Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Ello John, got a new program!

Since the untimely death of John Clarke just over two months ago, it’s been nice to see many of his classic sketches again thanks to Clarke & Dawe From the Archives. But it’s also sad to remember that there’s now only so much John Clarke out there to enjoy, and very little unseen Clarke to come.

Next month, Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre is hosting a tribute to John Clarke – one which quickly sold out and should be a great night (we hope very much will be podcast). Then there are the episodes of The Ex-PM, filmed days before Clarke’s death, that will air later this year. So that’s something.

Also, last night, the ABC finally broadcast the episode of Meet The Mavericks featuring Clarke in conversation with British comedian Alexei Sayle. This was filmed last year while Sayle was in Australia promoting his second volume of autobiography, Thatcher Stole My Trousers.

In the book, we discover, that like Clarke, Sayle arrived in London in 1971 and it was there that he took his first formative steps in comedy. Discovering his comic voices and how to deploy it, is a big theme of the book and his conversation with Clarke. And we also hear from both about how they intentionally paused and re-started their careers.

In Clarke’s case, he left huge success as Fred Dagg behind in New Zealand in the late 70s when he came to Australia, slowly rebuilding his career via low-key slots on ABC radio. For Sayle, his career pause happened in the late 90s, when he felt he’d run out things to say in his stand-up. Having chosen to become an author, he found himself appearing at many promotional author Q&As and realised that he was still making the audience laugh by talking about his life. He returned to stand-up in 2012 with a new autobiographical style and hasn’t looked back.

There are also reflections from Clarke and Sayle on growing up as Baby Boomers, in the 1950s and 1960s, a time when everyone’s parents and elders had been shaped by the war. That older generation, Sayle argues, weren’t perfect, but their perspective on life did empower his generation to be creative:

When I first got into television, a lot of the senior executives had been in the war…and these people [who are executives now], who are bureaucrats, are terrified of an angry tweet from a viewer. You think, the TV executives in my day, they’d been fucking bayoneted by the Japanese. They didn’t give a fuck about an angry phone call, and they were like ‘Bollocks!’, you know.

We’d love to have heard Clarke’s thoughts on that topic, but alas the conversation moved on.

Meet The Mavericks isn’t a flawless format, but over its several series, it’s been one of the more interesting shows which see several relatively well-known people in conversation. One of the reasons it works is that it’s just a two people with a similar background talking about what they do for a living and how they’ve done it. No one’s distracted by one of them painting a picture of the other or them having to drive around in an old car, it’s just intelligent chat. Sometimes, the simplest idea is the best one.

Sunday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week

So this explains at least something:

It’s taken a while but TV Tonight can reveal ABC2 is proceeding with Aaron Chen Tonight as a replacement for John Conway Tonight.

Chen, who was a sidekick to Conway, steps into the hosting role due to the show being pulled because of illness.

Long time readers of this blog might remember our repeated head-scratching over what exactly was going on with John Conway Tonight – not so much the show being dropped because of Conway’s illness (ill host = no show wasn’t exactly a surprise when the show is a small-scale personality-driven production), but the off-and-on nature of attempts to bring Chen in to host. Long story short: there was supposedly a pilot with Chen as host filmed, it was lined up to go to air, and then… nothing.

So looked at from the position of ABC executives, this makes sense:

GNW TV, which has been rehearsing and recording with Chen, will complete production before ABC2 announces a return date.

They’ve already tried it once with this team, and three weeks in the show went off the air with no return date in sight: no wonder they want to make sure everything is exactly right before Take Two.

Looked at from the position of home viewers though, and we’re seeing Take Two all right – Take Two of one of the ABC’s biggest comedy flops in years *comedy record scratch*.

No prizes for guessing we’re talking about Randling, AKA “the word-based game show”: while that show had a lot of problems that we really don’t have the time or space to list here, one of the biggest ones was that it was recorded and finished up before a single episode went to air.

No doubt pre-recording the entire series of Randling made sense from a budget perspective (it’s unlikely the ABC were worried host Andrew Denton was going to bail on his own show three weeks in). Plus it was a fucking comedy game show: what possible changes would they want to make mid-series?

Then three weeks in it became clear that (among other things) the heavy focus on keeping score was total comedy death but it was impossible to change anything and even though it was obvious the show was going off the rails they still had twenty-four episodes to go and… well, you haven’t heard anyone talking about Randling lately. Or Andrew Denton, as it basically killed his television career.

