Australian Tumbleweeds
Five Alive!
For years we’ve been moaning about Chris Lilley’s sitcoms on this blog, and chief amongst our complaints are the rambling, incoherent plotting and characterisations, and the lack of laughs to be had from Lilley ensuring that his characters always end up on top. But in Ja’mie: Private School Girl episode five Lilley changed tack. A little…
Earlier episodes of Ja’mie: Private School Girl seemed to consist of little more than a bunch of noisy scenes that were only connected by the fact that they were dominated by the same character. But in episode five events from previous shows all came to a head when it transpired that Ja’mie had ruined her chances of winning the Hillford medal, getting to perform her dance at assembly and having a statue modelled on her…because a sexy Skype call she’d made leaked on to the internet. Oh no! Even better, all the honours were going to Erin, the girl from the boarding house Ja’mie had bullied. Poetic justice! And Erin and her friend got a couple of lines of dialogue. Wow!
For Lilley this is a break from the usual formula, and one that made us laugh a lot more than we have so far during this series…because it’s funny when horrible characters in comedy get their comeuppance. That’s how comedy works. Obviously we give full marks to Lilley for trying something different over the years – trying to get laughs from horrible characters triumphing – but as an experiment it was kind of a waste of time.
Which is why we were screaming at our tellies when we saw the promos for episode six, in which Ja’mie takes over assembly and swans off in a helicopter. She’ll probably fly direct to Hollywood with a hot billionaire too. And win the Nobel Peace Prize. Hilarious! We shouldn’t really have been surprised that the series looks set to end like this, but it would be a massive shame if Lilley abandoned a style that could work better for him and stuck to his usual, kinda crappy formula.
#2ManySillyIdeasLater
We’ve held off reviewing ABC2’s #7DaysLater for a few weeks, partly because we wanted to give the team a chance to get to grips with what was always going to be a difficult format, in that they have just seven days to make each show, and partly because the first episode had so much going on in it that we didn’t quite know what to say about it.
The key thing you need to know about #7DaysLater is this – “the story, dialogue and characters were developed by our audience” – something they state at the start of each episode like it’s a warning. And to a certain extent it is a warning because with the general public making all sorts of suggestions via the show’s Facebook page, Google+ hangouts and Triple J phone-ins, there’s a lot of ideas being generated. And to make a fairly obvious point, the kind of ideas the public are going to suggest in a radio phone-in or a Facebook page post might be amusing in a phone-in or Facebook context, where you have to get attention and laughs in two lines, but aren’t quite so funny when you try to turn them in to seven minutes of narrative television.
Hence you get plots like “Improv troupe try to save people held at gunpoint through improv” (Week 1) or “Zombies take over the country and debate the Prime Minister on Q&A” (Week 3), which sound like they should be funny but aren’t (unless you count the parody tweets on the zombie Q&A). More successful was Week 4, which took the idea of “Crack team keeps fucking up a heist” and presented it in a way which worked well on television, and was funny. We won’t spoil it for you. That’s not to say that Week 4 was brilliant, but it did at least feel like something which had been conceived for television.
Week 2 wasn’t bad either in that its “alien love triangle” plot, in which an alien Lord returns to earth to reunite with his now grown-up and married human best friend, seemed to have been conceived with 80’s teen heartthrob and #7DaysLater guest star Corey Feldman in mind. Again, it might not have been a non-stop cack but it worked as TV. And when you have to seven days to pull together crazy ideas from the public and make something watchable, that’s about the best you can hope for.
Ja’mie’s (ratings) Box Gap
So someone kindly forwarded us this from the ABC PR department:
JA’MIE KING SERVES UP IVIEW’S QUICHEST RATINGS YET
Australian viewers have proven that their love for Ja’mie King – the bitchiest private school girl to ever grace our screens – extends beyond just TV, with the show smashing online viewing records too.
Ja’mie: Private School Girl has registered more than 810,000 plays for Episodes 1, 2 and 3 of the show on ABC TV’s catch-up viewing platform iview.
The six-part series, which first premiered on Wednesday October 23, has broken all existing viewing records for iview – making it the biggest show on the platform since its launch in 2008.
