Bean Is A Carrot, Author at Australian Tumbleweeds - Page 14 of 52

Frayed (or How To Do Dramedy)

One of 2018’s better comedies was the three-part BBC radio series Australian Trilogy, based on Sarah Kendall’s real-life experiences growing up in Newcastle in the 1980s. As a teen, Kendall was an enforced loner, stuck in a traditional but depressed industrial town where anyone different – especially a nerdy redhead girl – was always going... Read More »

Vale Mad As Hell series 10

Tonight, we say farewell to the 10th series of Mad As Hell. What have we learnt? One of the things that’s noticeable about Mad As Hell is the way it never parodies any actual politicians and public figures. And by this we mean the show don’t include impersonations of real people. Instead, we get a... Read More »

We shouldn’t be content with Content

There’s been a lot of buzz about the ABC’s vertical video comedy series Content, in which Brisbane millennial Lucy (Charlotte Nicdao), a wannabe celebrity and social media influencer, crashes her car in the middle of a Facebook Live. And fair enough too, a series about how we live our lives on our phones is of... Read More »

Saturday Night Rove Fever

Is the best thing about Saturday Night Rove Judith Lucy’s sarcastic voiceovers over the crap bits of the show? Yes, of course, it is. Because nothing saves live comedy that’s dying on its arse like an experienced and much-loved legend of comedy letting rip with a bit of deprecating humour. Thank god she’s there, otherwise,... Read More »

Saturday Night Rove’s alright for laughing

Last week Rove McManus did a bunch of media for his new show Saturday Night Rove, arguing that there’s potential for something on TV on Saturday nights that isn’t sport. Maybe, but if Saturday Night Rove is going to be that show, it’s going to have to become a whole lot funnier really, really soon... Read More »

The New Utopia

It’s probably fair to say that Working Dog has mined all that it can from the infrastructure comedy seam. We certainly didn’t find the first episode of the new series of Utopia a huge cack. Partly this was because we had in our minds the actual real problem this country has when it comes to... Read More »

Tonight is not the night – The worst Australian topical comedies and tonight shows

When Tonightly with Tom Ballard was axed last year, Australia not only lost a show which was delivering a solid half-hour of interesting, passionate and funny topical comedy four nights a week but it a lost a show which had been allowed to be itself. So often, TV executives take a bunch of people who’ve... Read More »

Sketchy at best: The worst Australian sketch comedy shows

TV Tonight’s recent article on the all-time best Australian TV comedies got us thinking…what are the all-time worst Australian TV comedies? Having been blogging about this for more than a decade, we think we have the answers. First up…sketch shows! If you grew up pre the late-90s, sketch shows were something you saw on TV... Read More »

The KGB are coming for you

Now on ABC iView and released in time for NAIDOC Week is KGB, a five-part short comedy series about indigenous cops solving a drugs case in the notorious Perth suburbs of Koondoola, Girrawheen and Balga, AKA the KGB. The makers of KGB, Perth-based Mad Kids, were also responsible for The Legend of Gavin Tanner (made as part... Read More »

The end of the world as we know it: Sarah’s Channel

What the hell happened to the ABC Comedy YouTube channel, wondered probably just us the other day. What is this “Sarah’s Channel”? Sarah’s Channel is a new web series available on iView, which has also taken over the ABC Comedy YouTube channel (except they’re still uploading Sammy J to “Sarah’s Channel”, and there’s still a... Read More »