If you’re making a sitcom that’s of a consistently high standard each week, that means you’re doing a good job, right? And Utopia is doing a good job; every episode it makes valid points about how government works (or doesn’t work) and it usually raises a few laughs along the way. So why, after... Read More »
The verdict is in, and unsurprisingly everyone really loves Get Krack!n. Sure, some of these people doing the loving clearly weren’t watching Kate McLennan on Let Loose Live: Not long ago, most of us had never heard of Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney; now we can barely imagine Australian comedy without them. Australian comedy without... Read More »
The final episode of True Story – well, the first series at least; it’s done well enough in the ratings to be the rare Australian commercial comedy hit – was a bit unusual. For a series that’s largely featured all-star Australian comedy casts (the week before had Stephen Curry, Bob Franklin and Rob Sitch), it... Read More »
There’s a certain school of thought that says reality is the highest form of art. The closer your novel or drama or whatever gets to reality, the better it is. Everything about The Other Guy suggests creator / star Matt Okine and his team wanted to make a show that first and foremost felt real.... Read More »
One of the things Australian sketch comedy used to be known for is taking a swipe at other television shows. Whether it was Fast Forward mocking Derryn Hinch or however many times Paul McCarthy wasted our time with his sub-par Kochie impression, mocking other shows was part and parcel of the sketch comedy scene here.... Read More »
Despite our amazingly persistent reputation for “shitting on” just about everything, we’re not intentionally cruel people at Tumbleweeds HQ (also: we are people, plural – there really is more than one person writing this stuff, honest). When a show comes along like Hard Quiz, we know why the ABC has made it and we sympathise... Read More »
Well, this was a waste of time. Australia has a strong track record of putting to air sitcoms made by people who’ve never actually seen a sitcom, and this was another one of those. Here’s an idea: when somebody in management decides to give a locally made sitcom a go, maybe go ahead and make... Read More »
So part of Team Tumbleweeds crawled out from behind their stockpile of old Ned and You Can’t Stop the Murders DVDs and went outside to see some live comedy. Well, by “live” we mean the preview at Melbourne’s ACMI of two (the first two?) episodes of the highly anticipated new show from Kate McLennan and... Read More »
If there’s a utopia for Australian comedy, it’s not Utopia series 3. The third series of a sitcom should build on past successes – and Utopia’s previous series were largely successful – but also give us, the audience, something new. Based on last night’s episode of Utopia, there’s nothing new for us to see here.... Read More »
Why is the ABC so obsessed with advice programs? There’s a reason why the commercial networks don’t make them and it’s not “duhh we forgot”: most Australians consider themselves perfectly capable of living their own lives thank you very much, and when they do need advice they turn to people who have a passing resemblance... Read More »