Australian Tumbleweeds
Vale The Agony of Life
Did the final episode of The Agony of Life just go to air? Even if it didn’t – and let’s face it, this series will probably be back soon as The Agony of Topics We Haven’t Covered – then we’re going to pay tribute to it anyway, because getting eight more episodes out of this concept is an achievement…of sorts.
Let’s re-cap: the premise of the show is that various well(-ish) known people talk about how different stages of life can be difficult and embarrassing, which is obviously something we can all relate to. And these people appear to have been asked to be honest and/or funny when they tell their anecdotes, which seems like a more than reasonable method of presenting their stories. Cue eight weeks of hilarious heartache from some of the nation’s most slightly known personalities!
Actually, whether the people involved are well-known or not isn’t actually the point – what was always going to make this show successful was whether what they were saying was funny or interesting, and generally speaking it wasn’t. There were some alleged “break out” stars of the Agony series (John Elliot and Mirka Mora), but what made them break outs was that they were old enough and frank enough to say the kind of things that most of the rest of the people involved weren’t saying – which made them interesting by default.
Most of the people involved hadn’t been through any genuine agony. Almost none of the things they talked about involved the death of humans or animals, getting in to major financial difficulties, or resulted in them having to serve time in prison – you know, stuff that actually would be agonising to go through. What this series actually was, was a bunch of anecdotes from relatively well-off people who exaggerated some minor embarrassments which hadn’t really affected their lives.
Exaggerating the truth is, of course, the stuff of comedy – every human knows this – but what most humans don’t seem to know is that there’s a bit more to comedy than exaggeration. When you’re telling others about something that happened to you, you need to do more than exaggerate the facts if you want people to laugh: you need to position yourself as the hapless victim, or position someone else in the story as an idiot, or suddenly mention something weird and unexpected, or throw in a fart joke. Your story won’t be funny because it’s true, it’ll be funny because it’s funny!
It’s no real surprise that the people who were best on this series were either the shockingly frank older folk or the genuinely good comedians, people like Judith Lucy, people who can spin a good yarn. If more than 10% of the people involved had been like that, this may have been a watchable series. As it was, it was yet another series involving comedians that’s too hell bent on not alienating the mainstream audience with something as divisive as a gag, meaning people went around hailing its quasi-seriousness as one of its key strengths. You won’t be surprised to read that we disagree with this. In our view this only would have been a good series if it were either a serious, intelligent look at the issues involved, or a non-stop gag fest that just wanted to make us laugh. The middling compromise we ended up getting was, well, agonising.
We Don’t Mean to Brag / We Don’t Mean To Boast…
… but we for one have better things to do than watch The Roast.
We’ve griped enough already about how the ABC has certain kinds of shows they really, really want to have on the air all the time, and guess what? Looks like “News Satire” is one of them. Not content with having pretty much the best one Australian television in 2013 could possibly generate – that’d be Mad as Hell – they’ve decided* to give Charles Firth’s brainchild** The Roast not only another series, but they’ve expanded the episode length to ten minutes.
Hosted by Tom Glasson, The Roast also features Mark Humphries, Clarke Richards, Rachel Corbett and Nich Richardson. These names won’t mean anything to you, but give it time. As the show’s director and head writer, Richardson is responsible for assembling this collection of young writer/performers who have never worked in television before. He assures the ABC it’s all going to turn out fine.
With 150 episodes being produced over the next eight months – over 25 hours of original comedy – The Roast promises to kill more reporters on-screen than any other news show. Even Lateline. Don’t expect interviews out in the field or packaged up vox pops here. Everything is written on the day and recorded in-studio hours before airing. Again, the ABC has been promised this is going to work.
Aside from being an ambitious television venture, The Roast is also a creative development pool for a new generation of Australian comics who are sick of being unemployed in a country famous for its sense of humour.
We’ve discussed The Roast elsewhere, and our opinion hasn’t changed since then. If they can’t make two minutes of comedy work after well over 50 episodes – and we’re not even sure how many episodes of the extremely similar WTF! the team made for GO! beforehand – moving up to ten minutes may not exactly be a cause for celebration.
