Ferguson, along with Richard Fidler and Paul McDermott, were the original members of comedy group the Doug Anthony Allstars (DAAS) at the time the offensive letters were sent.
The letters were signed off by Ferguson with “love and breast cancer” and “love and leukemia”, and “cunnilingus” from “DAAS CORP”, the comedy group’s nickname.
The letters included obscene drawings of naked women and a man lying between a naked woman’s legs with a large erect penis.
The letters, written to me when I was working as a reporter at the The Sun-Herald newspaper, were sent from the office of the Allstars’ Melbourne agent and from ABC-TV.
Australian Tumbleweeds
Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.
Squinters are Grinners
Well, Sam Simmons finally got to do a long riff about an animal, so clearly Squinters has run out of material with an episode and a half to go. Then again, this is a show that serves up pearlers like “Aah fuck, ya roses have punctured one of me sex dolls”, so Simmons delivering one of his trademark word salads about how his dog is like a pirate is a high water mark.
Five episodes in and this show couldn’t be more constrained if it was broadcast live from a coffin. We’re not just talking about the way close to nothing happened for the first four episodes then suddenly everyone had big important developments, because that’s just regular lazy sitcom writing. Guys, if we’ve watched five episodes, we don’t need shitty cliffhangers to get us back one final time.
Squinters might have “developed” from shows like No Activity and Car Share, but those were shows based on characters we’d spend the entire episode with. Turning the idea of car chat comedy into an ensemble show creates a very weird format if you think about it, which clearly producers Jungle didn’t: it’s a sketch show where all the sketches are basically the same, a character based comedy where the characters are barely two dimensional, a story-driven comedy where each story barely gets five minutes an episode and half of that has to be recap. Also: not all that funny.
Here’s a bet for you: we reckon if you showed up on the doorstep of the ABC Comedy Department with a script that featured extended discussions of dog’s balls, car air-conditioning, sex robots as “dildo’s with faces” and someone leaving a string of increasingly awkward answering machine messages in a joke that was only ever funny in the twenty year-old movie Swingers, you would not be given the green light to make a six episode half-hour sitcom. And yet, Squinters. Why?
The obvious answer – to the slightly more cynically minded at least – is that the short segment format allowed the producers to bring in some big crowd-pleasing names that otherwise wouldn’t commit to a more traditional (read: lengthy) sitcom filming schedule. Fair enough: who are these big names again? Sam Simmons and Tim Minchin aren’t exactly Hamish & Andy, let alone Hughsie & Kate or Kyle & Jackie O. If you’re going with a laugh-free format because it’s going to bring in the big names, you actually need to bring in the big names – not deliver a couple of comedy performers whose mainstream Australian appeal peaked five years ago.
What’s frustrating about Squinters isn’t that it’s not all that funny: that’s most Australian comedy and yes, we have seen the advertisements for Sando. It’s the feeling that whatever the producers were aiming for, “funny” wasn’t it. They went with an almost intentionally unfunny format so they could bring in the big names, then failed to bring in the big names. Why again was half of this filmed in LA? Oh that’s right: big names. Who were they again?
Obviously both Sam Simmons and Tim Minchin – plus Jacki Weaver in a brief cameo – are comedy performers people have heard of. But they’re not big enough names to carry a show when they’re only in the show for a combined total of seven or eight minutes an episode. It’s great that they’re on our screens, but when the format was designed almost entirely around them, we’re not exactly getting value for money here. And while everyone else here is good, they’d be better in a show that wasn’t this show, because this show was made so a couple of big names could film all their scenes in a day or two.
Presumably Squinters 2: Still Squinting will star Adam Hills and Jim Jefferies for 30 seconds each week. Good news: they’ll still be front and center on all the promo material.
Negative Stereotypes
Well, this sounds hilarious:
A Netflix comedy series written by Chris Lilley will be filmed on the Gold Coast, in what the state government says is a $6 million win for the local economy.
Ten episodes will be filmed between March and June this year.
Unfortunately no-one seems to know what the show is going to be about, so it’s safe to assume it’s just going to be Lilley riffing to camera about whatever mildly “shocking” subjects come to mind… like every other show he’s ever made. Don’t expect to see it any time soon either: the last time he aimed for ten episodes it took over a year of editing before it saw the light of day.
