The Cheap Seats is back! Still good? Still good! We’re done then?
Yeah, pretty much. The show came back earlier this week without skipping a beat. There was plenty of mileage in the Royal Coronation and even more in Melanie Bracewell corpsing while Tim looked on in mock confusion. She’s from New Zealand, he’s short and can’t get a date: teamwork makes the dream work.
Sure, occasionally they cut to one of the hosts looking the wrong way. But on the whole, this is a finely tuned comedy machine. Clips and running gags rarely outstay their welcome, the improvised one-liners are just as good as the scripted ones, the guest hosts are-
-okay, these guys are a little interesting, in that they both work in different ways. Mel Tracina is totally in tune with the show’s vibe: you could see her working as a replacement cohost with no trouble. Titus O’Reily, not so much; for one, he’s an older-ish dude who’s little stiff (he’s the only one you can see reading from the autocue).
But that works for sport, which is a segment that needs to be there but doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the show. That’s by design: come the fourth segment of an hour-long show, you need something a little different. He’s in on the joke even when the joke is on him.
(He’s also not quite as slick with the one-liners, but when one does land it’s usually a good one)
This week’s interview went long – no complaints here, it was a good one, can’t go wrong with footage of Israeli pop star “Clear Search History” gyrating around like a human blender. But it did mean there was a bit less of our favourite part of the show, the final segment where they dump all the weird stuff that might not work.
They make a lot of jokes about how, well, cheap the show is, but there’s a lot of moving parts in The Cheap Seats. Which is ironic, as it takes place entirely behind a desk. Basically, don’t neglect the importance of What’s On What’s On in the Warehouse.
If it ain’t broke don’t expect us to review it every single week is the main takeaway here. The Cheap Seats is one of the funniest shows on Australian television. It’s a classic of the form, a show that does everything right even when it’s not doing much at all.
Also, they have a new sponsor in the form of Subway. Well done guys! The countdown to the jokes about how quickly they were dumped by yet another sponsor starts now.
Prime Video Releases the Official Trailer for Australian Amazon Original Series Deadloch
When a local man turns up dead on the beach, two vastly different detectives are thrown together to solve the case
From the wickedly funny minds of Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan comes the killer new series Deadloch, starring Kate Box, Madeleine Sami, Nina Oyama, Tom Ballard, Alicia Gardiner, Susie Youssef, and more
Deadloch will launch exclusively on Prime Video on June 2 in Australia and more than 240 countries and territories around the world
But wait, there’s more!
SYDNEY—May 4, 2023—Today, Prime Video released the official trailer and first-look images for the Australian Amazon Original series Deadloch. Created, written, and executive produced by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (Get Krack!n, The Katering Show), the first three episodes of Deadloch will premiere exclusively on Prime Video globally on Friday, June 2, with new episodes available each Friday, leading up to the season finale on Friday, July 7. Deadloch becomes the latest addition to the Prime membership. Prime members across the globe enjoy savings, convenience, and entertainment, all in a single membership.
The Tasmanian town of Deadloch, a once sleepy seaside hamlet, is left reeling when a local man turns up dead on the beach. Two female detectives are thrown together to solve the case: Fastidious local senior sergeant Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) and a rough-as-guts blow-in from Darwin, senior investigator Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami) along with their overeager junior constable Abby (Nina Oyama). As the town prepares to launch the annual arts, food, and culture event—Winter Feastival—the trio have to put their differences aside and work together to find the killer.
Cinematic, thrilling, mysterious, and moody, Deadloch puts a high-comedy spin on the crime genre and questions Australia’s relationship with truth, gender, and race, while keeping you guessing (and laughing) at every turn.
