Australian Tumbleweeds
The Gospel According to Lucy
Within minutes of her first appearance on The Late Show (and quite possibly within seconds of her first appearance on TV, on The Big Gig a year or so earlier) audiences were divided on whether Judith Lucy was hilariously funny or a caustic, sarky harridan. Lucy’s long-awaited solo TV series Spiritual Journeyseems just as likely to divide audiences, for that reason and others.
Spiritual Journey is another of those documentary/sketch show hybrids that the ABC seems to make nothing but these days. Here at Tumblies Central we’re not the greatest fans of this type of program – it’s never going to deliver the laughs like a really good sitcom or sketch show could – but we enjoyed what we saw.
In episode one Judith Lucy reflects on her staunchly Catholic upbringing; she interviews priests and nuns, and recreates her childhood in series of hyper-real sketches directed by Tony Martin. Judging from the preview of episode two the rest of the series will see Lucy exploring a range of religions and belief systems, interviewing more people, getting involved in rituals and reliving more of her life through more sketches, which should be fun.
But while Spiritual Journey is definitely one of those documentary/sketch show hybrids, the approach is slightly different to that in Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable or John Safran’s Race Relations. In those programs documentary and sketch elements were brought together seamlessly through a prank or stunt; in Spiritual Journey the show seems to lurch from a serious interview to a sketch with barely a line of narration to link them; if you prefer a smoother change of tone you may prefer something else.
As for us, we were more interested in whether the sketches were funny and the interviews were interesting, and the good news is that they are. Judith Lucy’s stand-up over the past two decades, and her excellent autobiography The Lucy Family Alphabet, have covered religion, spirituality and the wacky beliefs of her family many times, so while much of the material is new she put it across like she’d been doing it for years.
However, if you’re one of those people who thought that Judith Lucy ruined The Late Show then we suggest you don’t bother with this series. Spiritual Journey is 100% pure Judith Lucy, and if you don’t like you can go to hell.
Mind the Gap
Here’s what we know: Hamish & Andy’s new show for Nine, Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year, starts this Thursday. It’s filmed in New York. Ryan Shelton is involved. And… that’s about it for now. Presumably when the TV listing supplements turn up in Wednesday or Thursday’s papers (depending on which one you buy) there’ll be a little more coverage, but otherwise for a big-deal program with the fate of the network riding on it there’s been remarkably little information as to what it actually will be like.
Partly that’s because hey, it’s Hamish & Andy! You know ’em, you love ’em and you’ll tune into ’em no matter what they’re up to. And partly it’s because, after doing a bunch of fairly successful specials on Ten, everyone pretty much assumes they’ll be doing more of the same this time around: roaming New York, pointing out funny stuff, having mildly amusing conversations, being Hamish (impersonating Ricky Gervais) & Andy (straight-man who pulled Megan Gale).
And partly that’s because Nine doesn’t want to spook the horses too much after a string of comedy duds. People like Hamish & Andy, so they’re promoting Hamish & Andy: people don’t seem to like watching comedy on Nine, so they’re not actually mentioning what kind of show it is that they’re doing for Nine (SPOILER ALERT: it’s a comedy). Judging by most of the promos, Gap Year could easily turn out to be Hamish & Andy renovating a New York apartment so they can turn it into a venue for their dream restaurant. Or it could just be their radio show with pictures. Nine isn’t telling.
One thing that is a little interesting though is the suggestion – judging by one of the promo ads that show them having an actual set and not just roaming the streets – that Gap Year will have a talk show aspect to it. Again, no big surprise there; one-off specials can survive by roaming the streets looking for fun but after a while you run out of random strangers and need to turn to people who want to talk to you. Hamish & Andy aren’t exactly known for their hard-hitting interviews – they’re not known for their hard-hitting anything – but after a billion years on radio they’re competent enough to make a short chat segment work (cue the show turning out to be a thinly disguised Parkinson rip-off).