The real question here is, where do you draw the line and say a show simply isn’t going to get any better? At the moment even on ABC2 The Roast is hardly must-see comedy, and it’s been going long enough to suggest any limitations are those of the creative team rather than the format. But giving comedy more air-time is never a bad thing in our book and who knows? If they keep their obvious “satire” and student revue gags to the first two minutes and use the extra time to branch out, maybe this could work.
Yeah, right. Considering they’ve already been booked in for a 150 episode run (which suggests their employers are perfectly happy with the half-arsed job they’ve been doing), we’re guessing it’ll just be more of the same tortured not-quite-gags and smarmy host smirks, over and over and over and over again. Fingers crossed the pressure drives them insane: it’ll probably be the only way they’ll try something new.
*Actually, it seems The Comedy Channel decided and ABC2 just said “yeah, count us in”.
**as in Firth clutched his head and went “Fake News! Duh!”
Check This Shit Oww-t
We all want to think of each television show that makes it to our screens as an individual work of art, generated by the creative people responsible as a response to the unknowable urges of their hearts. But let’s be honest: in much the same way as your local News Ltd newspaper is going to have at least one grumpy columnist who hates the Labor government, “political correctness” and any form of welfare not directed at people earning $60,000 or more, so too do television stations have various programming niches they want filled by anyone who happens to be handy.
This extends far beyond just news, sports and weather. Channel Ten, for example, has a regular “quality Australian drama” slot, hence in 2013 we get Offspring, Mr & Mrs Murder and Puberty Blues. Seven has had a “middlebrow Aussie drama” slot for well over a decade: remember Always Greener before Packed to the Rafters? And the ABC? Well, it seems they just can’t get enough of their semi-informative quasi-comedy current / consumer affairs shows.
All of which is a long-winded way of letting you know that The Checkout is basically Hungry Beast, but with consumer goods. Wait, or is it The Hamster Wheel, only with consumer goods? Maybe it’s The Gruen Transfer, only without smug advertising arseholes being condescending. Ah, you know what we mean.
It’s all here: flashy graphics, loads of general information you kind of already knew (what, computer printer companies make all their money from selling the ink cartridges and car companies rake it in big time by demanding you only use their garages to have your car serviced, AKA the “razor-and-blade” business model? SAY WHAAAAoh we knew that), specific takedowns of individual products, hosts trying to be earnest while winking at the camera to let you know that you shouldn’t get too worked up about all this outrageous capitalist activity, fake infomercials making fun of infomercials while being perfectly happy to use the infomercial format to get their message across, and clips from big names (providing yet more consumer advice. So yeah, Hungry Beast has risen from its grave and tattooed BRAND POWER across its knuckles.
But is it comedy? Well… kind of? In much the same way as Hungry Beast tried to reinvent news and current affair for a new generation only to realise that particular generation was busy getting all their news and current affairs from the internet, so does The Checkout try to reinvent consumer affairs – something that ACA and Today Tonight actually do moderately well – for the 21st Century. And by “reinvent” we mean “more ‘eye-catching’ flashy graphics, lots of short info-grabs, and jokes”. Consumer affairs is the kind of thing you’d image an ABC audience would be interested in, and appealing to “da yoof” is certainly something the ABC is interested in, so it’s win-win. Right?
Here we get “sketches” where people read out a letter about cat food being all the same (but with flashy graphics!); Julian Morrow asking people to create angry videoes about corporate bungling for “F-U-Tube”; fake ads about baby wipes pointing out that baby wipes are bad for babies; the repeated mentioning of the fact that advertising makes crazy, unlikely claims that we all swallow unthinkingly; the just as repeated mentioning of the fact that companies will re-brand identical products over and over to capture as wide (and as gullible) an audience as possible. Worthy? You bet. Informative? Sure. Funny? Well… kind of?
Jokes about talking to camera and pranks about trying to get a company to adopt a slightly more dodgy product than the ones they’re already selling are Chaser 101. And if you were to think that this fairly straight consumer affairs show feels like a show with around 30% Chaser, 70% Hungry Beast in its blood, we wouldn’t argue with you. Is that value for your entertainment dollar? If you really care about consumer affairs, it’s worth a look. If you’re just looking for a laugh, the numerous references to the wording of various legal statutes and regulations aren’t exactly the dictionary definition of “kak-tastic”. But you do get to hear Julian Morrow get all shouty; you didn’t get that on The Unbelievable Truth.