Deadloch features a large ensemble cast led by Kate Box (Fires, Wentworth), Madeleine Sami (The Breaker Upperers), Nina Oyama (Utopia), Tom Ballard (Tonightly with Tom Ballard), and Alicia Gardiner (Wakefield, Offspring), as well as Susie Youssef (Rosehaven), Pamela Rabe (Wentworth), Kris McQuade (Rosehaven), Duncan Fellows (The Letdown), Harvey Zielinski (Don’t Look Deeper), Shaun Martindale (The Tailings), Katie Robertson (Five Bedrooms), Nick Simpson-Deeks (Winners & Losers), Mia Morrissey (Home and Away), Leonie Whyman (Dark Place), Mick Davies (Rosehaven), Holly Austin, Kartanya Maynard, and Naarah. The eight-part series was shot in and around Hobart, Tasmania in 2022 with episodes directed by acclaimed Australian filmmakers Ben Chessell (The Great, Giri/Haji), Gracie Otto (The Moth Effect, Seriously Red), and Beck Cole (Black Comedy, Wentworth), with Andy Walker (Rosehaven, The Kettering Incident) producing.
“In Deadloch, The Kates have created a gripping mystery with their signature hilarious—and often biting—comedic tone masterfully weaved throughout,” said Sarah Christie, senior development executive Prime Video Australia. “This is the second of three Australian Amazon Original scripted series Prime Video are releasing this year, and we are thrilled to be working with Guesswork Television and OK Great Productions, along with a powerhouse creative team led by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, to bring this uniquely Australian story to screens around the world. Deadloch flips the crime genre on its head in such a fresh and engaging way, and we know Prime Video customers globally are going to be hooked from the first episode.”
Deadloch co-creators Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan said: “We are both so thrilled to share the dark, strange little town of Deadloch with the world. We’re particularly excited for everyone to meet Dulcie and Eddie, performed by the powerhouses Kate Box and Madeleine Sami, who are far better actors than we’ll ever be. The supporting cast is sublime, the crew are a delight, and the experience of making this story with Prime Video globally on the incredible land of lutruwita (Tasmania) is one we’ll never forget.”
This is a bit of a tricky one. We’ve been a big fan of the Kates here for ages, but that doesn’t mean we’ve unconditionally loved everything they’ve done – and there’s been a bit of a clear line between them going all-out comedy wise (The Katering Show, Get Krack!ng, Slushy) and the projects where they’ve been weaving a bit of drama into the mix (mostly just Bleak).
There’s been an endless line-up of local crime dramas where a body turns up in a small town and some out-of-towner gets roped into solving the mystery, so a comedy spin on the cliches is very much welcome. Obviously it’s a bit hard to tell how much comedy there’s going to be based on a two minutes trailer – oh right, the trailer:
(no prizes for guessing which detective would be played by which Kate in a parallel, much lower budget universe)
Network executives are going to say pretty much anything to get you to tune in, so the line “The Kates have created a gripping mystery with their signature hilarious—and often biting—comedic tone masterfully weaved throughout” is more a guide to what they think people want than the show itself.
But from what we can tell, this really does look a lot more like “straight mystery with comedy characters” rather than a full-on comedy taking the piss out of the genre itself. That’s probably as it should be: trying to fill eight episodes with jokes about one played out genre would be pretty tough.
Unfortunately, that means it might just be eight episodes of a played-out genre. Still, Tasmania always looks nice. Fingers crossed Anthony Morgan shows up at some point.
ABC and Screen Australia on the hunt for more Fresh Blood
The ABC and Screen Australia team are once again teaming up to uncover the next generation of great Australian comedy talent through the hugely successful Fresh Blood initiative.
Submissions are now open for new and emerging comedy acts to apply. Creators from all backgrounds, abilities, and identities who meet the selection criteria are encouraged to apply.
As part of the joint initiative to unearth a new generation of comedic talent, 10 teams will receive $50,000 to produce 3 x 5min comedy shorts and will participate in a workshop to be held in Sydney, in August 2023. These shorts will premiere simultaneously on ABC and creators’ social media platforms.
From there, up to 3 teams will be selected to create a longer pilot between 20-27 minutes in length, with potential to be commissioned by the ABC as a series.
We’re looking for applicants with original comedy ideas. They can be narrative, sketch, vertical, as long as the ideas are fresh, the comedy is strong and has the potential to be developed into a full series. Ultimately, want to be surprised.