Seven episodes of a pre-recorded tonight show could work. There’d just be no topical jokes and no topical guests, which seems like something of a hurdle for a tonight show. Fortunately, John Conway Tonight was more about making fun of the tonight show format than replying on topicality, and Chen seems like a pretty funny guy so this just might work.

Fingers crossed: the last thing anyone needs is another Randling.

Burning Down the House

If you’re a fan of Australian online humour then you know by now that SBS is shuttering their comedy site The Backburner next week:

In fact SBS Online is wrapping up their entire comedy department – it seems that the online component of nightly news-ish show The Feed is going to be taking over as far as laughs are concerned, with an increased focus on video because *sigh* why not.

As you’d expect, there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the demise of one of Australia’s more intentionally amusing online outlets. Though – again, as you’d expect – there’s been slightly less wondering as to exactly why SBS was still running what was basically a stand-alone comedy site in the first place.

Most of what’s currently available at SBS Online ties in pretty firmly with their core business (broadcasting) – and what doesn’t directly relate to a SBS program is usually tied into the kind of programs they do run (food, sport, etc). Three years ago a local comedy section may have made sense, with SBS2 screening the occasional wacky local series like Danger 5: considering the stand-alone Australian comedy output on SBS is now down to one sitcom a year (The Family Law returns June 15th – the day after the Backburner shuts up shop, ironically enough), the rationale for a comedy site not connected to The Feed seems increasingly slender from where we’re slumped on the couch.

But enough of the reasons for axing it: what about the reasons for keeping it? While we’re bummed because it was often funny and funny stuff is hard to find with an .au at the end, more than one commentator has suggested the real loss here is that of a training ground for future comedy stars. Remember this?

Comedians fear opportunities for Australia’s up-and-coming stars are narrowing after SBS announced it is shutting down its comedy website.

Sounds like bad news: obviously we want to give Australia’s “up-and-coming stars” as many opportunities as we can. Thing is, Australia’s up-and-coming comedy stars already have loads of opportunities, what with satirical sites popping up all over the place while the ABC runs Fresh Blood, a full-scale online talent search, every year or two. It almost seems reasonable to say that, if you’re just starting out in Australian comedy, things have rarely looked better.

It’s when you go to move on to the next stage that things get grim. Australia might be great at handing out the comedy equivalent of unpaid internships, but once you decide you’d actually like to make a living from comedy – or any form of the arts really – things get very tough very quickly. Everybody loves comedy so long as they don’t have to pay for it: once the comedians put their hand out nobody wants to know.

To be fair to the Backburner, it seems that they did pay a decent amount by online content standards… which is horrifyingly low by all other standards but hey, we’re talking Australian writing here: if you want to make a living wage expressing yourself, play AFL. It was also a good showcase for a bunch of promising writers, but unless The Chaser is hiring again Australia hasn’t needed any new professional comedy writers since around 1999.

Sorry guys, get back to us when Dave O’Neill’s retired and we’ll see what we can do.

Still the One

“Did you miss me?”

“Like an STD.”

“I love those cars!”

Oh, comedy on Channel Nine, how we’ve missed you. Okay, maybe we’ve really just missed the idea of comedy on Channel Nine – the thrilling possibility of humour that’s as broad as the side of a bus and yet also somehow maybe mildly funny. So the news that Nine was going to put two new comedy shows on back-to-back was about as close to exciting as it gets in an area where the career moves of Tom Gleeson and Luke McGregor are eagerly examined by… well, us mostly.

Of course, this wasn’t as risky a move as it first seemed: one of those shows was the returning Here Comes the Habibs, which we’re able to report is pretty much unchanged from last year. Comedy fans who felt the work of Paul Fenech was on the right track but a little bit too crude to show to the oldies, rejoice: once again you have a show that’s not really racist (but certainly feels like it could be) to share with your loved ones.

Actually “kind of not racist but maybe” was a bit of a theme of this first night, as before Here Comes the Habibs we had the premiere episode of True Story with Hamish & Andy, a show that requires a little bit of explanation: each week H&A will sit down with a member of the general public who will proceed to tell a story about something that happened to them that was (hopefully) funny, like an in-person radio talkback segment.

