Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Satire’s hard problem

Clarke & Dawe returned to our screens last week and once again reminded us how satirists should be doing it: it’s about pointing out where things are going wrong.

Satire only achieves what it’s there to do if it leaves the audience laughing, better informed and angry for change. And this is something that’s only going to happen when the politicians being satirised aren’t present.

If John Clarke dressed up as Malcolm Turnbull and did his voice, it’s possible we might start to enjoy the character of Malcolm Turnbull – or even soften towards the actual Malcolm Turnbull. Remember how Julie Bishop’s “Death Stare” appearance on Yes We Canberra changed perceptions towards her? Made her seem like a good sport? Made her seem less hateable?

Remember the 90’s when politicians wouldn’t appear on The Panel because they didn’t want to be made to look foolish? These days, it’s the complete opposite; politicians worry about likability and want to look like a good sport.

This is why a never-ending stream of politicians are prepared to appear on Tom Gleeson’s Hard Chat segment on The Weekly. Sure, they cop a bit of abuse, but mainly they come out of it looking like the victim because the abuse is mostly in the form of cheap shots – satirical points that would make them genuinely uncomfortable or point out their flaws are few and far between.

One clue as to why involving politicians in the joke and/or going soft on them in satire seems to be a popular approach can perhaps be found in the most recent episode of I Love Green Guide Letters, in which Adam Zwar describes how worried the ABC are by anything that comments on the current government.

I would say with the ABC they do always worry about what the government is thinking at the time, so if you’ve got a right-wing government in that’s anti-environmental, it won’t lean as heavily as it should on the anti-environmentalists, i.e. people who just fish the shit out the waters…I know when I had something on the ABC and someone said something anti-Liberal party…one of the Agonys, one of the guests said something negative about Tony Abbott and I got a caution letter [from a senior executive]…saying “Do you really need this in?”. And I said, “Are you asking me this from the perspective that this makes the show worse or are you saying it from a partisan perspective?” No response, because then there’s an e-mail trail that makes it clear that it was a partisan thing.

(To listen to Adam Zwar speaking about the caution letter, start at 38:12)

In the end, Zwar says, he ignored the letter and the negative comments made it into the final cut of the show. They were, he says, Susan Carland saying things he feels were “pretty benign” about the Liberal party. But, he adds, The Agony of… series was not renewed. Guess he learnt what happens if you ignore the warnings.

We were no fans of The Agony of… series, but it’s shocking that the government are so worried about their image that they’re not above bullying the ABC to the extent that it worries about the contents of a lightweight talking heads show. And in this context, it’s a miracle that the genuinely “hard chat” of Clarke & Dawe is still allowed to be broadcast.

Mind you, in much the same way that subscriptions to quality news sources like the New York Times have soared in Trump’s USA, it’s notable that last week’s Clarke & Dawe has already been watched more than 20,000 times on YouTube compared to just over 2,500 for last week’s Hard Chat. Sure, that’s just YouTube (we don’t have access to the free-to-air or timeshifted figures) but it indicates that one section of the public knows what it wants: it wants real satire.

Briggswatch week 5: Concerned Expression

“Hello and welcome to The Weekly – like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or correspond with us by fax, we’re not really that picky”. Has there ever been a more dispiriting introduction to an Australian comedy show? Even Please Like Me gave you the option of reading the title ironically: this is just flat-out begging for social media stats.

Anyway, the big excitement around this week’s episode of The Weekly didn’t come until the end and no, we don’t mean Charlie Pickering saying “Aw, thank you, thank you all, thank you all so much” as the crowd cheered under the end credits because really, if he hadn’t done such a top-notch job of bringing to life the character of “smug prick” in the proceeding 29 minutes and fifty seconds this really would have sealed the deal. Yeah, they’re applauding because they love you, Pickering, they really really do.

No, it came just before that with the line “We got Briggsy next week”. Briggsy? Ok yeah sure whatever: maybe supposed series regular Briggs will make his second appearance this year in episode six, which suggests that actually announcing him as a series regular and adding his face to the opening credits may have been somewhat premature. And still that’s a pretty big maybe, considering the last time his return was announced he did in fact show no signs of returning whatsoever.