Since Fresh Blood began in 2013 the initiative has launched the careers of countless acts including the rock stars of comedy, Aunty Donna, and the animated series Koala Man, featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman and Sarah Snook.
Screen Australia’s Head of Online Lee Naimo said, “We are so thrilled to be joining the ABC once again in supporting a new wave of comedic talent through the Fresh Blood initiative. We’ve seen first-hand the launchpad that this initiative provides, through the ongoing success of alumni like Skit Box, Nina Oyama and Angus Thompson and the team from Why Are You Like This. I can’t wait to see the doors it opens for the new crop of talent that comes through this time around.”
Nick Hayden, ABC Head of Entertainment said, “Fresh Blood continues the tradition of the ABC supporting new comedic voices. Sometimes those voices tell us, ‘she doesn’t even go here’ other times ‘ok, boomer’. Whatever they say this time, we’re excited to see what this new crop can dream up!”
Todd Abbott, ABC Head of Comedy said, “One of the ABC’s most important roles is to find and nurture new comedy talent, and Fresh Blood provides a great opportunity to open the gates and amp up that search.”
On the one hand, it’s good to see the ABC finally realising they can’t keep a comedy department running just on reboots of Mother & Son and re-commissioning Utopia. On the other, has Fresh Blood ever served up any real winners?
This press release mentioned Aunty Donna, who had gone so far as to have a series on Netflix before the ABC got around to giving them a go. It also mentioned Koala Man, which is definitely a success but not an ABC series. Anyone had any recent updates from the Why Are You Like This team?
In fact, Fresh Blood hasn’t really helped anyone long term as far as the ABC is concerned. Sure, they’ve been unearthing a new generation of comedy talent – and then they’ve been dumping that earth right back on top of them.
Which isn’t a surprise at all, as previous series have seemed much more about getting a bunch of cheap comedy shorts to show on digital channels as a way of promoting the ABC (see “These shorts will premiere simultaneously on ABC and creators’ social media platforms.”) than actually giving comedians real opportunities to have an on going career with the ABC.
It’ll be interesting to see if this round is any different.
Well, we’re assuming We Interrupt This Broadcast is done – it’s not in the schedules for next week. And yeah, ten episodes seems as good a point as any to pull the pin. A bit of confusion over its departure seems fitting, considering it began with a blaze (well, flicker) of glory before fizzling out well before its run was over.
So what went wrong? Did anything, in fact, go wrong? As the latest installment in Seven’s attempt to make Australian comedy firmly a thing of the past – or at least, solely the focus of nostalgia-based specials – it was always a bit of an odd duck.
At a guess, someone high up kept asking why they couldn’t do a Fast Forward special a la the ones for Hey Hey it’s Saturday and Kath & Kim, only to be told by someone who’d actually watched Fast Forward this century that the material didn’t hold up – not that that’s stopped any of the Hey Hey specials. Eventually someone came up with the genius idea of making an all-new Fast Forward, and hey presto, Full Frontal… uh, We Interrupt This Broadcast was born.
As commercial television ideas go, reviving a successful old format is far from the worst. We’ll be honest: we didn’t mind the first episode of We Interrupt This Broadcast, and the second didn’t fall off a cliff like we expected. Making fun of television is (still) a decent idea for a television show, and the initial focus on quantity as far as jokes go was a nice change from the usual sketch show focus on turning it into the director’s audition reel or a showcase for just how many semi-famous mates they can lure on set for half an hour.
But as expected, eventually the rot set in. Coming up with material for a sketch show is hard work, and We Interrupt This Broadcast was burning through a lot right from the start. Which is as it should be: the alternative is to just repeat the same jokes and situations over and over in a doomed attempt to create the kind of “catchphrase comedy” that doesn’t require work – just throwing the catchphrase out there for the audience to devour like lions given a hunk of raw meat.