That’s not enough to hang a television show on, so interspersed with the Hamish & Andy chat show scenes we get a re-enactment of their story, like an extended comedy sketch illustrating (and also at some points clearly making up) other details beyond the core story that’s being told. It’s a fairly complicated set-up (especially if you’re not familiar with shows like Drunk History) but it doesn’t take long to settle into, and Hamish & Andy have been doing this for close to a decade now so they know all the angles to bring up to wring extra laughs out of the tale.

This first episode involved a woman on a trip to Hong Kong with her family who ended up being invited to a dinner much fancier than they expected. Fifty dollar rotten eggs that they felt duty-bound to eat aren’t the half of it: this is the kind of rock-solid comedy anecdote you could dine out on (zing) for years, and it’s a great episode as far as establishing the concept goes.

That said, while this episode makes sure to make it clear that the stuff-ups are all on the Australian’s side and the re-enactment doubles down on this (see the “I’m a guest here” joke)… the over-arching joke is that foreigners aren’t like us, even when we’re the ones getting it all wrong. Culture clash comedy is increasingly tricky to get right, and while this manages it – vomit is the international language of comedy, after all, and these Australians really do disgrace themselves – there’s still a few moments where it feels like things could go the wrong way, which is not really a tone you want in a comedy in 2017.

But our prudish PC quams aside, this was… pretty good? Sure, this week was vomit jokes and next week looks like stiffy gags but the story-telling was strong (we’re guessing these are tales the owners have polished over years of re-telling), Hamish & Andy know which bits to build on and which parts to gloss over, and the re-enactment side of things was silly enough to give the story the spark it needed to work on television. If they keep making it, we’ll keep watching – and it looks like they’ll keep making it for some time yet:

As for Here Comes the Habibs season two, it pretty much picked up from where last season left off – obvious jokes, broad characters, middling storylines… oh right, the actual storylines: okay, the young couple going against their family’s wishes have graduated to secret pants-down action, the rich jerks are trying to buy back their house by selling all their unloved Anzaclava biscuits to the UN to feed refugees, and when the Lebanese family’s son returns home from his mountain-climbing pilgrimage he might as well be tugging on his collar to signal just how awkward his dad’s “now you are a man” speech is. No prizes for guessing how that pans out. Okay, the Ebola quarantine twist was kind of a surprise.

To be blunt, there’s no prizes for guessing the results of much of anything going on here. The idea of having everyone trapped together isn’t exactly subtle but at least it does generate a few half-arsed comedy scenarios (largely about having to go without water, mobile phones, electricity, etc) which it proceeds to drag out well past their use-by date. We’re guessing someone somewhere still finds the stale idea of “oh no, we have to loudly shout nonsense to make the people in the next room think we’re having awesome sex” hilarious, but even the liberal use of wizard metaphors didn’t do it for us.

In fact, the only interesting thing here was the way the writers have written themselves into a hole that’s damaging the show. The basic idea behind most sitcoms is “a bunch of people who don’t really like each other but are stuck with each other”, but here it’s clear that the method of keeping them stuck together (them being neighbours) just isn’t working – these days if you hate your neighbours (and live in a fucking massive mansion) you just ignore them, end of story. So this week it required an ebola quarantine to keep them together, next week they have to join forces against a common enemy, and so on – if your sitcom has to spend a chunk of time each week forcing everyone to be together, that’s time wasted. It’s like if, say, The Office had to spend three minutes each week coming up with a new pointless reason why all these people were in a building together when they clearly don’t get along.

No wonder this kind of thing is going on:

Sammy J’s Democratic Party is the worst form of satire, except for all the others

Remember Playground Politics? Sammy J’s 2016 election satire in the style of Play School? It’s back (on ABC on Wednesdays, as well as iView and Facebook), as part of a new short-form sketch show Sammy J’s Democratic Party. Set in a secret bunker under Parliament House, Democratic Party offers a sneaky peek into the backroom dealing and policy-making process in Canberra.

Through a game show parody, we see what your local member would have to do in order to become a frontbencher (SPOILERS: Say nothing controversial!). There’s also a cop show parody about crimes against the constitution, called (you guessed it) Constitutional Cops, and an interview with a cardboard cutout of Sir Robert Menzies (who it turns out is really into Adele). Plus, there’s a new episode of Playground Politics and (in an homage to The Late Show?) a song from Paul Kelly. Oh, wait, Ned Kelly.