Hang on a second though – didn’t Hamish & Andy’s former boss Rove also just announce his own US-based talk show? Why yes he did: Rove LA is lined up for September on pay channel Fox8, and promises to be, well, basically the old Rove show only with loads more overseas guests and way less Peter Helliar. Though we could be wrong on the second part. Fingers crossed.
There’s only so far you can go doing comedy on Australian television, and for the most part that’s not very far at all. But while the path to overseas success for Australian comedians traditionally involves the UK (Adam Hills, Tim Minchin, etc) and / or abandoning Australia to go hell-for-leather offshore (Rebel Wilson), this approach of filming in the US for the Australian market is something different. Other terms you can choose from to replace “something different” in the previous sentence include “dipping a toe in the water without committing to swim” “half-baked” “sure to expose the lack of talk-show subjects in this country”, “bound to seem like a severe case of hedging your bets” and “not really going to matter much if the show itself turns out to be good.”
The real problem with this kind of approach is that it can only ever be a stop-gap measure. You can only play the outsider in America card once: either you come back and make television shows in Australia for Australians, or you leave for good and make television shows in the USA for the world. Hamish & Andy seem to be aware of this (why else call your show Gap Year?), while Rove McManus seems to be using his show more as a way to keep himself busy while he tries to crack the US market. Either way, it’s hard not to be a little saddened over this: if Rebel Wilson – Rebel Wilson – can be a (quasi-)movie star in the US but Shaun Micallef can’t get a non game-show hosting gig in Australia then something’s seriously wrong. With both countries.
If you can’t say something nice…
As a result of our minor reputation for reviewing Australian online comedy we get the odd e-mail from Australian online comedy makers asking us to review their shows. The latest e-mail we received along these lines concerned Lost Dog, an upcoming Channel 31 series comprising of “six tiny comedy shows”. The Lost Dog website has preview videos for each of the shows, which look to be an experimental mix of sitcoms and sketches. Those involved include the makers of Morningshines, a Channel 31 series we disliked, and the makers of Free Internet, a series of online sketches we liked. As the preview videos don’t give much away we’ll reserve judgement on Lost Dogfor the moment, but we’ll be watching when it airs in September.
Worth a look right now is a low budget sitcom we were contacted about many months back called Retreat (which can be viewed on the Glastonbury TV channel on YouTube). It’s main writer and star is Australian Rani Cameron, but the show is shot in Somerset, England and features a local cast. Set in a New Age retreat, the show follows the trials of Rachel (Cameron) as she tries to manage both the retreat and its staff and customers, who are largely a bunch of feckless, unhinged hippies.
Interestingly, the character of Rachel doesn’t spend much time coming out with the sort of pithy, smart-arse insults you’d expect of a sitcom character like her, she just lets the crazies that surround her do their thing while she gets on with her job. This allows the supporting cast plenty of opportunities to get laughs, and is an admirably subtle way of dealing with the culture clash between sane Rachel and the nutbag hippies. There are also some good gags involving amusing signs, and messages turning up in odd places, such as people’s food.
If you’ve ever worked in the UK you may also recognise elements of some of your British colleagues amongst the characters, and pick up on some of the culture clash at play for Australians in a British workplace, although this is a very minor element of the show, and Rachel’s nationality has not, so far, been explored in the series.
After just three episodes of Retreat it’s hard to tell exactly where the show is going – the episodes are kind of meandering, and some of the scenes are joke-free or seem pointless – but there’s clearly some potential here. With a bit more focus this could be pretty good.
In review: Totally Full Frontal – Series One
It’s crap.
And with the obvious out of the way, let’s get down to business. 1998’s Totally Full Frontal was the third version of the by-now-a-full-decade-old Fast Forward franchise, where television and ad parodies mingled with single gag snippets and traditional comedy sketches to create an hour of, at the very least, television.
