The problem with The Chaser’s Election Desk is that it has the feel of a show that’ll wear thin by week three. Okay, there are heaps of problems with The Chaser’s Election Desk, but the unsustainability of it is one of the most striking. Maybe they’d have been better off going for a different format?... Read More »
Hamish & Andy are back! Okay, they never really went away, especially if you’re one of the three people still listening to commercial radio of your own free will. But it seems like the duo’s popular brand of pranks, stunts and mirth-making will soon be returning to the small screen: Hamish & Andy have signed... Read More »
With a comedy team as long-running as The Chaser, it’s important for us to stake out our positions before discussing their latest effort. It’s not simply enough to say “they peaked with The Hamster Wheel” (though that’s true): something like The Checkout may not be a 100% traditional Chaser product, but it’s a better show... Read More »
It’s fair to say our expectations weren’t exactly high for Hughes the Boss?, Dave Hughes’ half hour comedy special that aired on Channel Nine last night. But somehow we managed to fool ourselves into thinking that it had to be something more than chunks of Hughes’ stand-up about his family intercut with home movies featuring... Read More »
Reality TV shows are taking jobs from actors, writers, designers, etc. – it’s a view you hear expressed fairly regularly by people who work as actors, writers, designers, etc. And while it’s hard to argue against this, and we have a great deal of sympathy for those trying to get scripted shows to air in... Read More »
Press release time! HUGHES THE BOSS? MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016 AT 9.45PM ON CHANNEL NINE Take a rare look behind the curtain of the chaotic life of funnyman Dave Hughes on Hughes The Boss? on Monday, June 6, at 9.45pm after The Voice on Channel Nine. In a half-hour special, for the first time on... Read More »
In news that will surprise no-one – mostly because it seems to have been announced then ignored months ago – sketch comedy group Fancy Boy were one of the big winners out of the ABC’s Fresh Blood program: ABC has a new sketch comedy series in production, Fancy Boy, which was part of the Fresh... Read More »
Over the last decade or so, Australia has failed to develop an international – or even local – reputation for quality cinematic comedy. Could Down Under be the film to change that? Has Australian comedy finally moved beyond ethnic stereotypes and bogans doing stupid shit? Oh well, there’s always cutting edge comedy on the small... Read More »
The most surprising of the six sitcoms in the ABC’s Comedy Showroom pilot season, for us, was Bleak, Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney’s show focusing on all-round loser Anna’s forced return to her weird family home. What surprised us most about Bleak was that it was such a contrast to their smash hit, The Katering Show.... Read More »
Over the years, there have been less surprising media revelations than the one that Lee Lin Chin doesn’t write her own tweets and that her hilarious media persona is, to be blunt, fiction. According to Benjamin Law’s article published last year on The Monthly, her tweets are written for her by Chris Leben, one of... Read More »