It’s the end of an era: The ABC’s highly respected head of comedy Rick Kalowski today announced his resignation after more than six years in the post. After commissioning and overseeing the production of 80 titles, spanning pilots, series, digital content and podcasts, the executive tells IF he is exhausted and needs a break. The... Read More »
Last week a tweet was doing the rounds listing all the great things being done by ABC staffers now that they’ve left the ABC. The point was that they’d had to move on to get anything done, which was… fair enough? The ABC is a great training ground, but anyone able to do basic math... Read More »
Wherever the exciting future of Australian comedy is, it may not be at the ABC. For a certain type of comedy at least. Appearing on a panel recently at Screen Forever, “Australia’s premier event for screen industry professionals”, Rick Kalowski, Head of Comedy at the ABC, is reported to have said: “It’s your responsibility as... Read More »
Frayed, which ended last night, has been a lesson to dramedy makers in this country: that it’s possible to mix drama and comedy in the one show and for that show to be good. And after years of programs like Rosehaven and – gulp – Channel 9’s reboot of SeaChange, who knew it was even... Read More »
If you programed a computer to create the perfect Hamish & Andy series, the program would look a lot like this: 10 PRINT “PRANKS” 20 PRINT “OVERSEAS TRIP” 30 GOTO 10 Wonder what their new show’s about? Sure, over the years they’ve mixed it up a little – but just a little; the various Gap... Read More »
Everyone likes it when the cast and crew of a favourite old TV show reunite for a one-off special, right? But was a reunion of those responsible for the Andrew Denton-produced current affairs/comedy hybrid and new talent initiative Hungry Beast (2009-2011) something anyone apart from those involved with Hungry Beast asked for? We’re going to... Read More »
Fat Pizza is back, and… yeah, who ordered this? Fat Pizza (formerly just plain old Pizza) has been running in various forms continuously since 2000 – especially once you add creator Pauly Fenech’s other series Housos and Swift & Shift to the mix, as they’re all basically the same show set in the same universe... Read More »
Short-run Australian TV series often start well, leaving us with high hopes and keen to see more, before they crash somewhere around episode two or three, and then slowly burn out over the rest of the run (a big hello to everyone who sat through all of Content). But this is not the case with... Read More »
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 »
We don’t usually bother with The Australian, which is one thing we have in common with the entire Australian population, but this did manage to catch our eye: Others have pointed out the irony of The Australian leaping to defend comedians they sued (successfully) over a joke; The Australian having spent the last decade or... Read More »