To be extremely generous, at least some of the fault lies in the lack of variety on Australian television today. Back in the days of Fast Forward, you could parody ads – an area strangely left untouched here – and local dramas and news programs and arts programs and kids shows and religious shows and whatever you call those shows Russell Coight is parodying and so on. These days, it’s pretty much just reality shows, which in no way excuses them still making Lip Island sketches after ten weeks.
It wasn’t like the bottom fell out of the show. The sketches in episode 10 weren’t always noticeably worse than the sketches in week one, and the show was still powering through the parodies. Hell, we almost nearly laughed at Hot Mess – Australia’s Most Baffling Game Show, even if the joke was basically “Numberwang” done over.
(with two out of three of Aunty Donna making regular appearances, We Interrupt This Broadcast deserves some minor credit for keeping the lights on there long enough for Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe to get made)
But the show never developed any material strong enough to carry it over the weak patches, and after a while it became clear that the weak patches were getting bigger as the jokes became more familiar. Again, being stuck with a limited amount of shows to parody didn’t help. Half a hour’s worth of Gardening Australia parodies will struggle to get laughs, even spread over ten weeks.
That’s 36 satirical targets per 42 minute show – nice work team
Still, if they’d actually gone and watched any of the sketch shows from the good old days – or just, you know, Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell – they would have noticed that successful sketch shows usually mix it up a little. If they had performers who were good at one kind of thing, they let them do that. Some people did character comedy, some did parodies, some did (shudder) restaurant sketches, some did mockumentaries.
The whole point of making fun of television was that you could copy every single format that was on television to make each sketch the funniest it could be. A full hour composed of ninety second sketches where the first ten seconds was the logo and the “performance” was just reading the lines and maybe pulling a face? Not the best option.
It’s not a matter of simply saying “it should have been better”. Hang on, yes it is: it should have been better. It was just the same thing, over and over again for an hour a week for ten weeks. Even if it had been brilliant, the novelty was going to wear off sooner rather than later.
And “brilliant” isn’t how we’d describe a lot of the material. Seriously, is this a joke anyone actually laughs at, or the kind of joke you think “yeah, I reckon someone else watching this will probably find this kind of funny”.
Because when you’re writing the second kind of joke, nobody’s laughing.
Internet Sensations The Inspired Unemployed To Host Hilarious Australian Original Series.
Coming Soon To Paramount Australia And New Zealand.
Aussie larrikins, The Inspired Unemployed, have taken over the internet with their awkwardly hilarious videos and in 2023, we will see them take over our screens for the very first time.
Jack Steele and Matt Ford, the duo behind The Inspired Unemployed are renowned content creators, having amassed 3.8 million followers on social media. Now, Jack and Matt will host a hilarious eight-part Australian original series, produced by Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia.
Bursting with excitement, Jack and Matt jointly said: “We are so stoked to be working with Paramount ANZ on this TV show, from the first video we ever made our goal was to always have a TV show and for it to actually be happening is a dream come true. We’ve always believed that laughter is the best medicine, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to spread joy and positivity to even more people through this platform.”
Daniel Monaghan, SVP Content and Programming, Paramount Australia and New Zealand said: “The Inspired Unemployed have a huge following with a unique knack for making people sit up, take notice and laugh. Paramount ANZ is delighted to be their very first ‘TV home’ when Jack and Matt, alongside their mates will have audiences in stitches with this surprising series. We can’t wait for audiences to watch the show later this year.”
Michael Brooks, Managing Director of Warner Bros. International Television Production Australia and Head of Studios Australia and New Zealand said: “Jack and Matt from The Inspired Unemployed are internet sensations with a natural chemistry that can only come from years of working together. We have the perfect format for their first foray into television and look forward to sharing more hilarious moments with fans across the country later this year.”
Yesterday we lost the greatest Australian comedian of the 20th Century and a pioneer of comedy on Australian television. Some argue that Barry Humphries invented Australian comedy. It’s not true – there’s been comedy in Australia for as long as there have been Australians – but it’s true enough.
When Humphries was starting out in the 1950s, urban-dwelling Australians didn’t have much to laugh about that they could really relate to. Comedy in Australia until this point often focused on rural Australia or was imported from the UK or the USA. Then along came Humphries’ character Edna Everage, who turned her nose up at the neighbours’ burgundy Axminster carpets, and, suddenly, modern Australian comedy was born.