It’s slightly – but only slightly – refreshing to see that pretty much every report on this went straight to “man, Chris Lilley is racist af”. Hell, in at least one case they just straight-up led with that:
Comedian Chris Lilley is returning to the spotlight for the first time since he was widely criticised for posting a controversial video to his Instagram in 2017.
Lilley was widely criticized for the clip and faced fury from a number of notable names, including Indigenous duo AB Original last year after he shared a blackface music video for Squashed N***a, only hours after protests in Melbourne over the death of 14-year-old Indigenous boy Elijah Doughty.
“It took five years to get that credence to tell everyone that what he did was racist and fucking whack,” Briggs told The Music at the time.“It shows his disconnection from black culture, black politics and black people in general.”
Which suggests that unless Lilley has somehow totally reinvented his act – you know, the exact same act he’s been doing since the very start of his career – he’s pretty much fucked. Because while society may not have been completely stood on its head over the last few years, attitudes towards an upper middle-class white guy making fun of women and other races really kinda has.
He might be able to cobble together an audience from nostalgic fans and people who find trolling funny, but the days when Lilley could have it both ways – being seen as shining a light on social problems faced by underprivileged sectors of the community by some, getting laughs from wearing a dress and bunging on an accent by others – are well and truly over. Worse (for him), comedy has changed, and the idea of creating “comedy” by making audiences feel awkward by saying offensive shit is over now that we can get that for free from the internet.
So if dressing up as a woman for laughs is out, and dressing up in blackface for laughs is out, and dressing up as a teenager to hang out with other teens is out, and mocking minorities and the disabled under cover of “being confronting” is out, what’s left for Lilley to fill ten episodes with? And does anyone care enough to want to find out?
Wine time
Here’s what you feel like on a Monday morning: wine – and lots of it. Failing that, there’s the web series Wine, a bottle shared is a problem halved, created by and starring Jess Harris (Twentysomething) and Emily Taheny (Mad As Hell), in which two friends, Harry and Bridget, meet regularly in inner Melbourne bars to talk through their problems over several bottles of white. There are only four episodes and they were released on Facebook earlier this year, so it’s an easy watch.
Just don’t expect Sex and the City or Absolutely Fabulous, this is much more lo-fi and a slow burn. Probably too slow a burn, for if there’s one big problem with this series it’s that you have to wait until the final episode for anything really funny or interesting to happen.
The first three episodes are basically the same – the two women complaining about weird and wonderful aspects of their personal lives whilst steadily getting drunker in a hip bar. There’s some funny dialogue in there, and its well-played and well-paced, but it’s not super hilarious. Also, and unlike other shows working in this area (let’s use Sex and the City and Absolutely Fabulous as examples again) neither Harry or Bridget seem to have a character beyond “woman getting drunk”, which makes it a bit one-note – and means there’s little potential for anything interesting to develop.
Except that it does, in episode four, thanks to a cameo from Ryan Shelton, who plays a sommelier and improves things hugely. Unlike the waiters from previous episodes, who didn’t have much to do other than bring the bottle over or take the women’s money, Shelton’s character actually has a character. And funny lines, which he plays brilliantly.
And to say something (that should be) really obvious, it’s because there’s suddenly a different character in the show that the show’s suddenly a lot funnier. Instead of “two increasingly drunk women who are basically the same, talking about much the same thing” it’s “over-zealous wine waiter” vs. “two increasingly drunk women who just want to be left alone”. I.e. there’s now some conflict, and, therefore, lots of potential for comedy.
The end of episode four is a good one and makes you want to see more of this show, assuming it carries on the same vein. There’s also a lesson here: if you have a comedy with two characters talking to each other, either the two characters need to be sufficiently different and/or interesting to make things funny, or you need to introduce a third character who can be funny. In fact, ideally, you have both.
Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush
So this happened:
TV STAR Tim Ferguson carried out a vile and obscene campaign of bullying when at the height of his fame.
And over at Tumbleweeds Tower, we had a bit of a chat about it.