As with Playground Politics, doing political satire via the medium of parodies of well-known TV formats means there are plenty of laughs, but mainly when they parody the TV formats. The political satire itself, while blistering accurate, often isn’t very funny. In fact, occasionally, it’s incredibly heavy-handed.

On the plus side, it’s nice to see a TV comedy doing LOL RANDOMS-type gags that are actually funny. If someone had told us before we watched it that this show featured an interview with a cardboard cutout of Robert Menzies that only wanted to talk about the music of Adele we’d have dreaded watching it; it’s the kind of sketch concept that every two-bit student review and aspiring comedy team making videos for YouTube has done and failed at. Except, that this was okay. It was well-performed, the cutout was comedically crap, and Menzies’ voice was a suitably snooty take on Received Pronunciation.

The Menzies interviews, Sammy J told Junkee, are going to be on every week, so it’s good that they actually are funny. We’re less sure about Constitutional Cops, though, which really is just a half-decent parody of cop shows combined with some obtuse gags about the constitution. One for the nerds, possibly.

It will also be interesting to see whether Democratic Party can attract more actual real-life politicians on to the show (in episode one we got Tim Wilson). And with The Weekly coming to an end soon, perhaps this is where attention-seeking pollies can go instead of Hard Chat. On second thoughts, let’s hope not. As The Chaser demonstrated repeatedly, having actual really-life politicians on a comedy show is only funny if they’re the butt of a very pointed joke. Anything else just makes them look like good sports for playing along with the gags. And what kind of satire program wants to be seen to do that?

Waste Not Want Not

Press release time!

ABC continues the War on Waste in new podcast

Wendy Harmer joins Craig Reucassel to build the War on Waste community

Tuesday, May 30, 2017 — Craig Reucassel lit up Australia’s televisions with the War on Waste series. Now he’s joined by Wendy Harmer (Mornings on ABC Radio Sydney) to continue the fight against Australia’s problem with waste with a new fortnightly podcast.

How can the average household reduce the amount of food they throw out? Do plastic bags really get recycled? And how much food is being wasted before it gets to the supermarket shelves? Picking up where the TV show ends, Craig and Wendy combine forces to bring the answers, and what we can do about it, to even more Australians.

For Craig Reucassel, the podcast was the perfect way to continue what the TV series began. “I’m so glad we can keep the War on Waste conversation going in podcast form and I’m delighted Wendy Harmer is coming on board. During the 14 episodes we’ll be continuing the discussion about fixing up our waste, especially by learning from our listeners and the many experts we’ve found along the way.”

Wendy Harmer is preparing to take on the fight. “I’m joining Craig Reucassel in his War on Waste as his trusty foot soldier on this fabulous podcast,” said Wendy. “There will be lots of great resources – interviews, information and clever ideas – to help turn intent into action. This is a war we must win for the sake of the planet! So, you know, no biggie or anything.”

Episode one of the podcast is now available, and tackles the many creative ways to reduce food waste around the home. Craig speaks to “waste warrior” Sabine Spindler from Cornersmith, who runs waste reduction workshops on pickling, syrups and getting maximum taste out of your scraps. Craig and Wendy also check in with the War on Waste TV show executive who reveals some of the curly topics left out of the TV program. Plus, a handy how-to for a DIY “secret weapon” in the War on Waste. Tip: Don’t throw out your jam jars.

Subscribers will also enjoy interviews with waste warrior Costa from Gardening Australia and loads more.

Is this comedy? Well, not really – that’s why we didn’t bother reviewing The War on Waste. But it is mildly (slightly?) interesting as an example of the way The Chaser are firmly expanding their media empire beyond the confines of comedy. There may have been a few people who thought The Checkout was a comedy about consumer affairs when it first started, but it’s been very clear for a long while now that it’s consumer affairs first, stuff designed to make you laugh somewhere much further down the list – and The War on Waste is simply more of the same.

In fact, these days it’s getting harder to find Chaser projects that are meant to be funny: The Checkout and The War on Waste aren’t exactly laugh-getters first and foremost, and while they have their morning show on Triple M (11am-1pm) that’s clearly comedy (there’s even good old-fashioned sketches on there), rumour has it they’re at least partway involved in a forthcoming ABC arts-related show set for the end of the year. As for their next “straight” television comedy series… yeah, we’ll let you know when we hear anything there because we’re pretty reluctant to file Media Circus under anything close to comedy after last year. At least Chaz is keeping busy doing good work on the weekly political series Planet America.