And one more thing…
In an interview with Wired in 1995 Steve Jobs had this to say about creativity in the tech industry:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
In the past 18 years this quote has become quite famous and has been applied to creativity in lots of areas beyond tech. It sprung to mind when we watched the first two episodes of Tractor Monkeys, not because it applied to Tractor Monkeys but because it didn’t.
You could make a fairly strong argument that Tractor Monkeys is just Spicks & Specks, Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation and maybe The White Room all combined in to one show. And that this is fine because as Steve Jobs pointed out creativity is just putting together lots of existing things to make new things. Except that that’s not true: in TV, combining lots of existing ideas to make a new one usually results in something crap. And it’s probably more a sign of creatives who aren’t out there having diverse experiences than ones who are.
Here’s what Steve Jobs said about television:
When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.
So yeah, we wanted Tractor Monkeys. We virtually asked for it, because lots of Australians watched Spicks & Specks and TBYG in large numbers and someone at the ABC took note of that. Thanks for making our dreams come true, guys!
It’s virtually pointless to actually review Tractor Monkeys, it being a show where some relatively well-known comedians and personalities answer questions based on archive footage whilst trying to put some zingers out there. We found our minds wandering a bit as we watched…this is presumably why the ABC have developed a second screen play-along app, so viewers will get involved in that and not tune out.
Actually, there are two things worth noting about Tractor Monkeys. Firstly, there’s a slightly higher proportion of women on the panel than usual: two out of the six panellists in the first show are women, and three out of six in the second show. Secondly, there’s a bit in the second episode where Sam Simmons starts doing some nostalgic whimsy about swans made from tyres and Dave O’Neil responds in a sarky-sounding way. O’Neil is no stranger to doing nostalgic whimsy himself, so perhaps there’s a turf war going on here? Okay, probably not, but when you’re sitting through a show like this you need to invent your own excitement. Or to Google some Steve Jobs quotes to help you rationalise it all.
You’ve Got To Cover Your Arse Before You Sit On The Fence
Confession: I was quite enthusiastic about Randling when it started last year. I thought it looked like a show with potential that just needed a couple of tweaks; to bed down a little. Of course, having been recorded in one monster block earlier in the year, tweaking and bedding down were never an option
No, this isn’t Melinda Houston’s resignation note. It should be, because the fact that Randling was recorded in one monster block was a matter of public record. But of course it isn’t, because when it comes to writing about Australian television actually doing your job comes a distant second to making sure you “support the local industry”. Which is why we don’t trust this “review” for a second:
Now we have the national broadcaster’s latest foray into the panel game show and, once again, I’m quite enthusiastic but, once again, all eight episodes have already been recorded. What that means for how the show evolves, if at all, remains to be seen.
Seriously? You’ve just told us that the last panel / game show you liked turned out to be shithouse because it didn’t have the time to “bed down a little” then you jump straight into telling us you like this new game / panel show even though you have the exact same reservations and it was recorded in the exact same fashion? You know what this means for how the show evolves because you just told us that shows recorded in “one monster block” don’t evolve, correct? So you’re saying… umm…
Okay, let’s get this straight: this is exactly the same situation as Randling – a show you initially supported but now admit turned out to be crap – only this time you’re… doing the exact same thing? You’re telling us this is a good show but it needs to evolve only you’re saying it won’t evolve so… it’s not a good show? But you’re not saying that so… what are you saying here? Ouch.
[we pick things up after a Bex and a good lie-down]
The review that follows seems to say plenty of positive things about the show, only when you read closer it’s all “this seems like a more straightforward concept…” and “What I’m really waiting to see is…” and “I’d love to see more of that on display as the series progresses…”, all of which push the verdict of whether this is a good show off into the future. Tractor Monkeys only runs for eight weeks: it’d be nice to get some kind of firm ruling before winter.
The overwhelming impression here is of a glowing review – as you’d expect from the Australian media – but dig a little deeper and it’s all arse-covering pure and simple. Houston talked up Randling even though it was shit because that’s what she does with Australian shows. Unfortunately for her, Randling was so obviously shit – and more importantly, was on the air long enough for people to notice it was shit (most shit Australian shows vanish before the audience has time to notice) – that her support of it became, let’s say “problematic”. At least as far as her critical opinion being taken seriously goes.