A: Today, in “offensive comedian is offensive” news…
B: Oh dear. What an awful and ridiculous thing to have done. I’m not defending him, but this is an example of when comedians are so in the zone of their comedy – which in the case of DAAS at the time was pretty offensive, sexual, comedy – and they get on a roll and do something like this, which they think is funny and/or justified, and everyone else in the world looks at it and thinks “What the fuck are you doing?”.
A: It seems very much part and parcel of their approach, but it also seems pretty clearly meant to intimidate her.
B: Yeah, that’s very much what he does. Fair enough to be an artist who hates critics (I guess) but don’t express it like this. I can only assume he thought he was being so hilarious that she’d take it as a joke.
A: If there’s a joke here it’s of the “ha ha, why are you taking my threatening insults seriously, I’m only having a laugh!” variety. I can’t really see where the joke is in all this, aside from “how do you like it?” Which doesn’t even work as a joke because a critic writing in a newspaper isn’t exactly the same as a public performer and therefore a bad review isn’t quite the same as sending creepy sex threats. Plus DAAS came from a busking background, so (I’m guessing) they’d be even more than usually sunk in that “critics are like hecklers and you’ve got to beat a heckler down” mindset which looks so bad anywhere outside of a performance space.
B: That’s the other problem, it’s not funny. In fact every time I’ve rewatched DAAS recently – I even went to their live reunion – I walked away thinking “These guys aren’t very funny”. I agree with Candace!
A: For me the appeal of DAAS was largely the catchy songs – the banter in between was often nothing special. As DAAS Kapital revealed fairly aggressively, their grasp of comedy beyond “prepare to be shocked” was pretty flimsy. Meanwhile, the big worry for most local comedians in the age of #MeToo is that historically most Australian comedians have been really quick to have a crack at journalists and reviewers – but most of the time the comedians have been men and the journos have been women. I dimly remember very early on Martin / Molloy rang up a journalist to have a go at her because she said Martin / Molloy was a crap name for a radio show – wacky fun then, serious faces all around now.
B: Yeah, there’s definitely a gendered aspect to it. I think women were expected to cop it “like men”. Now women are saying “actually this is a shit way to behave” – and finally being listened to – and it’s all changed. Extending #MeToo to this kind of thing (i.e. beyond rape and sexual assault) is basically women saying “this is a male way of doing things and we don’t like it and don’t have to cop it anymore”. This is about standards of behaviour and professionalism, as well as how genders interact. A person with a regular job would be fired for contacting someone at another organisation and saying stuff like that. In showbiz, at that time, it was fine.
A: A fair bit of it in comedy, especially the stand up side of things, seems to be a real combative hostility towards reviewers. I think it to some extent comes from relying on reviews to make or break their shows (at least early on) – I saw something recently where a (female) comedian was having a go at a (female) reviewer who’d been clueless and insulting in her review, but the justification for attacking the reviewer was basically that you become a fair target “once you publicly air [prejudicial opinions] in a position where you influence female artists financial outcomes”. So pretty much “don’t mess with our money!” And with some stand-ups not always being pleasant people those concerns have come out in a lot of unacceptable ways over the years – even if Helen Razer thinks it’s all part of the game.
B: Yeah, there’s a huge contradiction between stand-ups doing edgy gear about, say, anal sex and the #MeToo stuff. Then again, they are completely different things.
A: I was thinking more of the time Lawrence Mooney insulted that female (real estate) journo who gave him a bad (and clueless) review while his mates said “that’s the Moonman for you!”
B: Yeah. It would be nice if men didn’t enable other men to be shit. (And it’s nice that in their apology Paul McDermott and Richard Fidler said that if they’d known what Tim Ferguson was doing they’d have told him to stop.)
A: That whole thing from a few years back where comedians were attacking the clueless reviewers the Herald Sun was sending out to cover Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows I suspect might play very differently now – most of the reviewers who copped the flack were clearly younger women being thrown in at the deep end by their (male) bosses.
B: That’s always been a thing during festivals. The Advertiser‘s been doing it for as long as I can remember. A comedian should be able to express their dislike of a review without bringing the reviewer’s gender into it, though. Just say “They got it wrong about my act, I’m pissed off” rather than call them a slut or whatever. Not hard.
A: Unless you’re a male Australian comedian over 35.