When most of the original former D-Generation cast members (along with Steve Vizard) drifted away from Fast Forward at the end of series four, a bunch of newcomers (including Eric Bana, Kitty Flanagan and Shaun Micallef) were brought in and the show was renamed Full Frontal. After a few more years and with ratings falling, Bana gone (in series four) and Micallef off doing his own thing (halfway through series five), Seven finally gave the series the heave-ho.
In swooped Ten (yes, at least one article compared it to Ten grabbing the also discarded Neighbours from Seven) and the franchise was once again re-titled and given a shot of new talent. Unfortunately, this time the new talent was Julia Zemiro, Vic Plume and Paul McCarthy.
It’s no surprise that television executives like to rely on formats rather than talent, but sketch comedy – and comedy in general – can’t really be boiled down to a sure-fire structure. Without A-grade talent, Totally Full Frontal had nothing to offer but joke-free parodies, segment concepts that might have sounded funny but sure didn’t look it and character sketches that lacked character. How close to the bottom of the barrel were they scraping? Chubby funster Dave “I wrote Takeaway” O’Neil was the head writer, which doesn’t exactly inspire… well, much of anything. Maybe hunger?
In earlier incarnations the show had been just as formula-bound – for example, the idea of a central fake news report carried over from Full Frontal to Totally Full Frontal basically unchanged. But Fast Forward had been put together by a crew of highly experienced sketch performers who’d honed their skills on stage and earlier shows; Full Frontal gave talented individual performers like Bana and Micallef room to do their own offbeat thing between the more traditional material. Whether due to lack of cast talent (no-one on Totally Full Frontal has gone on to display any real flair for scripted comedy) or an edict from upstairs to stick to the basics, Totally Full Frontal was generic front to back.
Despite its total blandness, it is notable for one thing (thank God): it was the first 21st century Australian sketch show. Put another way, if you go from Fast Forward to Full Frontal to Totally Full Frontal (as we’ve been doing at Tumbleweed HQ), the decline in quality is painfully obvious; if you work backwards in time from Double Take to The Wedge to Big Bite to Comedy Inc to Skithouse (and they’re all available on DVD if you want to try this at home, though we don’t really advise it) to Totally Full Frontal, it’s pretty much the same note all the way through.
While at the time Totally Full Frontal was only a moderate success (it lasted two, mostly reviled series), it seems to have been amazingly influential. Previous sketch shows were built around a talented core that had a history together, or failing that, would give talented newcomers free reign (as Big Bite would later do with Chris Lilley): Totally Full Frontal showed that you could lump together a bunch of only moderately talented people, hire a range of largely forgettable writers, and have the whole thing directed by uninspired professionals with one eye on the clock and still have a show that people would watch.
It’s this approach that, after a decade or so, has totally and utterly killed sketch comedy in this country. The fact that it took a solid decade of shit show after shit show after utterly shit show (that would be Let Loose Live) to achieve this will give you an idea of just how loved this kind of comedy once was in this country.
So thanks, Totally Full Frontal. Thanks for giving us Vic Plume gurning like a lunatic every time the camera pointed even remotely in his direction. Thanks for giving Ross Williams a few more years to try and perfect his seemingly palsy-afflicted newsreader character. Thanks for kick-starting Paul McCarthy’s career as Australia’s most “meh” master of disguise. And most of all, thanks for establishing a level of mediocrity that would eventually infect and destroy a form of Australian television comedy that had been thriving since the 1960s. For that, we salute you. We probably won’t be using all our fingers though.
It’s all just so meh
Australian comedy, particularly Australian comedy television, seem to be in one of its many “meh” phases. Angry Boys drags on and on, and newcomer Can of Worms (putting aside all the justly deserved criticism it received for the vast difference between what it promised and what it delivered) is equally dull television. Even Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable, an entertaining and amusing comedy/documentary series looking at magic and the supernatural, is somewhat tainted by being yet another example of an over-used genre which dates back to at least the first half of the ’90s and Michael Moore’s TV Nation.