So the Chaser have all but taken over light entertainment on the ABC – is anyone really surprised? After all, they’ve always been up-front about claiming Working Dog as role models, and they were the ones who established the idea that a comedy group can build a lasting career in television if only they take control and create their own projects. Heck, Working Dog are still making good television: we’ve got no complaints if people want to follow in their footsteps.

… well, maybe one tiny complaint. For all Working Dog’s range when it comes to projects (remember Pictures of You? A River Somewhere?), they always bring it back to comedy. It may not always be great comedy – Pacific Heat, Wednesday nights on 11 – but it’s very rare indeed for them not to have at least one show on the go that’s designed purely to make people laugh.

The Chaser, on the other hand, often seem to give the impression comedy is something they can take or leave. They’re constantly putting out product – we haven’t even mentioned their magazine, or that play some of them are going to be appearing in, or their Giant Dwarf events – and a lot of it is funny, but it never really seems like comedy is at the core of what they’re trying to do. Put another way, in this day and age in Australia the ultimate sign of comedy commitment is putting out a sitcom. Working Dog have made what, five? As for The Chaser? Stuck on zero.

That’s a bit harsh, of course, but what did you expect? If Working Dog have inspired The Chaser, so too has their mentor Andrew Denton, a man who started out doing comedy but eventually wandered off into the safer but less interesting world of tear-jerking interviews and game show hosting. And why not? Supposedly your tastes change as you get older. You decide that laughter isn’t as important as bags of money. You start lecturing people about the important issues in life. You become an expert.

Worst case scenario, you start up a blog.

The Case of the Missing Press Release

Mysteries! We can’t get enough of them. Mostly because Australian comedy seems to be a whole lot better at them than they are at making, you know, actual comedy. Take for example, this:

Which was announced in this press release:

Nicole Livingstone and Tegan Higginbotham to host new live comedy sport show on ABC

Wednesday, May 24, 2017 — Olympic champion and media all-rounder Nicole Livingstone and comedian Tegan Higginbotham have joined forces on Fever Pitch, a new one-hour live comedy sport panel show which will premiere on Friday, June 30 at 6pm (AEST) on ABC and ABC iview.

Filmed in front of a live studio audience in Melbourne, Nicole and Tegan will be joined by a regular team of athletes and comedians including former ABC ME star Amberley Lobo, comedian Dave Thornton and Paralympic champion Dylan Alcott to look at the world of sport from all angles.

Each show will feature guest interviews, field stories, comedy sketches and studio games.

Fever Pitch will air live on Friday nights at 6pm (AEST) on ABC and iview from Friday, June 30th.

Which all seems fair enough… except that the above wasn’t the first press release for Fever Pitch (originality: who needs it) that the ABC sent out. Their first stab at announcing this series read a little something like this:

ABC accidentally commissions wrong show!

ABC bosses put pen to paper this week commissioning a series entitled Fever Pitch first thought to be a 12-part medical drama about a feisty but flawed contagious diseases expert, Professor Pamela Pitch (played by Claudia Karvan).

The programming decision considered a “no-brainer” soon became a massive “brain-ache” for the ABC executive who inadvertently signed along the wrong dotted line. It seems that the ABC are about to spend an exorbitant amount of taxpayers money on an untried, untested and possibly unwatchable panel-style entertainment/comedy show based loosely around sport.

Only it seems that by the time it reached us someone at the ABC had gone “hmmm, maybe openly mocking our programming and executives isn’t the best way to promote this already uninspiring sports panel show” and made the press release vanish from the ABC site pronto. All that hard work, wasted; guess now they know what it feels like to write jokes for The Weekly.

Seems like it’s okay when The Chaser announce a new show with a zany “whoops, the ABC stuffed up and gave us a new series” press release, but everybody else better play it straight down the line. Which might be a sporting reference but we wouldn’t know anything about that. Hey, where’s our wacky panel show?

*edit* Oh yeah, this show is definitely going to be awesome.

WHAT just happened?

Football fans around the country flocked to their televisions Wednesday night to catch A-League champions Sydney FC play Liverpool only to find some of the most cringe-worthy pre-match presenting seen in sporting history.