So, so Hard
If the return of Hard Quiz tells us anything it’s that the ABC doesn’t learn from it mistakes, it just doubles down on them. How else to explain a show which in its third season still suffers from the same basic problems that we pointed out ages ago:
- It’s a quiz show about specialist knowledge hosted by a smartarse prick whose entire schtick is to rip the shit out people with specialist knowledge.
- That’s pretty much it.
And at a time when hot topics of public debate include bullying and safe spaces, this seems like a show out of time. All of which makes the fact that the studio audience greets every lame gag and pre-scripted insult with raucous guffaws and cheers rather interesting. Is there a large and receptive audience out there who like general knowledge but also like to see smart people ridiculed? Or do the producers just find a bunch of people willing to spend an hour or so in a TV studio and get them roaring drunk beforehand?
Not that some of the show didn’t deserve a warm reaction. Interviewing Evelyn from Melbourne, who became interested in her expert subject, Audrey Hepburn, after watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s with her Mum, Gleeson asked “What do you like most about it? The casual racism?” (referring to Mickey Rooney’s yellowface work as Mr Yunioshi).
“Ah, no.” Evelyn laughs. “The costumes”.
“Mickey Rooney’s costume?” enquires Gleeson. “The buck teeth, the squinty eyes…”
“It’s a bit awful…” says Evelyn.
“It is a bit awkward” Gleeson agrees “I mean Chris Lilley could get away with it, but not comedians who aren’t racist.”
Ouch. (And if you needed evidence that Lilley’s career is fucked, take the fact that other comedians are willing to go on TV and slag him off as it.)
Anyway, back to those audience reactions… When it’s time for Gleeson to interview Leon from Brisbane, whose expert subject is Vintage Australian Washing Machines, the audience really lose their minds. Shocked gasps and titters are heard when Gleeson reveals the subject, then an even stronger reaction when Leon reveals he owns 67 of the devices. Now, 67 is a lot of vintage washing machines to own, but who’s Leon harming by doing so. Seriously?
Overall, we’re a bit baffled about who Hard Quiz is actually for. People who like quizzes would surely prefer the Paul McDermott-hosted quiz Think Tank, which, while tedious, contains questions on a wide range of topics uninterrupted by the comedy of punching down and an audience who probably needs medical assistance. As for people who like comedy, the ABC alone is currently airing a range of comedy programs – Tonightly, Mad As Hell, Squinters, Sammy J’s Thursday night satire sketch – many of which are funny. So why bother with Hard Quiz?
A Triumph of Towering Unambition
Remember when we used to slag off other critics for lazily praising clearly substandard Australian comedy? Yeah, it’s been a while. But thanks to the local newsagent mistakenly throwing a copy of Saturday’s Fairfax rag over one of the team’s front fence, it’s back!
Among the many truisms of television is that the best results often come from relatively unambitious ideas.
The new ABC comedy Squinters (Wednesdays, ABC1, 9pm) might seem at first glance to be a reasonably unobtrusive piece of work, a sort of collation of vignettes glimpsing into the vehicles crammed on a long commute across Sydney; the name drawn from the fact that at some point most must squint into the afternoon sun. But while the story framework of Squinters may be relatively simple – the sexual, social and professional minutiae of the lives of the occupants of the various cars we visit – the results are stunning.
Well, we can’t really argue with “stunning”. And to be fair, starting off a review of Squinters by basically saying “the best television is the stuff that doesn’t aim high” does give us a pretty good guide to where this is heading. But then we get to the bit that made us do a surprisingly professional spit-take:
This is unequivocally one of the funniest comedies of the year.
Two points:
1): It’s Squinters.
2): It’s February.
Look, when it comes to Australian television comedy often we too feel like just calling it and going home. But to come out and say the very first new Australian scripted sitcom of the year is also the funniest of the year really does feel like a television critic saying “ok, there, that’s the best, now leave me the fuck alone and stop making me watch this shit.”