Hence this new approach, in which she desperately tries to juggle “being supportive” with “not sticking her neck out in the slightest”. If it turns out to be great? Hey, she said it has a “free-wheeling vibe” and “really fires”! And if it’s shit? Don’t blame her, she was “waiting to see how Watts develops as a host”. But is the show any good? Who knows? In a review of a half hour of television that already exists and she has seen in full, Houston’s only willing to commit to “remains to be seen”. Gee, thanks for that.
Someone Left the Cake Out In the Rain
What are we, four episodes into Please Like Me? And it’s not really a comedy at all, is it? It’s yet another one of those ABC “light dramas” where some self-obsessed “funny person” is given the go ahead to make a show pretty much entirely about themselves just so long as there’s some hook the ABC can point to when justifying it as a comedy. With Laid it was “everyone our hero has had sex with dies” – explain to us again how that’s funny, please – with Problems it was “Sam Simmons is strange” – again, not exactly a gut-buster – and with Please Like Me it’s “Josh Thomas is gay”. Wow, who knew the ABC was actively working to make comedies less funny than Laid?
Traditionally sitcoms have fallen into two loose groups: high concept and star vehicles. A Moody Christmas is high concept: anything Chris Lilley does is a star vehicle. Ideally a show would have both, a la Kath & Kim (suburban morons played by established comedy performers) or The Games (behind the scenes at The Olympics through the eyes of Clarke & Dawe), but that would require the ABC actually developing shows so good luck there. These days if no-one’s heard of you, you’d better come up with a good idea; if they have heard of you, it doesn’t matter what your idea is.
But of late, the ABC seem to have lost sight of who an actual “star” is in the world of Australian television. Here’s a clue: it’s not Marieke Hardy. And it sure as hell isn’t Josh Thomas, who was the least well known person on a moderately successful game show made moderately successful almost entirely by being hosted by one of the funniest men currently working in Australia. It’s like if the ABC had announced that, due to his excellent work on Before the Game, they were giving Lehmo his own sitcom. “What’s it going to be about?” people would ask. “Oh, just Lehmo being Lehmo,” would come the sing-song reply, right before a massive bipartisan governmental inquiry-slash-firing-squad into exactly what the fuck they were drinking over there at ABC HQ.
Thomas isn’t a terrible performer by any means, especially if you can stand his bullshit leprechaun accent. But this show is about nothing. It’s not even like he doesn’t already have an established comedy persona to work with: he’s a slightly fey man-child. Give him a job on an oil rig staffed by burly thugs and watch the laughs fly! Yeah, that sounds lame, but “Josh Thomas on an oil rig” is still roughly a ka-zillion times more interesting than “Josh Thomas in a variety of inner city locales looking mildly perplexed.”
Please Like Me is frustrating to watch because there’s a shitload of talent and effort going into this show but because no-one actually bothered to come up with a solid starting point for comedy all that talent and effort is just flailing about the place trying to create something out of nothing. Which is why the episodes are a weird mix of nothing characters standing around endlessly exchanging limp quips and then big dramatic moments happening. Josh’s aunt accepts that he’s gay! A relationship can’t happen because the guy’s bitchy ex is pregnant! Guess what: before the end of the series, someone dies! Aren’t we usually given reasons to care about the characters in a show before all this stuff happens?
Making matters worse, it feels like making a show this shit was the plan all along. As one of our commentators pointed out, originally this was meant to be a show about Thomas’ non-gay life, then he realised he was gay:
Thomas said the initial two-page treatment he submitted four years ago to obtain funding contained a heterosexual central character named Josh and his girlfriend Claire.
However, in between the funding pitch and making Please Like Me, which premieres on the ABC on February 28, his life changed and so did the storyline.
Thomas, 25, realised he was gay and inadvertently the premise of the series changed and Claire was bumped from a main character to a bit part.
“I started pitching this four years ago and it was a two-page document,” Thomas tells AAP.
“Four years ago I was straight as well… I had a girlfriend.
“Four years ago Claire was in the show a lot more.
“It kind of, quite by accident, tricked the ABC into funding this gay show.”