But Briggsy? Does anyone who has seen the two of them working together (remember, your only chance this year was five weeks ago) really think that Charlie Pickering has ever called Briggs “Briggsy” to his face? The on-air warmth between the two could have kept cool your average refrigerated truck; pet names and diminutives seem a little way off just yet.

And yet, thinking about this further, maybe we’re being too harsh. Because the Pickering we see on television does occasionally seem like a guy who’d call a work subordinate by a vaguely condescending nickname, perhaps while wearing a “what’re you doing to do about it?” smirk. And while we know absolutely nothing as to why Briggs hasn’t been on the show for weeks, we do know that if there was a way we could avoid working for a guy like that you wouldn’t see us for dust.

 

 

Mychonny, Yourchonny, Everybodychonny!

Does broadcast TV have a future beyond the things that only it can do best: news, live coverage of sport and big budget “event TV”? With Netflix, Amazon, Stan and other streaming services offering drama, documentary, and films to watch anytime you want, should broadcasters like the ABC even bother?

When it comes to comedy, particularly local comedy and topical satire, there’s still a strong case for it. It’s not like Netflix is stepping up and giving us the next The Games. We’re also really struggling to think of a successful sketch comedy or sitcom made by a streaming service. Nothing that could rival the popularity of The Crown, The Man in the High Castle or Making A Murderer, anyway.

So, the ABC’s continued commitment to making comedy about Australians for Australians is a good thing, even if some of it sounds kinda bad. That, and, the more we look into it, the more a sketch show from John Luc (i.e. Mychonny) doesn’t sound like the worst thing ever.

Luc’s Mychonny and Yourchonny channels have been going for eight years, with subscriber numbers and views in the 100’s of thousands, sometimes the millions. That’s pretty impressive for an Aussie teen making low-budget videos at his parents’ house.

The early videos are kinda what you’d expect from a teenage boy making sketches (the word gay is both a punchline and an insult, girls are either hot or ugly bitches) but more recently the comedy’s become a bit more sophisticated and socially aware. There are some spot-on parodies of various TV shows in LIFE WITHOUT INTERNET…

…and Being An Asian Australian includes a pretty good pisstake of white Aussie bogans:

With bigger production values and a bit more polish, you can imagine these sketches being on an Australian version of Saturday Night Live; Luc’s comedy’s often a lot sharper than The Weekly!

John Luc is also a good performer, who plays most of the parts in his sketches himself. Sure, he’s largely playing comic stereotypes (i.e. Asian parents, annoying sisters) whilst wearing a variety of awful wigs, but he really understands how to keep a sketch moving to avoid losing the fickle YouTube audience. And given that most sketch shows on TV in recent years have been dominated by slow-moving material with about one decent gag per minute (The Bondi Hipsters, The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide To Knife Fighting) hiring someone with a solid commitment to high gag rate material is extremely welcome.

The Herald Sun v Comedy pt CLXVIII

Ever since Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper – it’s like a regular newspaper, only shitter – took over sponsorship of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival we’ve been extremely appreciative of the opportunity to run the exact same story every single year: oh look, they’ve got people who know nothing about comedy reviewing comedy and they’ve stuffed it up. Sheesh, it’s no wonder stand-ups are notoriously hair-trigger haters of all forms of criticism.

So really, the only surprise about this particular car crash is that for once it’s taken place before the Festival has actually begun:

On the surface an article that says “if you like that popular comedian then go see this act at the Festival” isn’t the absolute worst idea ever. What is the worst idea ever is to pair off comedians based on things that aren’t their act – their gender, for example, or their race. Which seems to be what this article by Tianna Nadalin did.

Women! They’re all the same in the dark right guys?

Nope nope nope.

“The original Asian funny man”

That’s right comedy fans – Middle-Eastern people are scary! Sweet Middle-Eastern baby Jesus.