Humphries both revealed and revelled in the dullness, the materialism, and the small-mindedness of the Australian suburbs. Edna was a housewife who thought she was better than others, while another Humphries character, First World War veteran Sandy Stone was a bore and a bigot, forever doomed to haunt his former home. Many comedians who came along later, from the Australia You’re Standing In It team to The D-Generation to Gina Riley and Jane Turner, covered similar ground, but it was Barry Humphries who did it first. Literally. He appeared as Edna on Channel Seven Melbourne’s opening night show in 1957!
Dame Edna in the 1950s
But Melbourne wasn’t big enough for Barry Humphries and in the late 1950s he moved to London, gradually building a reputation as an actor, and for his comedy characters. Initially, the British didn’t understand Edna, but several decades later, her live shows were hot tickets on the West End and she redefined the celebrity chat show with The Dame Edna Experience.
In this top-rating show made for London Weekend Television, celebrity guests deemed too pretentious or dull found themselves flung down a staircase, or removed from the show via other, comically violent, means. It was a gimmick later copied in Graham Norton’s chat show, but it was Barry Humphries who did it first.
Barry Humphries was also a pioneer of what was later called “gross-out comedy”, with his characters Barry McKenzie, an Australian in London who spent his time drinking, chasing women and sticking it up the Poms, and Sir Les Patterson, an older type of lecherous boozer who, slightly unbelievably, held the position of Cultural Attaché to the Court of St James.
Sir Les Patterson
Both characters enabled Humphries to critique sexist, loutish behaviour and to push the audience’s tolerance by engaging in it. At the end of The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Bazza and his mates (one of whom was played by the late John Clarke) put out a fire with cans of Fosters and their own urine. While at Humphries’ live shows, Sir Les spat on the audience and revealed his “trouser snake,” a plastic phallus which emitted white liquid, to gales of laughter.
In 2023, this isn’t the kind of comedy that many younger comedians are doing, and Humphries has been criticised in recent years for it. Comedians now don’t do ambiguity, where sexism (or racism, or homophobia) is both satirised and indulged in. This is the right thing to do, of course, but it’s worth remembering that Barry McKenzie and Sir Les were controversial back in their day too. Controversial with the sort of bigots and prudes who would be just as horrified by today’s comedians with their ethos of equality and justice for all.
Humphries, who was both a ground-breaking pioneer in an often left-leaning profession, and a conservative (he was on the board of Quadrant and wrote for The Spectator), was ultimately a contrarian, who, as cultural history Tony Moore put it “retained a bohemian delight in transgression that makes him a radical”.
It was this spirit of radicalism, perhaps, which has attracted such a wide and diverse audience to Humphries’ shows over the last 65+ years. He had the ability to make everyone laugh, whether they were young or old, a conservative or a die-hard leftist.
Barry Humphries was a pioneer, an original and endlessly inventive. Australian comedy would be nothing without him.
After 47 years and thirty five thousand episodes, there’s not a lot left to be said about The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. And even less to be said that’s positive. But in recent weeks we’ve noticed a trend that we can’t help but applaud: more and more often, the guests are treating Pickering like shit.
It’s the stink lines that really make it work
No doubt it began a while back and we just didn’t notice, what with being asleep on the couch and all that. We’re pretty sure Judith Lucy used to at least talk over Pickering back when she was a regular. No doubt many of the other comedy guests treated the host with something less than fawning respect during their appearances.
But it’s been Rhys Nicholson who’s really kicked it into overdrive this year with some thinly concealed (comedy) contempt for the man sitting across from him. He’s been talking over Pickering and telling him to shut it on a regular basis. Is it funny? You bet.
This week saw Nath Valvo get in on the act. Better yet, he called Pickering “a homeowner”, which is about as perfect a summing up of everything that’s wrong with having Pickering hosting a comedy series in 2023 as you’ll find.