The Case of the Missing Tonight Show

We love a good mystery here at Australian Tumbleweeds – after all, what bigger mystery is there than “why isn’t Australian comedy funny?” – so we’ve been following developments (or lack thereof) regarding John Conway Tonight with some interest. Fellow mystery fans may recall that after three weeks on air Sunday nights on ABC2 John Conway Tonight – a ramshackle but often entertaining quasi-parody of tonight show professionalism filmed in a pub back room – vanished from schedules:

Since then word got out that the show – which had been contracted for ten weeks – would be continuing with co-host Aaron Chen taking over the host’s chair. And lo and behold, first a dress rehearsal was announced on May 10th:


By May 14th it had been bumped up in status to an actual episode with Chen in the driver seat:

Those of you with access to either a functioning time machine or working TV listings will know that no episode of Aaron Chen Tonight aired on May 14th. Nor did one air on May 21st. And while an episode is currently listed to screen on May 28th, the listing seems pretty generic (it’s just for John Conway Tonight with no specific details) so we’re not overly confident it’s not just a leftover from the days when John Conway Tonight really was screening every week.

So what happened? Usually we’d simply assume the May 14th episode was a mess and ABC2 have cut their losses, but with the way John Conway Tonight has been going from the start – we’re considering officially adding “ill-fated” to the title – who knows what’s really going on? Do they need time to completely rework the show without John Conway? Are they waiting for Conway to return as host (which would explain the listing for this Sunday)? There’s no mention of further episodes being filmed on the Cafe Lounge Facebook page so it seems safe to assume that whatever the John Conway Tonight team are up to, they’re not filming new episodes there.

As we all too often say when discussing Australian comedy, it’s a real mystery.

Back in Bloom

Press release time!

Rosehaven set to return to ABC this year

SundanceTV to acquire season one and join as co-producer for season two

Thursday, May 18, 2017 — Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor head back to Tasmania this June for a second series of the acclaimed comedy Rosehaven.

The eight episode season, created by, written by, and starring Pacquola and McGregor, will premiere later this year both in the U.S. on SundanceTV and in Australia on ABC. The series will also be streamed on SundanceNow in the U.S. and Canada and ABC iview in Australia after its linear run.

When Rosehaven premiered on ABC in 2016, not only did it captivate audiences and critics alike with its fresh take on the small town comedy, but it fast became ABC’s top rated comedy series for the year.

“’When making our show in a small town in Tasmania, it’s hard to imagine, next stop Hollywood! But here we are. We are so excited about Rosehaven making it all the way to the U.S.,” said co-creator and co-star Celia Pacquola.

“The first season is quirky, charming, relatable, sweet, and hilarious – all the ingredients of great comedy,” said Jan Diedrichsen, General Manager SundanceTV and SundanceNow.  “We’re thrilled to partner with the ABC to bring this amazing show not only back for a second season but also to U.S. audiences.”

“Rosehaven is a show very close to my heart – among my favourite comedies we’ve ever done at ABC. To bring it back for more and to an even bigger audience thanks to our U.S. partners at SundanceTV is a wonderful honour”, said Rick Kalowski, Head of Comedy, ABC.

With the continued support of the Tasmanian Government through Screen Tasmania and the Victorian Government through Film Victoria, Rosehaven will shoot in and around Hobart and the Huon Valley. Post production will again take place in Victoria.

“The best thing about filming in Tasmania (apart from how nice it looks) is that I get to walk past my old high school where I got bullied, and yell at it every night: ‘I HAVE A TV SHOW NOW!!’ A lot of people have told me it’s not healthy but it’s a really long walk to get there so I disagree.” said co-creator and co-star Luke McGregor.

Rosehaven is a crisply written comedy set at the bottom of the world on the picturesque island of Tasmania, hovering in the Southern Ocean below Australia’s mainland. In season two Daniel (McGregor) has to prove that he has what it takes to earn his place in the family business and Emma (Pacquola) needs to decide whether small town life, and its dangerously disinhibited locksmith (Damien, played by David Quirk) are enough for her.

Also returning for season two will be Kris McQuade as Daniel’s fearsome mother Barbara; Katie Roberston as Daniel’s girlfriend Grace; Sam Cotton as Daniel’s bully Bruce; and Noela Foxtrot as the octogenarian receptionist Mrs. Marsh. Season Two will also see Jonathan Brough and Tasmania’s own, Shaun Wilson, rejoin the team directing four episodes each.