So what, four years ago he pitched a series to the ABC that was even more bland and boring than this one? And they gave it the go-ahead? Say whaaaaa?
Okay, more likely – considering he was an unknown 21 year-old at the time with zero television experience – he started pitching four years ago and they gave it the nod a year or two later after Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation had raised his profile. But still: the “whoops, I’m gay” angle is literally the only thing going on here that’s remotely new or interesting, and it happened by accident.
Josh Thomas made a series that is only interesting by mistake.
Somehow, we’re not that surprised.
Awards and renewals
The nominees for this year’s Logies have been announced and it’s not all bad for comedy. Okay, it’s not a complete disaster for comedy. Yes, the Most Popular categories are all Adam Hills, The Project, Hamish & Andy and shows made by Zapruder’s (don’t worry, there’s no nomination for Randling), but the Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program category at least has the decency to include Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell and The Hamster Wheel.
Mad As Hell and The Hamster Wheel both fared well in the 2012 Australian Tumbleweed Awards, with Mad As Hell winning both Best New Comedy and Best Comedy. But whether the industry jury which decides the Most Outstanding Logies agrees with the Tumblies voters or plumps for The X Factor remains to be seen.
Incidentally, have you ever wondered who’s actually on the Logies jury? So have we. A quick Google reveals…well…not very much. Although we did find this on The Border Mail:
Eleven of the awards are “most outstanding” peer-voted awards; that is, they are voted by juries of television industry peers such as actors, writers and producers.
We also found the LinkedIn profiles of a producer and a director, who either were or had been on the Logies jury. Both of these individuals have enjoyed long careers in Australian television but neither seemed to have worked in comedy or entertainment, so exactly who will be judging the Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program Logie remains a mystery. But fingers crossed they’re Micallef fans, obviously.
One show not receiving a Logies nomination, but apparently getting a second series and being pitched in the US is A Moody Christmas. It’s hard to imagine where this show can go if it follows the same format of six consecutive Christmases, but according to TV Tonight:
Jungleboys are planning to shoot another series later this year, following its success with audiences late last year.
That’s presumably success with audiences who don’t care too much about whether a show’s funny or interesting, because even if you judge A Moody Christmas as a “light family drama” you’re going to be disappointed.
Anyway, to get back to our original point, we hate to do our old gear on you but this bit from our original review of A Moody Christmas seems relevant as to why we don’t think a second series would be a good idea:
…the premise – we check back in with the Moody’s every Christmas – doesn’t give us a lot of hope there. It’s a good premise, but it really needs much stronger characters to work if it’s going to keep approaching things realistically. Christmas gatherings are a time when people fall into a rut, playing a role within their family, and from the first episode none of the one-note characters (the sister: I’m pregnant! Next week: we have to have sex so I can get pregnant!) or the roles they play are going to sustain six weeks of comedy unless they seriously go off the rails.
But hey, in a world where Laid might be coming back for a third outing it would probably be more surprising if A Moody Christmas didn’t than if it did!
Back in the Doghouse
We were recently asked on twitter (by one Ducks McOntos) what we thought of this:
The Oxford dictionary defines ”influence” as the capacity to have an affect on the character, development or behaviour of someone or something. In television, that translates into only one thing: having a hand in the most successful programs.
Yet influence is more complex than mere power. Chief executives have power by virtue of their office. Programmers have it by virtue of their control over the schedule.
The Guide canvassed a panel of experts – critics, executives and industry insiders – to compile the list of the 50 Most Influential People in Television.
This draws together the power partnerships, the deal-makers behind the deals and the new generation of rising stars.
Seriously Fairfax? You’re starting off articles with “The Oxford dictionary defines…” now? We look forward to future articles written by your crack team of high school debaters and regional sales assistants.
But in this case our attention wasn’t directed towards the usual self-serving Fairfax waffle – FYI, putting out a “power” list doesn’t make it look like you have the power to say who’s powerful; quite the opposite in fact – but the fact that, for what is probably the first time in a long time, Working Dog – you know, the production house run by those guys who once made Frontline and some other less-impressive but more popular shows – isn’t on the list.