The previous most-watched program in one day was the premiere of Doctor Who Series 7 with 76,000 views – this record was smashed by Ja’mie with 216,000 plays in one day.
Ja’mie: Private School Girl continues every Wednesday at 9pm on ABC1 or you can catch-up on iview shortly after.
Notice anything missing? Oh right, the actual ratings figures, which are as follows:
Week one we had this:
Ja’mie: Private School Girl, the highly-anticipated follow-up to Lilley’s comedy hit Summer Heights High, drew a capital city TV audience of 925,000 viewers last night.
At first glance the number seems soft – it falls below the all-important one million viewer waterline that is used to measure commercial success.
We’ll cut it off there, but follow the link and read the whole thing – it’s a handy collection of all the excuses Lilley’s supporters make for the increasingly soft ratings he’s been pulling in since Angry Boys turned out to be, well, not so good. Or popular.
Week two saw a minor dip:
JA’MIE: PRIVATE SCHOOL GIRL-EV Network ABC1 880,000 277,000 299,000 131,000 79,000 94,000
Which was to be expected, but losing 45,000 viewers was nothing for the ABC to worry about. Then came week three:
Ja’mie: Private School Girl (17th – 592,000)
And now they’re starting to sweat. Losing over 300,000 viewers in three weeks? That’s a repeat of his Angry Boys performance. So you’d be guessing the ABC would be crossing their fingers extremely tightly hoping that result was a one week blip. Cue week four:
JA’MIE: PRIVATE SCHOOL GIRL-EV Network ABC1 575,000 199,000 191,000 87,000 55,000 43,000
Oops. Guess breaking that million viewer mark is out of the question, hey? And suddenly the reason why the ABC is shouting loud and proud about Ja’mie‘s “quichest” ratings on iView becomes clear. Just like it did back when they pulled the exact same stunt during Angry Boys.
What we seem to be seeing here is a structural problem. Chris Lilley still has an awful lot of goodwill out there in the community from his Summer Heights High days, but it only takes a couple episodes of his newer work before people realise it’s not to their taste. We’ll leave why this might be to other posts: for now it’s starting to look like the ABC might be steering future Chris Lilley projects to a “one-off special event” format…
*update* It’s been pointed out to us that the big drop in Ja’mie‘s ratings may have something to do with having Gruen as a lead-in during those first two weeks. Which does seem to suggest that the market for Ja’mie is even weaker than we first suspected…
What About Ja’mie – It Isn’t Fair
Week four of Ja’mie: Private School Girl, and what have we learnt? Seriously, what have we learnt? Private schools create monsters? Well no, as Ja’mie’s sister seems kind of un-monstrous – as do a bunch of Ja’mie’s fellow students – and they all go to a private school. Teen girls fabricate relationships where little more than friendship exists? So… like everyone else then? Chris Lilley thinks that treating a bitchy cartoon character’s superficial heartbreak as a serious matter is something people would like to watch? Now you’re talking.
When people write things like this:
Ja’mie: Private School Girl is terrifyingly akin to watching a documentary.
Or this:
The portrait he paints of what it’s like to be a girl growing up in this impossible, contradictory world is disarmingly honest
It’s important to realise that they’re full of shit. How is this like a documentary? Ja’mie is not like a real teenage girl. Oh sure, she has elements that real teenage girls have, but even if she was a “real teenage girl” and not a forty year old man in a dress, the show he’s created around her only shows an extremely limited range of her behaviours.
C’mon: would a real teenage girl be a bitch to everyone all the time? Would she be so consistently vapid that she would say half the things Ja’mie said about suicide this week? Would she be so totally unaware that teen boys are, you know, somewhat interested in having sex with their girlfriends when she spent half of an earlier episode talking about how boys are really into tits?
There’s always been a strong element of “it’s funny because it’s true, even if it’s not actually funny” in Lilley’s fanbase. Back during Summer Heights High people were claiming that Mr G was spot on as far as high school drama teachers go. Were they still saying that after he tried to make it look like a special needs student had taken a shit on the floor of a classroom? Ask your friends.
