Good news, everyone! Spicks and Specks is back! In fact, it seems to be on every night of the week at 7pm on ABC2 and… oh wait, that’s the old version. Sorry. Easy mistake to make. This was going to be a regular old “Vale Spicks and Specks” until we realised that when you’re trying... Read More »
Jonah from Tonga marked a big step forward in Chris Lilley’s career: it was the first time in living memory he gave characters not played by himself serious air time. Ok, by “serious air time” we mean “an occasional solo moment”, but by Lilley’s standards that was massive. One of our biggest complaints against Lilley’s... Read More »
Well, doesn’t this just sound dandy: Optus has recruited comedian Josh Thomas to promote its “live more yes” positioning as it seeks to amplify its ‘Yes’ branding through new price offerings and services. It’s hard to know what’s more depressing in that sentence: the idea of “amplifying branding”, “promoting positioning”, or calling Thomas a comedian. Sure, you... Read More »
Was there ever a television series more utterly unnecessary than Jonah from Tonga? Even in the darkest days of Ja’mie: Private School Girl at least we knew that Ja’mie was always going to cruise through life, an eternal and unchanging sitcom character where what little laughs there were came from dropping her in different situations.... Read More »
With the second series of Please Like Me coming up in August this isn’t an entirely bad time to dig out our DVD of Roy Höllsdotter Live, an early-ish short film by Please Like Me director Matthew... Read More »
Oh look, it’s the episode of Jonah where Chris Lilley reuses all the “Gran” stuff from Angry Boys rather than reusing the “Jonah” stuff from Summer Heights High. A few years ago Lilley opening an episode with two non-Lilley characters talking to camera for an extended period would have been hailed by us as a... Read More »
We’re going to come straight out and say this: the only Australian TV comedy we really look forward to each week, at this moment in time, is Have You Been Paying... Read More »
Can we blame the dead weight that is Jonah from Tonga for this one? Retro TV music quiz show Spicks and Specks got its name from a Bee Gees song and just like the lyrics of the top 10 hit, “it is dead, it is dead”. The ABC on Friday confirmed the reboot of the... Read More »
Hey, where’d everybody go? Two weeks ago we could pad these reviews out with loads of quotes from various articles denouncing Jonah as racist tripe or praising it as cutting edge comedy from Australia’s favourite satirist, and now… nothing. What gives? Oh, that’s right: Chris Lilley’s career is over. Actually, it was over a couple... Read More »
Reacting against mainstream society’s newfound distaste for bogans is something Paul Fenech prides himself on. His shows are, he says, celebrations of ordinary Australians, and if you don’t like it he doesn’t care if you ring up and... Read More »