And this vague feeling that we’re reading a review written by someone who’s heart really isn’t in it isn’t helped by the way the review is padded out by listing pretty much every single major creative member of the cast and crew:
The car occupants themselves – sparring Paul (Tim Minchin) and Romi (Andrea Demetriades), newly coupled Gary (Wayne Blair) and Bridget (Mandy McElhinney), and daughter Mia (Jenna Owen), lads Macca (Justin Rosniak) and Ned (Steen Raskopoulos) and others – are a crisp tapestry of personalities, foibles and awkward nuance…
Not to take anything from the show’s writers – co-creator Adam Zwar, Lally Katz, Sarah Scheller, Adele Vuko, Leon Ford and Ben Crisp – but Squinters saves some of its most beautiful blooms for in front of the camera. Damon Herriman’s Miles, Justin Rosniak’s Macca and Simoni and Talia, played by Susie Youssef and Rose Matafeo, all shine…
Due credit to its directors, too: co-creator Trent O’Donnell, Kate McCartney, Amanda Brotchie, Christiaan Van Vuuren and Cate Stewart…
It’s also a little strange (or a sign of a reviewer who’s no longer quite as passionate about television as they were a decade ago) that while this review mentions three other shows – 90’s mainstay French & Saunders, 2001’s Going Home, and an extremely obscure cut, 2009’s The Urban Monkey with Murray Foote – no mention is made of the show’s most obvious predecessor, No Activity. You know, the show made by the same producers a few years ago? It’s also about people sitting in cars talking shit?
But this is the bit that really stuck with us:
The show’s best is perhaps Lukas (Sam Simmons) and his mum Audrey (Jacki Weaver), whose uncomfortably relationship and awkward banter has a strange echo of the French and Saunders sketch which gave rise to Absolutely Fabulous.
If Lukas and Audrey don’t have a spin-off series in them, I’d be surprised. Simmons has magnificent nuance, evidenced by one of his early works, The Urban Monkey with Murray Foote, back in 2009. Simmons (and Murray Foote, frankly) is long overdue a larger television canvas on which to paint. Coupling him with Weaver, who brings the sort of richness of mischief that Joanna Lumley tapped when she revelled in wrinkling up as the older, future Patsy, is simply brilliant casting. Together Simmons and Weaver are electric, in a way that is excruciating. It isn’t a rhythm that works in all styles of comedy but here the discomfort crackles.
Simmons and Weaver appear together in Simmons’ first segment in the first episode. In his second segment, she’s not there. She’s not there in the second episode at all. Or the third. In fact, according to IMDB – because we’re watching the series as it airs, which is the point of running a newspaper review – she only appears again in the fourth episode. At a guess, out of Simmons’ 12 three-minute segments on this six episode show maybe two and a maximum of three feature the “brilliant casting” of the “electric” duo that comprise “the show’s best”.
Basically, we’re being told that the best bit of one of the “funniest comedies of the year” was in the first half of the first episode. Wow, that’s pretty convenient for time-strapped viewers.
(also, considering the events of episode six, that spin-off series? Not happening)
There’s also this:
There is no doubt that the ABC’s comedy slate has been shaped into one of the broadcaster’s strongest assets
But we think we’ve pointed out enough errors for one day.
Stuck in the Middle (of nowhere) with You
Press release time!
ABC serious about comedy with Rosehaven returning for a third series
Thursday, February 22, 2018 — ABC and SundanceTV (USA) are pleased to announce comedians Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola will head south once again for a third series of their hit comedy Rosehaven.
Boasting a superb cast, award-winning writing and the stunning backdrop of country Tasmania, the small-town comedy series Rosehaven has been embraced by audiences in Australia and across the world. Series three finds best mates Daniel (Luke McGregor) and Emma (Celia Pacquola in her AACTA Award winning role) now firmly ensconced as bona fide real estate agents, weathering the storm of recalcitrant landlords, anxiety inducing tenants, an overbearing boss (Daniel’s mum) and a town where a 24 hour emergency butcher is considered a normal part of life. And to come will be big changes in Dan’s and Emma’s personal lives, and a real estate opportunity that threatens to divide the whole town…
“We’re very happy to be back for season 3. Will a meteorite hit the town this season? Or will it fly harmlessly overhead and none of the characters will see or reference it? Stay tuned!” say Luke and Celia.
ABC Head of Comedy Rick Kalowski said, “It’s a thrill to have one of ABC’s true jewels back for more laughs, charm and lump-in-the-throat moments in later 2018.”