But with Ja’mie, that seems to be the only basis on which anyone is defending it: “teenage girls are just like that!”. Only if you watch the show for more than a minute it’s clear the show itself is completely unrealistic on every level. For example, last week’s party: did anyone else think for something with a three episode build up what we saw was extremely watered down and fake, especially for 17-18 year olds? Didn’t we just get three minutes of Ja’mie talking about dick pics? Would they really jump into the pool in their party gear? Wouldn’t they have to have been drinking to make looking like shit for the rest of the night seem like a good idea?
Meanwhile, why did the boarders even show up dressed to party at a party held by their arch-enemy at her own home? Why has Ja’mie been allowed to take a black teenager away from his family to live at her place? Why hasn’t someone taken Ja’mie aside and said “you know, you’re coming off as a bit of a bitch”? Why haven’t the teachers noticed that Ja’mie a): is the biggest bully in the schoolyard, b): abuses her detention powers like mad c): never seems to go to any class that doesn’t involve her singing terribly or dancing horribly and d): seems to have some kind of deep-seated sexual issues considering the number of times she’s started taking her gear off in public?
If you think the show is actually funny, fine. But if you’re claiming it’s basically a documentary, then you should examine it as such and not just base your verdict on “yeah, teenage girls are such bitches” or “teenagers are so random, nothing they do makes any sense!” And if your reply to that is “you’re not meant to take it seriously”? So you’re going to defend it on the basis that it’s packed with jokes? This should be good.
Picking Up the Pieces
It was announced last year, then languished in the ABC’s “too hard” basket for most of this year but now it appears Spicks and Specks is finally back.
The hit music quiz show is set to return early next year hosted by comic Josh Earl with Melbourne radio host Adam Richard and former Killing Heidi singer Ella Hooper.
The series return was to have been announced at the ABC’s 2014 upfronts event later this month but with the pilot due to be recorded this week, news of the much-loved series return has leaked.
You say leaked, we say “isn’t this news like, six months late at least”, lets call it even and move on. Presumably the ABC have been conducting a lot of top-secret rehearsals in a barn somewhere out bush, because this is the kind of line-up that doesn’t get put together by chance. None of them are nobodies, but it’s the kind of mildly risky set-up – well, “risky” in an ABC panel show context where the host could have just as easily been Peter Helliar – that suggests they’ve actually spent the extra time since the relaunch was first announced trying to make sure they got it right.
That’s not to say this will work of course, but we’re going to be slightly more optimistic about this than we were 24 hours ago. Only slightly mind you; if they really are recording the “pilot” later this week (and haven’t, as we suspect, been recording numerous pilot-like efforts with various possible cast members) then there must be an awful lot of people at the ABC hoping it doesn’t turn out to be a big steaming turd.
But hey! We never really liked the original Spicks and Specks much either. Just so long as it rates well enough to make the actually funny shows that follow it look good – and also rates well enough to kill off the ABCs numerous other crap stabs at panel comedy programming – all’s right in our world. Until the Adam Hills guest appearances start.
Our biannual post about Clarke & Dawe
Given the locally-made comedy that’s served up to us – dull attention-seekers playing dull attention-seekers, B-list celebrities falling off sets, Tractor Monkeys – it would be easy to assume that large numbers of Australians wouldn’t be interested in watching two men in their 60s, sitting on stools, delivering three minutes of hardcore political satire. It’s doubtful a focus group representing the key demographics would react favourably to that concept, anyway.
We ourselves were a bit concerned that Clarke & Dawe – despite its successful 20+ year run – wouldn’t survive for too long after it was put in the “doomed to fail timeslot” of 6.55pm on a Thursday following its axing from 7.30. But guess what? We were wrong! We Australians watch them in droves.
If you head over to TV Tonight’s section on Timeshifted Ratings and trawl through the ratings for Thursdays you’ll see that Clarke & Dawe has been in the Top 20 most weeks for at least the last six months, averaging around 550,000 viewers per episode. Which is pretty good for a show that requires effort to watch – in more ways than one. Add to that the thousands of views each sketch quickly accrues on YouTube and, well, it’s probably safe to assume we’ll see them again in 2014.