On one level, this isn’t at all surprising. These lists don’t actually measure real power, after all, just the perception of power gathered by a bunch of outsiders and people on the make. Working Dog don’t have any shows on air at the moment; of course they’re less powerful than Andrew Denton, who had thirteen hours worth of programming on ABC1 last year. Hey, remember this bit at the very start of the article?
The Oxford dictionary defines ”influence” as the capacity to have an affect on the character, development or behaviour of someone or something. In television, that translates into only one thing: having a hand in the most successful programs
Explain to us again what the creator and host of Randling is doing on this list?
That’s the problem with these lists: you need zero actual insight into television to do one. List all the obvious decision makers at the networks, add in the production companies that are “hot” right now, a bunch of writer-actors – seriously, even we did a double-take at seeing Brendan “did anyone actually read my novel?” Cowell listed here (for one thing, that Save Your Legs film he wrote and starred in really, uh, failed to set the box office on fire) – plus a few other creatives to flatter your readers that television in Australia is a real art form and not a veracious money-suckhole, and away you go.
A real-world top fifty power list would just list the top fifty executives at the various networks plus their mates (hey, maybe Denton does deserve to be on this list); another more useful version of this list would take into account the popularity of the shows being made. You’re going to list Adam Zwar but not Hamish & Andy? Which lot are making the shows people actually watch again?
So all Working Dog’s absence from this list means is that they aren’t currently making television – apart from another series of Audrey’s Kitchen for the ABC – right this second. Could they wander into Ten with a new idea for a series and get it green-lit in five minutes? We’re going to go with yes, considering that two of their earlier shows – The Panel and Thank God You’re Here – basically reshaped Australian television in a way that Randling, or anything else Denton’s ever created, didn’t. Last time we checked, that’s real power.
(we’ll shut up about Randling now)
But… okay, let’s be honest: Working Dog haven’t been rocking the television world of late. Pictures of You happened. Santo Sam & Ed’s Sports Fever was a great show that no-one watched. Those 2 minute episodes of Audrey’s Kitchen seem to have been a bit of a hit for the ABC, but they go two minutes. Otherwise, as far as television goes, their cupboard’s looking pretty bare. Guess what? That’s a good thing.
When Working Dog are making hit Australian television shows, they’re making the kind of bland, FM-radio-esque shows that become hits on Australian television. We’re not going to say anyone can do that kind of thing – obviously it’s a serious challenge – but other people can and do manage it. But when Working Dog aren’t making hit shows, they don’t make The Rennovators or Being Lara Bingle; they make comedy. And they’re still pretty good at that.
For a two minute show, Audrey’s Kitchen was a lot funnier than most of the ABC’s half hour comedies. The Santo, Sam & Ed postcast started out strong and gets better each week. The Working Dog website here has been coughing up the occasional manifesto from Tom Gleisner’s cricketing character Warrick Todd, and while we probably don’t need to see another book-length Todd outing, as with Audrey’s Kitchen he can get a lot done in a small space.
This would usually be the point where we’d start with our moaning about how Working Dog’s style of comedy is no longer fashionable amongst the television executives who populate the Power Lists, and how if these guys can’t get a television showcase for their comedy up and running what hope do newcomers wanting to follow in their ramshackle yet clued-in footsteps have? But for once we’re going to be happy with what we’ve got: Working Dog, one of the legends of Australian comedy, are still making comedy that’s actually funny.
If Fairfax can’t see that, they deserve all the “comedy” from the influential Rick Kalowksi – remember, he’s “one of Australia’s most prolific comedy writers, with credits including Comedy Inc. and Double Take” – that comes their way.
Oh Donna
A couple of months ago we received a media release from the Melbourne-based sketch comedy group Aunty Donna, telling us about their web series Aunty Donna’s Rumpus Room. Our policy with such media releases is to watch the shows when we have time but only to write something if we like and/or have anything interesting to say about them. In the case of Aunty Donna’s Rumpus Room we liked it, but whether the following review is interesting…well, you decide.
Aunty Donna’s Rumpus Room was part of the community TV sketch show Lost Dog and it’s also available on Aunty Donna’s YouTube channel. A good video to start with on YouTube is the Trailer, a series of lightening-fast sketches which together cover just about every way you could ever parody an “on the streets” vox pop video. As for the Rumpus Room episodes themselves, they contain a mix of a good sketches and sketches which need some work.
