13 schoolyards, Author at Australian Tumbleweeds - Page 105 of 115
The News Team of Dorian Gray
For all the tough questions being asked on Hungry Beast, one seems to have been overlooked: why is it that, when producer Andrew Denton says “The whole point of this was to bring new people into the industry”, this third series sees the same faces back in the ring for yet another swing? After all,... Read More »
Vale Laid
Yes, Laid finished up a few days ago, but it seemed like a good idea to wait just in case the Fairfax papers – specifically The Age – tried to slip in some more good words for a show they love so much they should just bloody well marry it. During its final week it... Read More »
Anger is an Energy
There’s a clip from Chris Lilley’s upcoming series Angry Boys currently doing the rounds (for example, here), and surprise surprise, it contains no surprises whatsoever. Well, maybe it does if you were expecting Lilley to do anything new or different now that he’s playing with the big boys (Angry Boys is co-funded by the BBC... Read More »
Autopsy Ambulance
It’s already become established wisdom that the failure of Live From Planet Earth comes down to one man: Ben Elton. (ok, and twitter, but let’s come back to that later) LFPE stunk on ice not because of Elton’s actual stand-up – generally acknowledged to be the best thing about the show and the only thing... Read More »
Executive Decision
Now that the chorus of voices calling for Live From Planet Earth have faded, their unholy bloodlust sated, a new round of voices can be heard. “They pulled it too soon”, these voices say, “They didn’t give it a chance to find its feet”. And who’s to say they don’t have a point? Well, us... Read More »
Laid: I Like It Both Ways
One of the many fun ways to pass the time while waiting to laugh watching Laid is to spot the various lines and scenes lifted from other shows. Sometimes they’re too generic to seriously attribute to a single source: for example, no-one actually invented the term “ass-clown”, but it’s not exactly in common usage in... Read More »
King of the Hill
It’s no real shock that we like The Jesters a lot. This behind-the-scenes sitcom about a group of Chaser-style comedians and their grumpy producer stars Mick Molloy and is packed with references to and plots based on Australian television comedy; the only way to make a sitcom more to our liking would be to announce that Tony Martin was going to be a regular on the upcoming series of The... Read More »
Ben Elton vs The Twitterverse
So Live From Planet Earth returned last night, and while the changes made were for the best it wasn’t like there was a whole lot of them. More Elton stand-up and less shoddy sketches was a good move, but it still felt like tinkering around the edges of a now-proven dud. What, they thought last... Read More »
At Last, the Laid Review
Laid would probably work if it was a movie. You wouldn’t pay to go see it, of course, but when it works it works in roughly the same way as a reasonably competent Australian independent film does – think The Rage in Placid Lake or The Illustrated Family Doctor (not that anyone paid to see... Read More »
Live From The End Of Days
Nobody seriously expected anything startlingly original from Nine’s first proper stab at prime time “all-new” comedy in almost a decade. Once the cast details for Live From Planet Earth eaked out – name after name from Comedy inc is never a good sign – expectations for anything fresher than the contents of Elvis’ colon evaporated.... Read More »