The Lights Comin’ Over The Hill Are A-Blinding Me
Well, at least now we know where all this Ja’mie malarky is heading. It’s not exactly a positive sign for a character when pretty much the only question – well, the only question in the non-teen-girl circles we move in – about Ja’mie: Private School Girl is “will Lilley man up and give his much-loved creation the savage kicking she so clearly deserves?”
Of course not. And with that said, let’s continue.
Tonight’s episode pretty much laid down the tracks for the back end of the series: Ja’mie’s sister was again sidelined, Ja’mie’s dad was again sidelined, we got loads more talk about Ja’mie’s tits and some crappy singing and bad dancing. Groundhog Day!
But of slight interest was the way the confrontation with The Boarders played out. In case you may have missed it / fell asleep / stopped giving a shit back at episode one, all the girls Ja’mie hates turn up at the gates of her house wanting to get into her party… presumably because they’re all idiots who actually thought Ja’mie was going to let them in? Yeah, next time your local TV writer talks about how this show is “practically a documentary”, keep in mind the way that none of the plot makes any sense whatsoever. But we digress.
The Boarders, enraged at being shut out, tell Ja’mie she’s ugly and fat and shit at dancing – all of which is, objectively, true – so she promptly chucks a hissy fit then breaks down in tears, only to have totally recovered three minutes later after making out (oh so briefly) with a boy. So she’s flighty, superficial and capricious; what else is new?
With three episodes to go and Ja’mie little more than a nightmarish bitch on wheels AND YET she also has a massive and devoted fanbase Lilley wouldn’t dare let down by allowing anything seriously yet deservedly bad to happen to her, the end of this series seems clear: Ja’mie will not achieve all her goals (thus satisfying those wanting her bitchy behaviour to be punished), yet her setback will be brief as she promptly shifts her focus to something she has achieved (thus satisfying those who for some insane reason think she’s awesome).
As for satisfying those who’d like to get a decent laugh out of this series… yeah, good luck with that.
Women FTW?
Our recent guest post by an anonymous female former comedy writer got us thinking…how well are women doing in comedy in 2013? Because if you look at some of the shows that have been on over the past year there’s a much more even gender mix in Australia comedy than, say, a decade or two decades ago…sort of.
Twenty years ago the second series of The Late Show had just finished, and it had starred and was written by eight people – six men, two women. Behind the scenes were male producers and directors (Joe Murray, Mark Gibson, Michael Hirsh) but a small number of significant production staff were female (Annie Maver). Over on commercial TV was the sketch show Full Frontal, which had a male-dominated cast, production team and writers. In sitcom land Hey Dad..! had an even mix cast-wise but its writers and production team were male-dominated. All Together Now was pretty much the same gender-wise, although with a male-heavy cast. Nine’s biggest contribution to comedy at this time was Hey! Hey! It’s Saturday, which was even less equal with the main cast being about 10 men to one women, and again with men in most of the high-level production roles. The Panel, which started up towards the end of the ‘90s was also male-dominated on and off screen. And notorious for only having a certain type of woman on it (Kate Langbroek!).
What’s a bit odd about all this (particularly with The Panel, whose team should have known better) is that the live circuit in the ‘80s and ‘90s included lots of women – Mary-Anne Fahey, Rachel Berger, Lynda Gibson, Gretel Killen, Gina Riley, Jane Turner, Madga Szbanski, Marg Downey, Wendy Harmer, Jean Kittson, Judith Lucy, Sue-Ann Post, Tracey Bartram, Mary Coustas, Miss Itchy and Libbi Gorr amongst others. Interestingly (and possibly debatably) many of them seem to have had less high-profile work over a sustained period than many of the men who came up in the same era. You can largely blame this on sexism – commercial radio for instance has always been dominated by male hosts – but also possibly on the fact that quite a few of these women had kids (we don’t wish to cast a slur on their male partners, but we’re going to assume that, like most women, these comedians did the bulk of the childcare!).