As you’d really really hope but maybe not expect (Trump! Trump! Trump!) in 2017, there was a prompt wave of outrage from various comedians and comedy fans online, and by this afternoon the article was gone:

Which is one of those results that seems like a win until you think about it: sure, now the comedians aren’t being named in a very dodgy article based around the kind of casual racism we all hoped had been expunged from, if not society as a whole, then at least all the parts that aren’t easily avoidable elderly relatives. But now the Herald Sun can pretend it never happened and that their MICF coverage for 2017 is just their usual brand of kak-handed blather rather than stuff that’s actually full-on offensive.

Hopefully if this kind of thing is forced to linger instead of just vanishing into the ether then eventually enough pressure can be brought to bear to effect real change in the way that the Melbourne International Comedy Festival conducts its’ media arrangements because clearly the Herald-Sun is oh who are we trying to fool it’s been shit for the last six years and obviously the people running MICF are willing to put up with all manner of sexist, racist, incompetent coverage for the cash. Comedy: you have to laugh.

Three Minute Warning

Remember when Australian comedy used to appear on networks that weren’t the ABC? The Family Law? Here Come the Habibs? Weren’t they meant to be back on air by now? Eh, they’ll show up eventually: so long as we’ve got the ABC and their rock-solid commitment to Australian television comedy there’s nothing to worry about.

The thinking follows that these generations are growing up without broadcast television, distracted by social media, streaming and gaming, and consequently will be lost to television forever. So all news, drama, entertainment, music, everything has to be digital, ideally edited into chunks no longer than three minutes.

Privately, [ABC managing director Michelle] Guthrie has told television makers that broadcast television is dead, a notion that put producers back on their heels. Publicly, she presaged the ABC needing to “partner with third parties so our journalism and TV are available everywhere. The idea that the customer has to come and find you has been turned on its head”.

Certainly within the ABC, employees say, if you’re not on board the digital train, you have little future there. An ABC executive defends Guthrie, though, noting the managing director’s modus operandi is to be “provocative” by asking “really hard questions” of staff to up-end conventional thinking. “Her job is to make people alive to the challenges,” the executive said.

Oops.

But hey, if you’re not already ignoring a sense of impending doom you’re not paying attention in 2017, so let’s focus on the good news: a week or so ago the ABC put out a series of big announcements about their line-up for 2017. Probably the biggest news – so big it was covered as an actual news item on various pop culture sites which trust us, is not a regular occurrence when it comes to Australian television comedy – was that The Katering Show Kates have a new show:

Having conquered the cut throat world of satirical online cooking shows, The Kates (McLennan and McCartney) are ready to take their trademark sassy swipe at breakfast TV with Get Krack!n’.

With no sense of on-camera technique, the Kate’s will shuffle through a roster of unsafe demonstrations, surly guests, underprepared experts and the over-lit decomposition of the duo’s already rocky relationship. Like any televisual format that The Kates put their rough, manly hands to, things on Get Krack!n’ will go downhill fast. Frankly, whatever the hour, an audience deserves better.

But that wasn’t the only show the ABC announced… though it was pretty much the only show we hadn’t already known was coming for at least six months. Finally, almost a year after Shaun Micallef confirmed it in an interview, a second season of The Ex-PM is official!

After the surprising success of his autobiography, Ex-PM Andrew Dugdale (Shaun Micallef) answers his party’s call to stand for election in a marginal Murray Darling electorate. They tell him they want a ‘sure thing’ in the contest.
With his entire household in tow, all of them working on his campaign, Dugdale sets up house at the local sewage farm and begins engaging with the local community, particularly over a contentious plan to expand a national park that will wipe out the local Nandos.

Amongst Dugdale’s campaign team are his best friend and campaign director Henry (John Clarke), his speech writer Ellen (Lucy Honigman), his PR manager and daughter Carol (Kate Jenkinson), his right-hand man Sonny (Nicholas Bell), his steel-capped bus driver Curtis (Francis Greenslade) and of course his First Lady, Catherine (Nicki Wendt).