Seasons One and Two will launch on SundanceTV in the final quarter of 2017. Season Two will also premiere in Australia on ABC TV and iview in the final quarter of 2017.

Geez, even we thought we were exaggerating when we kept going on about how the only way scripted comedy gets made on the ABC is with overseas cash. Good news for the shows that can get it, obviously – just don’t be pitching Auntie anything that’s too uniquely Aussie.

Concerns about the dilution of Australian culture aside – seriously, is nobody else worried that the National Broadcaster seems to only make shows now when overseas interests pay for them? – this is… good news-ish? Considering we called the first season “not a complete disaster” and said that “hopefully it’ll improve as the two leads get a better handle on what kind of show they’re making,” lets say we’re keeping our expectations manageable.

And with Utopia also coming back, that means in 2017 we’ll get two separate series where Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor get to do their thing. Steady work on Australian television; who’d have thunk it?

It Pays to Pay Attention

It’s taken us an extra week to get around to the return of Have You Been Paying Attention, because quite frankly we were shocked. Shocked! Ok, maybe just shocked. Who would have thought that Australia’s most steadfast and reliable laugh-delivery-machine – well, once they fine-tuned the shift from half-hour to hour episodes at least – would return in 2017 with… slightly different graphics?

Unfortunately that’s pretty much all we have to say here, because as previously mentioned, HYBPA? is Australia’s best current example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t reboot it with a whole new cast”. Same host, same regulars, same rapid-fire probably-scripted-answers, same guest quizmasters there to promote various (usually but not always Ten-related) projects, same high level of laughs. It’s a winner, and it’s always good news to see it back.

Also good news: it’s doing well in the ratings:

Have You Been Paying Attention? pulled out its best ever figures last night on 876,000 viewers, and topped all three demos.

The show even eclipsed MasterChef for TEN, which was third in its slot behind The Voice and House Rules. But all three enjoyed decent crowds.

The secret for panel show success isn’t exactly a secret, despite what you might have thought after years of the ABC screwing up every chance they get. Find a bunch of funny people, put together a format that makes them be funny, and then give it a long run in a regular timeslot so audiences know where to find it. Short runs? Dredging up the same old hacks whose main skill is knowing which camera to look into? Formats that require guests to tell long anecdotes to fill air time? Get back to us when they’re pulling in close to a million viewers.

Yes, Working Dog are good at this kind of thing, but HYBPA? isn’t the ultimate panel show. That’s what’s frustrating about the ABC’s repeated incompetence in this area: it’s not like having one decent panel show on television means we can’t have any more. It’s just that Working Dog bothered to put funny people who are actually funny on their panel show, whereas time and time and time again the ABC seem to have thought that if you’ve ever appeared on television as “yourself” then you’re good enough for light entertainment.

And again, this isn’t some hypothetical distinction we’re making or some impossibly high standard we’ve pulled out our arse. HYBPA? features a couple of Working Dog regulars – Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee – with some of their other cohorts (Mick Molloy, Glenn Robbins, Jane Kennedy) making regular appearances. But otherwise, they’ve largely just looked at Australian commercial radio and gone “hey, these guys are pretty good with quick-fire banter, let’s try them out on television”. The results aren’t sure-fire, but on the whole it’s worked out reasonably well.

And even if you think HYBPA? works by bringing on board a bunch of radio types whose only skill is talking fast and then feeding them a bunch of scripted jokes, so what? It currently seems to be doing a good job of providing a certain kind of crowd-pleasing laughs. We can’t say this often enough: there is a simple, obvious path to creating at least semi-decent conversation-based comedy between a group of people, and the ABC can’t find that path with both hands and a high-powered torch.

(will Seven find it with their upcoming panel show Behave Yourself? They’ve ditched Hughsie so that’s not the worst possible start, though the title suggests the usual “hilarious” anecdote-telling that has flopped every time it’s been tried over the last decade)

So now, instead of having one or two halfway decent panel shows they can let run throughout the year to keep their Wednesday night comedy night an actual “comedy night” and not a clearing house for documentaries on suicide and dead kids, they have nothing. And we get long, long stretches of the year where the ABC has no Australian comedy at all to show.

Who would have thought even five years ago that a commercial network would be the one to keep the flame of chat-based comedy alive?

 

Australian Tumbleweeds is Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.
Back To Top