What’s also interesting – and here we paint a very broad brushstroke – is that many of these women were less about the kind of straight-up-and-down, fast-paced stand-up that most easily translates to commercial radio or panel show appearances, and more about character and storytelling. And in a country where sketch comedy kinda died in the early 2000s, and has only since been revived by the pre-existing team that are The Chaser and the odd new talent-type initiative (i.e. The Gentleman’s Guide To Knife Fighting), comedians had to adapt to the growing trend of panel-shows.
There grew up a sense (rightly or wrongly) that women “couldn’t do panel shows”, or at least a lesser percentage of women could do them. And it’s only very recently that you see the likes of Dirty Laundry Live and Tractor Monkeys having an almost equal gender mix in their panels. Perhaps women who started doing stand-up in the 2000’s were either more naturally included towards, or started honing their craft towards, the sort of act that would lead to panel show appearances? Either way, quite a few of them are pretty good (Hannah Gadsby, for example).
It’s also interesting that women are taking on high-profile leadership and productions roles in increasing numbers (Courtney Gibson, Laura Waters, Daina Reid), and that sitcom/sketch writers and stars are increasingly female: Jess Harris and TwentySomething, Marieke Hardy & Kirsty Fisher and Laid, Upper Middle Bogan, which had a female lead and a female-heavy cast and Robyn Butler as one of its driving creative forces, and Audrey’s Kitchen which stars Heidi Arena (although the show is made mostly by men). Even Ja’mie: Private School is female-dominated. Sort of.
What’s possibly key to this, though – and this came across very clearly in our guest blogger’s post – is that where women have a certain level of power they do well, and where they have little power they don’t. There’s no doing your time and working your way up; if women are outnumbered in the writer’s room or on a panel (or The Panel) those places become places for men, but where there’s a more even mix in the writer’s room or on a panel those places become places for everyone.
The same sort of thing happens in all sorts of workplaces, and this is well documented by websites such as The New Girls Network. If you don’t believe it take a look around the place where you work. 1) What gender are most of the managers? 2) Which employees are best at playing the political games? 3) Which employees are consistently doing good work but becoming increasingly frustrated that no one’s recognising this? If you answered 1) Men, 2) Men and 3) Women then we’re not surprised*. We also suspect the lady in 3) is actively job hunting. Good luck to her.
Anyway, if you think this doesn’t apply to the world of comedy think about this: French & Saunders famously withdrew from club work relatively early in their careers because the male-dominated and consequently blokey environment wore them down, but when they were given their own TV show they blossomed. And before those of you with long memories say “Kittson/Fahey” there is, happily, one great leveler – whether you’re funny or not. French & Saunders were, Kittson and Fahey were not. The end.
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* If you didn’t then maybe you should enter your workplace for some kind of gender diversity award?
Halloween is When the Dead Spirits Rise
Hey, a guest post! We think it’s an interesting look at a dark-ish corner of the Australian comedy business. As you’ll probably figure out, there’s a reason why it’s anonymous.
Many years ago, in 1999, I had a short conversation with a well-known lawyer-turned-comedian. He was in an office in one of the ABC buildings, which, he said more than once, was not his. He was there writing a sitcom set in a legal practice, and seemed relieved to have an excuse to stop for a minute.
“I’m writing about lawyers because you have to write what you know,” he said.
“Yes but you know this business as well now,” I said, meaning the business of show.
“I would never write about this business,” he said, with a serious look.
“Yes,” I said. “Corpses everywhere.”
I knew what he meant because I was one of the corpses.
I was at the ABC being one of the faces on a current affairs sketch show, called, shall we say, Frontburner. It was to be another frustrating experience. You’re given a script that is kind of satire-by-numbers – it isn’t very funny, but it’s making a point. You know if there’s going to be any laughs you’ll have to make them happen in the performance – so I opted for a Pixie-Anne Wheatley, vacuous but insanely cheerful persona. Three rehearsals later, everyone liked it. Everyone except the leading lady of the series. Just before the show was to be recorded, the director came over and had a word.
“Eloise doesn’t like that you’re playing the character dumb. She doesn’t like the female characters to be dumb. So could you play it more straight please.”