Although his team are desperate for him to avoid saying anything substantive in the campaign, will Dugdale be able to stay silent when he discovers the park expansion is being funded by an eccentric local billionaire and the race is a hotbed of corruption?

And if you thought Utopia was running out of ideas by its second season then the announcement of a third season won’t exactly fill you with confidence:

Tasked with overseeing and implementing our nation’s infrastructure needs, The Nation Building Authority team return with a third series of uncosted, inadequately planned and fundamentally flawed schemes – and passing them off as “Nation Building”. One white elephant at a time…

There’s also a bunch of shows listed under “short and snappy”, which universally look shit. Which is weird, because as far as the ABC’s concerned they’re all aboard the digital train and we all know what successful short-form digital comedy looks like. Yes, it also pretty much looks like shit, but it’s noisy dickheads shouting about politics or mocking hipsters or re-enforcing racial stereotypes: if you want to be successful with online comedy and that’s the kind of stuff that works, does this sound the way to go?

Almost Midnight is a coming-of-age romantic comedy, with each of the six episodes set a year apart against the backdrop of that glorious moment when boundless promise, personal reflection, and uninhibited drunkenness combine – the final five minutes of New Year’s Eve.

Or this?

Harry (Brendan Williams) is a friendly Uber driver. Too friendly. In fact, he’s convinced that every passenger will be his next best friend. Harry is also on the autism spectrum.

Or this?

What happened on the edge of the bush? Something so powerful it will bring the Watts Family calisthenics dynasty to its knees… Created, written by and starring award-winning comedian Anne Edmonds (Have You Been Paying Attention?), get ready for a comedy series like nothing you’ve seen before. Suspenseful and Scandi-noir-inflected, with Anne – in the tradition of Catherine Tate – playing four members of the Watts family: Karen, Dusty, young Rebecca and their very old dad / grandad John.

Wow, it’s almost as if the ABC’s vision of itself as a venue for alternative voices in the Australian media is colliding head-on with management’s push to come up with successful online content right in front of our very eyes. But at least they’ve hired someone who has been successful online:

John Luc’s The Chinaboy Show is the first ABC sketch comedy written from the perspective of a Vietnamese–Chinese Australian. Front and centre of this series is online sensation John Luc (AKA Mychonny), whose content has enjoyed more than 300 million views, easily making him one of Australia’s most loved YouTube stars.

There’s a book to be written on the way that last sentence somehow makes the leap from “content” to “most-loved” (and how does content enjoy anything, let alone views?). Colour us disinterested beige, especially as we’re still waiting for the first ABC sketch comedy written from the perspective of someone who’s funny.

But let’s end on a high note: there will be twelve episodes of the Tumblie-award-winning Mad as Hell in 2017!  There will also be twenty weeks of the increasingly erratic The Weekly.

Whoops, guess we ended on a brown note by mistake.

Where’s Briggs?

Hey, did you see this week’s episode of The Weekly? We’re loving that big shake-up where they ditched the opening credits and now Charlie Pickering stands around at the start – the show somehow seems more energetic and vital now, right? And is the lighting just that little bit different too? It makes the whole show seem more edgy, almost dangerous, as if no subject is off the table and no opinion is too controversial.

And then Charlie Pickering opens his mouth and it’s just the same old crap. “If God didn’t want us to be fat, he wouldn’t have invented the cronut”. Seriously, that’s your first gag of the show? We almost turned off then and there – which would have been a mistake, because then we would have missed out on the biggest TV mystery since “who killed Laura Palmer”: Where’s Briggs?

It’s always impressive when The Weekly finds a new way to be garbage, and this year’s innovation – changing up the supporting presenters – might not have automatically been a shit move if it had led to getting rid of Tom Gleeson 75% of the time. But no: in four episodes all four have featured Gleeson (presumably because he’s the only one with even the slightest chemistry with Pickering), three have featured Kitty Flanagan, AKA easily the best thing about the show and the only person who should be there every week, one featured some “armchair expert” who we zoned out on because sports, and one – one – has featured Briggs.

