Bean Is A Carrot, Author at Australian Tumbleweeds - Page 18 of 52

Raking over the coals

You might say there’s been a bit of a mixed reaction to the new series of Rake. Not all fans of the series have warmed to Cleaver Greene’s move to Canberra, and the show’s writer Peter Duncan appeared to apologise to viewers in an interview with the Daily Telegraph last week. He later clarified what... Read More »

Back in Very Small Business should get back to Very Small Business

Three episodes in and we’re increasingly unsure about Back in Very Small Business, the reimagining of the brilliant 2008 sitcom Very Small Business. The original, largely a two-hander between Don Angel (Wayne Hope) and Ray Leonard Leonard (Kim Gyngell), was an “odd couple” comedy, in which insensitive, boorish, “Howard battler” Angel owned and operated a... Read More »

Diverse sketch comedy is the new black

Just when we thought diverse sketch comedy had died in this country following the axing of Tonightly, Seven has announced a new show starring Nazeem Hussain… Cast revealed for Seven sketch comedy Orange is the New Brown Great to see Seven getting back into the sketch comedy business with upcoming series Orange is the New... Read More »

Vale Tonightly

There was a moment in the final episode of Tonightly with Tom Ballard last night when Ballard rightly called out the people who’ve been saying that Tonightly only got funny after it was axed. And while the last few weeks of Tonightly have been some of the most interesting, experimental and spirited, Ballard had a... Read More »

Sheilas

It’s possibly just a coincidence that the new web series Sheilas, a comedy look at semi-forgotten female figures of Australian history, has launched a week after Drunk History. Although clearly in the minds of TV producers, pisstakes of the past are considered a comedy goldmine. Or were a couple of years ago… In the case... Read More »

Pilot Week day 1 – It’ll give you the skits

Ten’s Pilot Week started with the ensemble sketch show Skit Happens and Sam Dastiyari’s Disgrace, in which the ex-politician and a panel analyse gutter journalism. And while the latter was a Gruen-style peek behind a curtain we’ve looked behind a number of times under our own steam, thanks, and Dastiyari and panel didn’t tell us... Read More »

Is it OK to swear in comedy?

Remember that story six months ago about that Tonightly sketch that upset the Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield, Cory Bernardi and various others, and inspired several complaints to ACMA and the ABC? Well, late last week, ACMA cleared the show: Today ACMA has found no breach by the ABC, noting the comedic context rather than... Read More »

All Aussie Adventures: Hittin’ the road again

The return of All Aussie Adventures last night comes at a time in TV history when broadcasters seem to be increasingly looking to the popular favourites of the past to draw in an audience (Roseanne, that proposed re-boot of Hypotheticals, that proposed re-boot of Frasier). Which is all well and good if it’s entertaining and... Read More »

Should Barry Humphries shut up and retire?

Barry Humphries has been in the news a lot recently, because of outrage at some comments he made about trans people in an interview with Lloyd Evans for right-wing UK-based magazine The Spectator: I ask if his biggest crowd-pleaser, Dame Edna Everage, has attracted the attention of trans activists, who are swift to take offence... Read More »

Pointless without the laughs

The British game show Pointless has been a cult afternoon hit on the ABC for a few years now, delighting retirees and people taking sickies alike with its mix of obscure trivia questions and twee comedy banter. It’s the kind of show we don’t make much of here. We Australians make game shows (featuring ordinary... Read More »