But we can’t go too hard on Pickering here (for once), because having the guests treat him as a lightweight stuffed shirt is (for once) a workable comedy dynamic. It actually gets laughs out of Pickering’s on air persona, which is… not something The Weekly has been good at in the past.
To be blunt, Pickering has no authority or credibility – even just as a host, let alone as someone who’s funny. The only way to get laughs out of what he’s doing is to have funnier people treat him like some irrelevant obstacle barely worth the effort to tell to sit down and shut up.
Ironically, admitting he’s crap and using that to get laughs somehow makes him less crap. Who knows, maybe in another fifteen years they’ll figure out another way to get laughs and The Weekly might start to get close to being funny. Or not.
A new series from Aunty Donna is always something to look forward to, particularly after the recent TV comedy drought, and Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café does not disappoint.
In this series, Zach Ruane, Broden Kelly and Mark Bonanno have opened a trendy Melbourne laneway café in which…funny things occur. And unlike everything else the ABC’s made recently, none of the characters are falling in love, no one’s getting over a traumatic event, and there’s no big moment in episode five which will happily resolve itself in episode six.
Right out of the blocks, Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café is the kind of show where plot, character and logic aren’t really a thing. The café’s fully of wasps? Call in the Pied Piper (Black Comedy’s Steven Oliver) to eliminate them. A bloke’s stealing blueberries out of the muffins? Put him on trial, with Zach as the judge, Broden as the prosecutor and Richard Roxborough as Rake from Rake appearing for the defence.
But wait, wouldn’t it be a bit much to make the whole episode a courtroom drama? Possibly, so we find Mark, due to a complicated series of events, being interrogated by a series of Primary School teachers who suspect he’s a sex pest. Meanwhile, back at the trial, isn’t that Matt Doran reprising his role of Mouse from The Matrix in the background? Why, yes, it is!
And while Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café could be dismissed as a bunch of in-jokes and surreal nonsense, there are other types of comedy going on too. Parodies, for example, with episode three featuring the best buck’s party pisstake we’ve ever seen, featuring blokes who can’t hold down conversations with each other, dumb activities preceded by tedious health and safety briefings, and a montage of the wild fun the partygoers should, in theory, be having. Also in that episode, look out for a pastiche of You Can’t Ask That featuring Tony Martin and Melanie Bracewell, and a pointed dig at ABC iView.
The beauty of Coffee Café‘s “anything can happen and probably will” approach, and the sitcom/sketch show hybrid concept, is that Aunty Donna can go anywhere and do any type of comedy. A scene with a training montage accompanied by what seems like generic background music suddenly becomes a scene with a training montage accompanied by a song glorifying hit-and-run driving. While a sub-plot which sees the café hosting an awards ceremony for real estate agents is an opportunity for some satire about how real estate agents push up prices and rip people off.
The sheer variety of types of comedy in Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café and the mostly excellent quality of it is staggering when you consider what the rest of Australian comedy is like now. But do not be deceived, Australian comedy is capable of excellence, and this is the proof. Put together an excellent, much-loved comedy team, add quality additional writers (Michelle Brasier, Greg Larsen, Sam Lingham, Tony Martin, Vidya Rajan, and Steven Oliver) and let them do their thing.
The only criticism we have of Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café is that six episodes are nowhere near enough.
It wasn’t all that long ago that series like Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe were part of the ABC’s regular comedy output. Today? Not so much. After decades of budget cuts and an increasingly tight focus on an audience that’s presumably excited for series like the upcoming Mother & Son reboot, something as relentlessly inventive and subversive as Aunty Donna’s latest project doesn’t stand out so much as, well, stand out a lot.
Just to make things clear, this is definitely the kind of series the ABC should be showing. Our full review is on its way: the short version is that it’s good, we liked it, you should watch it. But it’s also very different from what people have come to expect from ABC Comedy in recent years. Which is to say that if you’re a big fan of Hard Quiz and The Weekly then a musical number titled “One Of Us Has a Vibrator In Our Bottoms” is going to come as a bit of a shock (much like the vibrator itself).