There were no more rehearsals. I had to kill my buoyant bimbo and do it like an ABC bitch. I did it, with one small fluff. There were no laughs. At the end I bowed my head too quickly because I was pissed off.
I had to do it again. So I thought, fuck it, let’s just enjoy ourselves. I did it all Pixie-Anne, and there were several laughs. The director was happy. But I knew I would never be asked back.
The intense competitiveness of what is really a small industry in a small country, combined with the massive overrepresentation of men at the helm of most comedy vehicles at that time, meant one thing – the women felt that they had to kneecap each other to keep their jobs. And they did it with gusto. A similar thing happened at another show on a commercial network, shall we call it, Empty Façade. I was a writer there, and was offered a spot playing a newsreader. Immediately a woman in the cast went to the producer and demanded a promise that I not be offered any more roles. Of course he acquiesced. He called it ‘ruffled feathers’.
So returning to the conversation I began with, what on earth did that popular comedian mean when he said he would never write about this business? Surely there’s an Australian version of 30 Rock just waiting to be written. There at the centre of it all you have put-upon Liz, holding everything together, surrounded by diva performers, slovenly writers and a crazy boss. Poor Liz, she’s the hero that makes the magic happen. Only it isn’t magic – it’s mediocre.
You can’t write about the business because you would have to change it beyond recognition to make it amusing. This is a business where there is no right and wrong, there’s only success and failure. The scandal that erupted around Hey Dad did not surprise me, nor would it surprise anyone who had seen behind the curtain – the show was high in the ratings, why on earth would anyone have rocked that boat? They all had mortgages to pay, after all. It’s an amazing, enabling, all-excusing thing, a mortgage, I’ve found – just drop the m-word and everything is justified. I’ve never had a mortgage, I got the impression early in life that it makes you do unpleasant things.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh – the Hey Dad example is probably the worst imaginable scenario. But it’s the calibre of the people attracted to the business that creates this environment. They are people with something to prove, and they crave attention, power, influence, and of course money. Recently a project I was involved with came to the attention of a producer. For a brief moment it looked possible that my series might actually be made. But the man who had hooked me up with the producer was the kind of amoral low-life I knew all too well. I thought – if this goes ahead, I will have to spend a vast amount of time with the most awful, insincere, manipulative, grasping arseholes, as opposed to spending time with, say, my daughter. So when nothing came of it, a large part of me was massively relieved.
Oh dear, such a jaundiced view! I am a corpse, remember. While working on Empty Façade (loving that name) I was bombarded with unwanted sexual attention. My friend and I decided that this was happening mainly because I was the only female in the writers’ room. Eighteen men and me. It’s OK at the start, if you like the company of funny men, which I did, but after a while the constant gags wear thin. You realise you’re not a part of it, you’re not a part of anything, you’re just there. I was not the only female writer who worked on that show to get to the point of going home and crying to the point of retching. I know that for a fact.
So you can’t take the heat, huh? Too emotional. Sad. Well that’s OK if everyone is happy with only a certain kind of personality making their entertainment for them. The tough ones, the aggressive ones, the ones who understand the politics. That’s great, and we’re all grateful if there’s a little bit of talent there as well. That’s just a lovely bonus.
Let’s skip to the endgame, to the nail in the coffin of my experience at Empty Façade. Perhaps I brought it on myself, by renting a room in the house of another writer, only this writer was on the up. He was, shall we say, politically gifted, he knew who mattered and who didn’t, knew what words to say into which ear, and was driven by a horror of ever being poor. He was perfect, and clearly had a great future ahead of him. We got along alright in the house, I was amiable enough – he even called me the perfect housemate. But as my so-called career crashed and burned, and his was on the rise, it became intolerable to stay in the house, and I left. But a friend of mine decided to tell him, “I think she hates you,” when the subject came up. And this writer who I had lived with, who had now attained producer status, now had the power to decide who worked on the show and who didn’t. And when my name came up for an acting gig, he delivered the decisive blow. Can you guess which word he used, ladies? It’s a d-word.
“She’s difficult,” he said.
And that was it. Job done. Game over.
Foolishly, I thought I would be able to move on to something else. But it is a small industry in a small country. And eventually I left both.