The most watched of the episodes is Sweetlove, which consists of a slow, not very funny sketch about a douchebag Russell Brand-lookalike DJ called Sweet Love, but is followed by a brilliant rant by a guy who gets called gay by someone leaning out of a car window. Similarly, Women has another so-so sketch about DJ Sweet Love, but this is followed by several better sketches. Our favourite episode was Lion which includes a sketch about Tony the door-to-door tea towel salesman. Throughout the sketch more and more revelations about Tony’s personal life emerge, each one funnier and funnier.
The production values on this show are about as high as you can expect from community television and we suspect the more successful sketches began life on stage, but the flaws are endearing, because the show’s made in the right spirit, and the bulk of the material is amusing enough to keep you watching. Hopefully Aunty Donna will get the opportunity to make more sketches for online or TV, but in the meantime the group have some live shows coming up the Melbourne International Comedy Festival which might be worth a look.
The model and the charmless man
Isn’t Josh Thomas so loveable, with his cute hair and his innocent gormlessness? Look! He’s all curled up on his bed in the foetal position because THE HOTTEST GUY ON THE PLANET wants to kiss him. Feel his pain, everyone! That must be, like, TOTALLY AWKWARD!
Please Like Me is the story of 21 year old Josh, who can’t quite get his head straight about how he’s not straight. His relationship with Claire (Caitlin Stasey) ends when she points out he’s gay, then he doesn’t quite get it on with ultra-hot Geoffrey (Wade Briggs), then his Mum (Debra Lawrence) overdoses and needs looking after, except his Dad (David Roberts) can’t do that because he’s now in a relationship with the much younger Mae (Renee Lim). But just when the situation with Mum kinda sorts itself out – conservative battle-axe Aunty Peg (Judi Farr) comes to the rescue – Claire starts showing up at the flat Josh shares with Tom (Thomas Ward), which makes finally getting it on with Geoffrey even more difficult. Or indeed AWKWARD.
So, all the classic ingredients of the sitcom present and correct there…except the script misses opportunity after opportunity to make use of them in a way that’s really funny, which makes Please Like Me seem more like a hipster teen drama about nothing than a sitcom about young people coming of age. Thomas and the rest of the cast get us much out of the script as they can, and there are a few funny moments, but ultimately this show is about as empty as Josh Thomas’ Gen Y persona. Which is great news if you like stupid conversations about embarrassing genitals, but bad news if you want things to move things along to, well, something a bit more interesting.
The various will they/won’t they/why have they… moments in this series are all well and good, but they’ve been done to death by shows like The Office and are no funnier this time ‘round. Where’s the peril? Why should we give a shit? Josh is basically a dick who got very lucky, and who inexplicably maintains that luck despite treating his friends and lovers like doormats. That might be realistic if he was ultra-charming or occasionally nice to them, but he isn’t. He’s a self-indulgent, over-grown schoolboy, exaggerating his awkwardness and youth to get away with being a jerk, and Geoffrey, THE HOTTEST GUY ON THE PLANET, who likes him for no reason we can understand, should cut his losses and move on.
Which brings us to the question of to what extent that ditzy blonde Gen Y guy is a comic persona or the real Josh Thomas, and to what extent Please Like Me was a misguided commission that’s become a vanity project. Thomas’ multiple Tumblie-winning podcast Josh Thomas & Friend (the friend being Thomas Ward) was kind of a pilot for this sitcom, and as we’ve documented several times it was chock-full of awkwardness about sex and genitals, and totally uninteresting to anyone who’s attained any level of maturity, sexual or otherwise. Maybe there’s a clue here as to why this sitcom from a high profile comedian was announced with great fanfare several years ago, and then delayed and delayed until it now limps on to our screens in a two-episode block on ABC2. Has someone at the ABC had an AWKWARD moment of their own? Where they’ve realised that famous guy from that panel show isn’t actually very good? And he’s just using his sitcom to spend time being feted by admirers and canoodling with hot guys, whilst pretending he doesn’t give a shit? Far from being a shunted to ABC2 because it’s about gays, we suspect Please Life Me has been shunted to ABC2 because it’s just not very good. SUPER AWKWARD!!!!