A Screen Tasmania Spokesperson added, “It’s great to have Rosehaven coming back for another season and we are thrilled be a part of it. It has helped cement Tasmania’s reputation as an exceptional filming destination, with wide ranging on-screen and off-screen local talent, as well being a great place to visit.”
Rosehaven will air on ABC later in the year.
Production Credits: A What Horse? / Guesswork Television production presented by Screen Tasmania, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and SundanceTV. Created and Written by Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor. Produced by Andrew Walker. Co-Producer Fiona McConaghy. Executive Producer Kevin Whyte. ABC Executive Producers Rick Kalowski and Brett Sleigh.
If only the ABC was serious about good comedy.
Still, if Screen Tasmania is willing to fund a series that’s obviously not just a blatant commercial for Tasmania, everyone’s a winner. Especially those who find “the stunning backdrop of country Tasmania” hilarious.
But having a burnt-out comedy return for a third “lump-in-the-throat moment”-packed series simply because the ABC is totally reliant on outside sources of funding isn’t all bad news: going by this press release it seems stars Luke McGregor and Celia Pacquola will be delivering all their lines in unison. So as they say, “Stay tuned!”
… presumably for a show where the rest of the cast are constantly asking “is there an echo in here?”
Its a Jungle Out There
Press release time!
Sando doing deals on your ABC in March
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 — Australia’s discount furniture queen Sando is coming to ABC and iview, Wednesday 21 March at 9pm. The six-part family comedy series Sando, from the team at Jungle Entertainment (Squinters, No Activity) will have audiences shouting “Do em’ a deal Sando!” right across Australia.
Starring Sacha Horler (The Letdown, The Dressmaker) as Victoria ‘Sando’ Sandringham, the terrific ensemble cast also includes Firass Dirani (House Husbands), Phil Lloyd (The Moodys), Rob Carlton (Paper Giants), Krew Boylan (Schapelle), Adele Vuko (of online comedy sensations Skitbox), Uli Latukefu and newcomer Dylan Hesp.
‘Sando’ is Australia’s queen of the discount furniture package deal. She’s built her empire on being a down-to-earth larrikin and is something of a national treasure – to all but her family. They banished her a decade ago when her one-night stand and resulting pregnancy to her daughter’s fiancé was shockingly revealed… at their wedding.
Now, after a health scare, her career on a precipice and her professional nemesis primed to push her into the abyss, Sando is determined to rekindle the family relationship. She needs them, and in spite of their initial apprehension…and unbridled hatred…soon they’ll discover they might actually need her too.
Production Credits: A Jungle Entertainment production for the ABC. Principal production investment from Screen Australia and ABC in association with Create NSW. Created by Phil Lloyd and Charlie Garber. Producer Chloe Rickard. Directed by Van Vuuren Bros. and Erin White. Executive Producers Jason Burrows and Phil Lloyd. ABC Executive Producers Rick Kalowski and Andrew Gregory.
We’re guessing it won’t be “Do us a deal, Sando” that audiences will be shouting right across Australia when this goes to air.
Still, thanks again to Jungle for serving up yet another program skilfully designed to solve a problem nobody had. Do they just underbid everyone else pitching sitcoms in this country or has everybody else just given up?
Sammy J and missing John Clarke
If there’s one tweet which has captured the mood this past week, it’s this from comedian Michael Griffin.
Wish John Clarke was doing Barnaby Joyce this week.
“It wasn’t wrong to get her the job, because they weren’t in a relationship.”
“So why did you get her the job?”
“Well their relationship was causing so much trouble, Brian!”#auspol— Michael Griffin (@michaelgriffin) February 12, 2018
Griffin’s tweet even got a mention on the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.
We miss John Clarke too, and his take on Barnaby Joyce (and the continuing madness of Trump, and Section 44, and various other things) would have been amazing, but he’s gone, and we need to accept that and move on.
So, we come to Sammy J, who took over the Thursday night satire slot a few weeks ago and last week presented his take on Barnaby Joyce’s recent antics. And with Griffin’s tweet fresh in our minds, the first thing that struck us was that John Clarke used to write sketches quite a lot like this. Remember those Clarke & Dawe sketches set at Wimbledon or the Sochi Winter Olympics, where sport would be used as a way to discuss a topical matter such as the European financial crisis or Tony Abbott’s latest mad doings? Well, they were a pretty similar format to Sammy J’s sketch, where he, as a parody Play School presenter, shows Joyce performing various political manoeuvres as Winter Olympics sports.