In an ideal world, or even a world identical to this one only the ABC is properly funded, there’d be three times the current number of local sitcoms on the national broadcaster. Variety would simply be par for the course: the idea that this series – made by extremely popular comedy professionals with over a decade’s experience (shit, they even had their own series on Netflix) – was in any way “risky” would be as laughable as their jokes. Which is to say, very laughable indeed.
But in this world, where the ABC can’t risk alienating even a handful of their decaying Boomer audience, this kind of thing is… well, it’s not Rosehaven. Though let’s be honest: this rapid-fire, throw everything at the wall style of unhinged comedy is at least as old as The Goodies, which was also a show featuring a wacky comedy trio. So it’s not like everybody under 60 doesn’t know what they’re watching here.
Again, not so long ago the ABC was airing this kind of content on a regular basis. But a decade or so back it decided to shift the more youth-friendly comedy to the streaming side of things, later supported by turning then comedy-heavy digital channel ABC2 into ABC Comedy. The old and the old-at-heart would get the free-to-air channel. The ABC’s more youthful viewers would have the more technologically advanced methods of broadcasting that they were familiar with. Everybody wins.
Then the bottom continued to drop out of the budget and all the youth-friendly stuff was axed.
Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe is airing in the ABC’s prime time comedy slot because in 2023 there is literally nowhere else for them to put it where anyone will see it. All the other options are gone; if the ABC is going to continue to make comedy series that are anything more than safe suburban salutes to keeping it cozy, they’re going to have to air in a timeslot where people are going to see them no matter how risky that is.
The ABC archives are so full of comedy series that pushed the boundaries it’s hard to seriously argue there are many boundaries left. The only real difference between them and Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe is that Aunty Donna are generally speaking pretty darn funny. Is it a sharp break from what we’ve come to expect from the ABC’s recent comedy output? Yep. But that’s the fault of the ABC: maybe if they focused more on giving funny people a chance, this kind of thing wouldn’t be such a pleasant surprise.
These last few months have been hard for the Australian comedy fan looking for a decent laugh. And Would I Lie To You?, a well-established format, featuring well-established talent who occasionally have something funny to say, doesn’t quite cut it.
In the final episode, which aired last night, the stand-out was Welsh stand-up Lloyd Langford. Watching the cogs turn in Langford’s head as he tried to flesh out a lie or embellish a truth was every bit as entertaining as his dead-pan zingers. If there was someone as good as him each episode this show would be a lot more entertaining to watch.
On the other hand, Aunty Donna’s Broden Kelly seemed rather muted compared to the sort of larger-than-life performance style he’s become known for in shows like Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun and We Interrupt This Broadcast. Not the right vehicle for him, perhaps? Still, not long to go until we can see Kelly do his usual thing in Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café.
The female panellists on Would I Lie To You? have never particularly sparkled, partly because there are fewer of them than male panellists on this show. What’s with the show’s policy of booking multiple male comedians but only one female comedian per episode? Sure, there’s usually another woman besides the female comedian. But she’s an actor or presenter or whatever Jacqui Lambie is?
Of the few female comedians who’ve made it onto Would I Lie To You?, there have been some decent ones. Georgie Carroll, who was on the show last week was a stand-out. Tanya Hennessy, who appeared this week, was less so. Although to be fair to her, she was barely in it.
When many of Australia’s top comedians are women, this is outrageous. As for panellists from ethnic minorities, leaving aside Nina Oyama, Alex Lee and Dilruk Jayasinha, er, does someone with an Italian-sounding surname count?
There’s a theory that in today’s difficult television environment, producers and executives aren’t inclined to challenge an audience’s prejudices by, say, putting someone on a show that some of the audience might dislike. Better to have someone known and bland (Charlie Pickering) than turn off a regular viewer because, shock, horror, a woman or someone non-white came on and told a joke.
So, farewell for 2023, Would I Lie To You?, a show which remains on air not because it’s entertaining, or showcasing new talent, or doing anything interesting or innovative, but because it’s cheap to make and just enough people are prepared to tolerate it.