Unbelievable will be replaced in a couple of weeks by a show with roughly the same format, Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey, and while we understand that series is pretty good it’s kind of a shame that that style of show accounts for such a large proportion of the Australian scripted comedy TV made in recent times (the rest are mostly sitcoms). Where are the sketch shows, you might ask? Indeed, where are the shows which mess around with established genres, or aren’t simply one comedian’s personal take on an established genre.
In terms of the ABC we understand the problem is partly to do with budget. ABC comedy budgets these days don’t seem to be able to fund something as expensive as, say, a straight-out sketch show, so comedians are somewhat forced into doing stunts or documentary-style “investigations” – anything to keep sketches and scripted material to a minimum. Shows like Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle or the Louis CK sitcom Louie, which both combine stand-up with scripted material, might provide an alternative to the endless documentary-style shows, but even then an Australian version of either concept is bound to draw criticism simply for being unoriginal (and we’re equally guilty of that, we bagged the Peter Moon series Whatever Happened To That Guy? for being a Curb Your Enthusiasm rip-off, but grew to love it).
But of course, the ABC’s always been plagued by low budgets, so at least we have the commercial networks to serve up the kind of big budget scripted comedy we’d all like to see. Oh, yeah… As to the reasons why, here’s what Network Ten’s Chief Programming Officer David Mott had to say to the TV Central podcast on that subject a year ago:
Interviewer: One, kind of, one area where there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of movement on the, I guess, the commercial networks is, ah, scripted comedy, is that something that Ten’s been looking in to?
Mott: Ah, I’d say all networks continue to look at narrative, er, scripted comedy, um, hard to get good writers, to be honest, um, that’s always been a big issue. And, um, you know, I would say that certainly when we look at the trends going forward you could say that maybe comedy can, sort of, come back. Sketch has always been a bit hard, everyone’s tried sketch, that can become quite subjective. Um, and again, it’s so dependent on the writing. So, we’d never say no to narrative, er, comedy, ah, it just depends on the form it takes. Certainly with the success of Modern Family, it says that, and certainly the sort of sentiment of, of, of people now, seems that they, they want to laugh, and they want comedy, so, um, you know, maybe in the next 18 months or so you might see something come up.
And as we continue to wait for that something (surely he didn’t mean Offspring?), let’s look at the key points in detail:
“…certainly when we look at the trends going forward you could say that maybe comedy can, sort of, come back…”
Comedy is a “trend”? In the same way that wearing the sorts of clothes your grandparents wore when they were your age is right now? This is a ridiculous statement. Comedy is an ever-present genre of entertainment in the same way that drama is. Would anyone seriously claim that drama is unfashionable?
“Certainly with the success of Modern Family, it says that, and certainly the sort of sentiment of, of, of people now, seems that they, they want to laugh, and they want comedy…”
So, comedy’s not unfashionable after all? And because some people are enjoying an American sitcom therefore a similar group of people might also enjoy an Australian comedy? Yep, that makes heaps of sense.
“…hard to get good writers, to be honest…”
This is actually fair enough. Australian TV comedy could really do with some stronger writers. Having said that, with the lack of opportunities to gain experience as a comedy writer these days it seems unlikely that enough decent ones will be developed. And this is something broadcasters seem not to be willing to accept as being potentially damaging to their industry in the long term: if you don’t invest in developing comedy writers through, say, a late night sketch show, you won’t have the opportunity to hire them to make prime time scripted comedy programmes when they’re sufficiently good.
“Sketch has always been a bit hard, everyone’s tried sketch, that can become quite subjective.”
This is interesting, and something we’ve been pondering for a while: are certain genres or styles of comedy too risky for ratings-hungry networks to dabble in these days? Why bother spending loads of money on scripted comedy that might not attract the mass audience when you can make a middle-of-the-road panel show that will? The fact that a decent scripted comedy could do an equally job doesn’t enter into it, presumably, but we’re back to the earlier point about good writing again.