So maybe he’s been sick, or has family issues, or touring commitments, or some other perfectly reasonable excuse? And yet Briggs was announced late last year as being a new regular no-joke permanent cast member; seems “regular” means “vanished after episode one”. And slightly more damning, Pickering ended last week’s promotion of this week’s episode by shouting “and Briggs is back”. Guess he didn’t specify where – maybe Briggs was back in the studio recording a new album because he sure as fuck wasn’t back on The Weekly.

(Snark aside, shouting “Briggs is back!” suggests you both know where he’s been and that what kept him from the show is over: a no-show after that has got to raise at least one eyebrow, even for a show as increasingly erratic as The Weekly)

So, to recap:

*The Weekly announced that Briggs would be a regular on the show in 2017.

*The Weekly made a big deal of having him on board in their first episode, making him the punchline of their opening skit.

*The Weekly had Briggs on in episode one, where he and Pickering got along like a house on fire – by which it we mean it felt like they’d rather be trapped in a burning house than be sitting across from one another.

*The Weekly announced that after a two week absence – in which the other two series regulars appeared in both episodes – that “Briggs is back” in episode four.

*Briggs was nowhere to be seen in episode four.

Anyone know anything more?

 

 

Keeping it local, Behave Yourself!

It’s press release time!

A major investment in locally produced, prime-time programming.

(20 February 2017) Channel Seven will begin work on three locally produced programs, two of which are original formats.

“The quality of the work coming out of our development team is exceptional,” says Seven’s Director of Network Programming Angus Ross. “The three commissions we are announcing today include two original formats. Australian audiences love Australian produced content, making this investment in local shows very straightforward.

Sure, whatever… here’s the bit that interests us:

Rounding out Seven’s new entertainment productions is Behave Yourself!, a comedy panel program featuring Australia’s best-loved comedians and celebrities competing in fun physical games that reveal the hilarious, shocking and fascinating facts behind why we do the things we do.

Co-developed by Seven and Eureka Productions and produced by Eureka Productions, Behave Yourself! is hosted by Darren McMullen and based on the experiments of world renowned behavioural expert and New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely.

Given that this is a panel show based on the legit academic work of an actual professor, it’s astounding that this isn’t being made by Andrew Denton. Also, is this the most intellectual-sounding Seven show since their 90’s reboot of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals? A show which also involved Australia’s best-loved comedians and celebrities (well, Lisa McCune) but didn’t involve Geoffrey getting them to run obstacle courses. Which is possibly what will happen in Behave Yourself! Maybe they can buy whatever it was that made the set tip in that show where the set tipped. Everyone remembers that show, right?

Either way, behavioural experiments plus, we dunno, swimming pools full of goo, plus celebrities of the calibre of, we dunno…Akmal Saleh, doesn’t feel like a must-watch. Still, nice of Seven to give something that isn’t reality a try. Real nice.

Death of a Salesman

If you’re telling the life story of someone famous, it might seem obvious to occasionally mention exactly why they became famous in the first place. But that’s the kind of rookie mistake that separates unpaid bloggers from Australia’s telemovie elite, because while we sat through four hours of Hoges wondering exactly when it was going to get around to exploring why he struck a chord with Australian – and global – viewers, what we got was an illustrated Wikipedia article listing a string of business deals. It was like being cornered at a shit party by a sweaty newspaper ad salesman and having him dump twenty-seven years worth of stories about ripping his customers off in your ear.

Of course, once you remove the sheer charisma of Paul Hogan, which the casting of Josh Lawson in the lead does with brutal efficiency, how else do you explain his mind-boggling success? If they didn’t show a succession of canny business deals where advertisers, television executives and movie types all basically threw money at him for no obvious reason, people might start to wonder exactly what Paul Hogan did to deserve a two part telemovie.

Obviously not the people who remember Hogan in his heyday, of course, and that’s around 90% of the audience for this. The whole point of this movie – and every other one of these historical telemovies currently infesting the commercial networks – is to remind old folks of a time when their pop culture was the only pop culture. If you’re watching this, you’re already interested in Hoges, and the only reason you’d be interested in Hoges is because you have (fond) memories of his comedy in the 70s and 80s so why waste time telling people what they already know when there’s the “story behind the story” to tell?