Was it as sharp as something John Clarke would have written? Maybe not, but it was still pretty good. And it’s a style of comedy that Sammy J’s been honing for a couple of years now, debuting it during the 2016 election campaign in his Playground Politics series.
We were less impressed by Sammy J’s song The Ballad of Section 44, his first Thursday night sketch (which aired 8th February). Comedy songs are very hard to get right. If you write a bad one people just think of Frontline’s Elliot Rhodes; if you write a clever/satirical one and perform it in a suit you risk looking like Philip Scott (The Gillies Report, The Wharf Revue). Or a crap version of Noel Coward. Or Gilbert and Sullivan.
When it comes to comedy songs, writing lyrics that will actually make people laugh is key. And The Ballad of Section 44 wasn’t funny, it was just a telling of what happened. Painstakingly accurate, well-written, and well-performed, sure. Just not funny.
So, so far, Sammy J’s Thursday night satirical sketches are on safer ground with the Play School parodies. And if they’re a bit like what John Clarke used to do, then that’s hardly a bad thing.
It Comes Into Focus If You Squint
Squinters is – well, it’s not good, no denying that – but it’s also a show that manages to combine the worst of two worlds: the unchanging set-up of a bad sitcom with the repetitiveness of a bad sketch comedy. At barely over 20 minutes, there’s just enough time to re-establish the astoundingly boring set up –
– and seriously, this bears repeating: this is a show about ten or so people driving to work and back. It’s not a show about two or three people driving to work and back together so we really get to know their characters; nor is it a show with a range of people in various different comedy situations. By the time we’ve been reminded of the dynamic between each character, their segment is pretty much over; it’s a twenty two minute show where it feels like a quarter of the run time is spent telling us things we were told last week.
C’mon, one segment was literally:
“I’m sorry I got the job you wanted”
“You know I wanted that job”
“But the longer I have this job, the more money I will have for our joint business venture – now tell me comedy facts about people we will never see”
“Someone has two glass eyes, someone else is a hugger, a third someone is a spinster”
“Spinster is a funny word.”
“So is divorcee”
“And… scene”
Roughly half of that was reminding us of what we were told last episode. Presumably we’ll be told it again in some form next episode, especially as nothing else actually happened with those characters.
And yet, reminding us of things we already know is vital because Squinters is a show based entirely on people sitting next to each other in their cars so the only possible source of comedy is the dynamic between them. There’s not enough time to do more than establish the various characters, yet establishing the characters is the only way anything going on here could possibly be amusing. It’s a sketch show where every sketch is the same and also the most boring set-up for a sketch imaginable; it’s like they actively worked hard to come up with a format that can’t possibly be funny.
That said, if you find Sam Simmons in and of himself amusing, then this show features a performance from Sam Simmons. We’re not being bitchy: he’s a performer who can make something out of nothing with his personal style of performance, and he’s definitely given nothing much to work with here. Tim Minchin is also someone in this show but again, with maybe four minutes of air time he’s not given the chance to do much more than get wacked in the nose.
We’re not saying that Squinters is produced by people who don’t know how to be funny. Who knows? Maybe they think that actual traffic reports and numerous shots of busy roads and highways are somehow making this show hilarious. Cutaways to boring stuff worked in The Office because treating boring stuff like it was interesting was the joke – and does anyone else remember that for a show seemingly set in a dull location, The Office was full of pranks and amusing visuals while also featuring broad characters with a solid comedy dynamic? In this we get jokes about forgetting to hang up your phone.
Best case scenario is, Squinters is a show written by people who think that television comedy begins and ends with a funny line. But even then, if the best description of Sam Simmons you can come up with is that he looks like “some kind of… Greek sex pest”, then you really need to work on the funny lines too. A joke that a bad painting of a woman reminds her of Salvador Dali – not his style of painting, his actual face – isn’t bad, but this format just throws it out there with no support.
Then again, if your idea of a great comedy character for 2018 is “humourless teen girl feminist”, maybe exploring your characters in more depth isn’t going to help matters.