As we really should have mentioned earlier, Ten has grabbed the free-to-air rights to the local version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and starting tonight they’re screening it in (roughly) the HYBPA? timeslot for comedy fans who demand their laughs at the same time each week. Unfortunately for those who demand their laughs be... Read More »
Is it just us – and it usually is just us – or did that bit at the very start of this week’s The Weekly (now back for 2017!) basically say new regular Briggs was hired because he’s black? Obviously that’s not what they planned to say with their hilarious and of-the-moment parody of that... Read More »
In news that surprised no-one with the slightest idea of how money works, this just happened: Hey I have news. We have decided Season 4 #PleaseLikeMe is the last. I've loved making this show for you all so much. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/QKAk5nZQLV — Josh Thomas (@JoshThomas87) February 2, 2017 While it’s mildly interesting to us... Read More »
The first series of Stop Laughing…this is serious was a worthy if largely unsuccessful attempt to cover the entire history of Australian comedy in three 1-hour programs. Now it’s back for a second series, and in the first episode, the topic was characters. At the start of the episode, the following theory was posited: Barry... Read More »
One of the highlights of this year’s election was Sammy J’s Playground Politics, a faux kids show a la Play School that sunk the boots into our politicians with a cheezy child-friendly grin. So good news! As part of the ABC’s seemingly endless enthusiasm for putting on comedy during the non-ratings period, this week sees... Read More »
In word terms, 2016 was the year of “democracy sausage” and “post-truth”, but if the world of comedy had its say it’d probably go for “banter”, a term rightly mocked in The Yearly with Charlie Pickering for describing conversation that sounds funny but actually isn’t. Oh, the irony. But as joke after half-arsed observation died... Read More »
We’ve heard more exciting comedy announcements than the one about Fresh Blood alumni Fancy Boy and Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am getting series. But when we tuned into ABC2 last night and discovered that only one of them was terrible, we found ourselves feeling slightly less Scrooge and a little more Tiny Tim. It’s a... Read More »
A hefty chunk of the ABC’s scripted comedy wrapped up last night, and it’s a sign of just how forgettable much of the ABC’s output has been over the last year (okay, years) that they’ve already both pretty much vanished from our memories. Why is it only the shockers we remember? We’re still waking up... Read More »
Back in the mid-80’s, some people in the UK came up with an idea for an improvised comedy radio show called Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which was a sort of mash-up of theatre sports and stand-up, inspired by a regular improv night at London club The Comedy Store. Following the radio series, it was... Read More »
What can we say about Ten’s comedy stalwart Have You Been Paying Attention? that we haven’t already said during its long and stellar run? It’s the kind of comedy show that we happily tune into each week, but one of its big virtues is its consistency – which means that once you point out all... Read More »