Remember how Pilot Week was going to bring us Ten’s next hit comedy? How it was kind of exciting to work out which of the pilots would get a series? How we’ve been waiting for ages to hear which shows are going to series, and have heard nothing? Well, it turns out, that Ten’s next... Read More »
The third series of Black Comedy feels different to previous series. Gone is the popular recurring sketch Tiddas and its catchphrase “What’s this then, slut?”, along with writer/performer Steven Oliver, and filling the gap are some new cast members, a bunch of new recurring sketches and a slightly different feel to the show. Basically, Black... Read More »
Australian sitcoms are rarely story-driven. Sure, they have stories, but the laughs usually come from the characters and the dialogue. Kath & Kim was a classic, but what sticks in the mind: the plots, or Kel’s butt-wiggling walk? Whether it’s due to financial limitations or simply playing to their strengths, even the most ambitious Australian... Read More »
Signing wildly popular YouTube stars Superwog (AKA Theodore and Nathan Saidden) to make a sitcom for ABC Comedy is possibly the smartest move the channel and the ABC have made in years. Last year’s pilot episode has been viewed by almost 4 million people, and episode 1 (released on YouTube last night) has had more... Read More »
What’s with all the edits? That was our first thought watching Mark Humphries’ first ever comedy segment on 7.30. They were jumping from camera to camera to camera like every comma in his monologue signaled a cut, which was distracting in a way you probably don’t want to be distracted when you’re hoping to get... Read More »
So Mad as Hell is good; no news there. But what makes it so good? Being funny doesn’t hurt, but there are a whole lot of pathways to “being funny” and it’s not just the ones that feature Charlie Pickering that lead to dead ends. And while skewering the news doesn’t hurt either, Australia has... Read More »
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 »
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 »
The funniest thing about The Weekly this year was the way that during the coup that deposed Malcolm Turnbull pretty much everyone said “gee, wouldn’t it be great if Mad as Hell was on now to make fun of all this?” Because what was The Weekly‘s big satirical contribution to that whole debacle? Oh, that’s... Read More »
All Aussie Adventures is about as unfashionable a comedy as comedy currently gets. Despite star Russel Coight’s constant blathering on about conservation and helping out farmers and struggling regular folk, there’s no real political angle here: everything he says and does is completely centered on himself. So if you really wanted to stretch a point,... Read More »