Anyway, perhaps this explains why in recent years it’s only been the ABC, and to a lesser extent SBS, who have had any ongoing commitment to scripted comedy: ratings matter less there. And why in commercial radio any shows with a comedy focus (as opposed to a mindless yammer focus) have been either axed (Get This), shunted off to a late-night slot (The Sweetest Plum) or not commissioned at all (countless). Amongst programmers and executives it seems that comedy is seen as something which stopped being fashionable or desirable at some point, and something they have no interest in making it involves even the slightest risk or investment. Which means heaps more panel shows – and that’s the bad news!
It’s Political Correctness Gone Mad!!
It’s been a grim few days for comedy in Australia. Okay, it’s been a grim few years. But this last week has been especially bad for those who think that comedy is an area best left up to comedians. First there was the long-awaited verdict in the Mick Molloy / Before the Game trial, in which a one-time political candidate sued Channel Ten over a comment – we’d call it a joke, but clearly the court didn’t agree – that Molloy made on the show. Short version: the plaintiff won, comedy lost.
Whatever you think of the content of the comment (Mick unsurprisingly seems somewhat contrite), it’s hard to put a positive spin on the result if you’re on the side of comedy. Having a politician sue and win over a joke can’t help but have a cooling effect on the kind of jokes that get made, and if you think our politicians (as the AAP report said, “she told the court she still had political ambitions”) should be made less fun of, well, move along folks, nothing to see here.
At the other end of the scale this week came a story on The Vine.com where a writer showed clips of Chris Lilley’s S.mouse character to various US-based hip hop artists for their opinion. News flash: they weren’t impressed.
This story’s been getting some fairly serious coverage in the last few days – it was on the cover of Melbourne’s free commuter newspaper MX, and The Age (owned by Fairfax, who also own The Vine) gave it a run in their print edition. While the story itself is certainly interesting reading, the wider coverage has tended to be focused more on the fact that the artists who responded weren’t impressed. To which all we can say is “Duh”.
Is anyone impressed with S.mouse? Do we really need hip hop artists to tell us S.mouse is a two dimensional, superficial character taking broad and inaccurate swipes at a form of music generally dismissed by mainstream culture – in short, a dull character taking swings at an easy target?
If the targets of Lilley’s kak-handed efforts are to be the new judges of his work, why not speak to Japanese single mothers and ask them if Jen Okasaki is accurate? Or call up a few Bra Boys and see what they think of Blake Oldfield? Lilley’s attempted “satire” is no less pointed in their direction. What about We Can Be Heroes’ Ricky Wong? Surely it wouldn’t have been too hard to find some Asians offended by him? Oh wait, he was funny, so it was okay.
This isn’t a defense of S.mouse. He’s probably the weakest character of a fairly weak bunch. But he’s not a racist blackface caricature either. He’s a specific individual that happens to be black, in the same way that Okasaki is a character, not a generic “Asian”. Of course, you could argue that ‘shit & clueless black rapper’ is itself a racist stereotype (surely if Lilley only wanted to make fun of hip-hop there’s been plenty of lame white rappers), but that’s what Lilley does. He works with stereotypes: whether you think he goes beyond that to find the truth in them is a matter of personal taste (we don’t).
The fact that The Vine has to go to the US to find someone offended by Lilley’s act pretty much says it all. While this whole thing seems the kind of development that once again closes off options to comedians (you can’t make fun of this particular group – look how offended they get!), the actual story shows that their offense is at least as much about how lazy and unfunny it is as it is about any offense caused.
More importantly, any publicity is good publicity when you’re sinking in the ratings. It seems doubtful that anyone at the ABC would be unhappy with this coverage – it’s getting Angry Boys in the papers and making it sound edgy and controversial on top of it. Which, come to think of it, may be a bad result for comedy after all…
The dog throws us a bone
The second episode of Wilfred (US) took a turn for the better this week with Wilfred’s passive/aggressive bullying of Ryan toned down a lot, and the show generally feeling more like a reluctant buddy comedy. From The Odd Couple to Red Dwarf to Mother & Son, countless sitcoms have generated laughs from begrudging respect and forced interaction, and guess what, so did this one.
