get a woman in which case they broaden the spectrum to include actresses, radio hosts, journalists etc. I would be fine with it if sometimes they had female host and a male actor/journalist etc but it never seems to play out that way. When they gave Hannah Gadsby a shot as the offsider on Gordon St she was better than the host.
Given it’s live I’d have to say I agree with you. At least try doing 6-8. Still nice to have something live on telly.
Followed by an apology and then a one hour stand-up show justifying why he said it to begin with.
Come back Santo, Sam & Ed! All the Clive Palmer jokes are going off in the sun like a Bob Katter same sex marriage promise.