In this episode (and now’s the time to get out of here if you don’t want spoilers) Ryan decides that the best way to get to hot next door neighbour Jenna is through Wilfred, so when Jenna complains that Wilfred won’t go to the dentist with her Ryan eagerly volunteers to take on the task, tricking Wilfred into believing that the two of them are going to have a fun day at the movies. But upon discovering Ryan’s trick, Wilfred takes revenge by ruining any chance Ryan has of wooing Jenna. And then to cap it all off, Jenna’s boyfriend appears. Roll credits.
This show isn’t going to win any awards for originality – this is all standard sitcom plotting – or indeed for hilarity (although this episode was a lot funnier than last week’s), but now that the premise is actually one that you can laugh at, it’s looking like this show could be a reasonable second-tier sitcom.
It’s also interesting to note that all the things that were wrong with the Zwar/Gann original – the characters and premise that didn’t really work, the oppressive darkness of tone, the lack of gags – have mostly been fixed in just two episodes. No wonder TV fans in this country are constantly forsaking local product for US shows; American writers can make anything work.
Dicko Tench Tonight
“Bogans! Scum of the Earth or YOU!! Find out tonight!”
(and now that we have your attention…)
There’s been a long-term trend in program making over the last half decade or so of taking the risk out of live (or the more common, “live-on-tape”) television. In much the same way that Thank God You’re Here took all the danger – and with it, the interest – out of theatresports by locking down the improv to just one topic and not letting anyone deviate from it, so does Can of Worms lock down the good old panel chat format by giving out topics and making sure the guests only talk about them.
While this seems like a good method of quality control – less chance of the conversation wandering off into boring areas – in reality it means that to tune in, viewers have to be interested in not one but two things: the guests and the topics discussed. You’ve got Craig Reucassel on? Sweet! Oh wait, you’ve got Craig on and he’s going to be talking about whether it’s an insult to call people bogans? Well, I dunno… is he going to be telling funny stories? Talking about stuff he knows something about? No… just bogans then… huh.
Don’t worry though, it’s not like your favourite celebrities are actually being put on the spot here – well, not unless “do you think the view that black men have huge penises is racist” is putting anyone on the spot. Despite a segment titled “The Moral Minefield”, pretty much all the tough questions here are roughly on par with your average breakfast radio shit-stirring session. Looks like we can thank the Andrew Denton who gave us David Tench Tonight for this one.
So what we get is a bunch of piss-weak, middle-of-the-road topics served up to a bunch of B-grade celebrities who can’t really let loose. And then, just when you’re about to nod off, suddenly we get “we’ve got to keep an eye on our kids on the internet OR CYBERBULLIES WILL KILL THEM AMIRITE?!?” as we hear about Jason Akermanis being on the brink of suicide when he was 15. It’s the show where anything can happen!
Actually, obviously it’s not: considering the point of the show seems to largely be the chance to see your fave B-listers opening up, why is the show so heavily – and obviously – edited? We’re not technical experts, but even we can spot the many, many edits, often taking place in the middle of people’s replies. No doubt they’re done to keep things ticking along, but when the show’s selling point is that the guests are speaking freely on the issues, the heavy hand of the producers kind of undercuts the “they’ll say anything” approach. Not to mention defeating the purpose of keeping everyone to pre-determined topics – if you’re going to edit it down afterwards, why not let them just waffle on about anything and keep the good bits?
The most interesting thing about this show – conceptually, not actually – is the heavy use of survey results and vox pops (look, it’s Dan Illic! Does the man ever sleep?). The idea of a show that’s basically holding a mirror up to (multicultural) society and saying “this is what you think on this topic – or is it?” seems pretty cutting edge in this social media age – until you remember that was basically the idea behind the late, utterly unlamented Spearman Experiment...