Here’s an idea: maybe because that way you’d have a decent show? As it stands the first three quarters of Hoges is about a guy who manages to strike a series of huge deals on the basis that he has skills and abilities we get next to no evidence of. Again, a fair chunk of the problem here is that the secret of Hoges’ success was a massive amount of raw charisma and that was always going to be impossible to duplicate. If they found someone with the charm of Paul Hogan they’d have found the next Paul Hogan, in which case why waste him in a shitty telemovie? While the casting of Josh Lawson’s come in for a fair amount of flak – and rightly so, because while Lawson is a good actor with a lot of screen presence, his presence is a very different one to Hogan’s amicable charm – what else could the producers do?

(it’s interesting that the one example of these telemovies that gets praised for its accuracy is Molly, which was based around a central character with next to no charm who could be impersonated by pretty much anyone willing to slap on a hat, a wig, and a stumbling vocal style. Clearly the moral here is to aim low and broad: the Ozzie Ostrich telemovie should be a classic)

Or as Hoges says in the show: “Who cares what the critics say? We don’t make movies for them.” But the whole point of these telemovies is to provide context and background information on a story you’re already interested in… you know, like critics do. Behind-the-scenes stuff is always “critical” information – it helps you make a judgment on a creative person’s work. This telemovie by its very existence is saying that in 2017 Paul Hogan is important enough to devote four hours of television to his life story: if that’s not a critical opinion then we’ve wasted our lives here.

So then, how does it stand up as criticism? Pretty fucking soft, as Hoges himself might say: what’s the point of devoting a hefty chunk of a seemingly endless show to the notoriously bitter Hoges / Noelene breakup if you’re going to present it as the most amicable break-up in human history? In Hoges Noelene tells Paul when he turns up for Christmas after the break-up “We may not be married any more, but you’ll always be the head of this family”; in real life she says she didn’t speak to him for seventeen years. Little bit of a gap between the two there. Even Leo Wanker’d have trouble jumping that canyon.

And then once the soft soap breakup was over, it skipped over all the interesting stuff. What happened to the string of flops Hogan made in the 90s? Where’s the dodgy tax schemes and endless battles with the ATO? We couldn’t even get a tear-jerking mention of John “Strop” Cornell’s current struggles with Parkinson’s disease? Guess we needed a few more scenes where Hoges got someone to pay him a bag of cash for work we never saw.

But it’s not like we can blame the writers. Remember the scene when Noelene said this to Linda while they were together watching Hogan at the Sydney Olympics?

“I had him when he was young, virile and handsome. He’s still got a good butt and good legs but she’s got him in older times when all he wants to do is sit around the house and not go out. I was the one who had the best years of his life”.

Oh wait, Noelene actually said that after the divorce. Guess that’s one way to capture a character’s voice. Though it’s a step up from Linda saying “I’m a Julliard-trained actress” in part one like she’s reading from her IMDB biography:

Actually, let’s go ahead and blame the writers – they’re the ones that thought having Noelene grieving over a broken cup (it symbolises her broken marriage!!) was the kind of thing Australian drama needs in 2017. Not to mention dialogue like “There’s a whole generation of kids – stand-ups – who think you’re a legend”, which really demands concrete examples. And what about that scene where Hogan was befuddled by a crazy futuristic Japanese toilet! Good to see scriptwriter Marieke Hardy hasn’t lost her comedic touch.

Look, Hoges wasn’t as shit as it looked:

…but that’s only because nothing could be as shit as Hoges looked.

Hey Hey It’s Stop Laughing… This is serious Day

An obvious omission from the first series of Stop Laughing…This is serious was Hey Hey It’s Saturday. A show which in its day was hugely popular, but on reflection seems embarrassing. And we don’t just mean the Jackson Jive.

It was impossible not to watch all the clips from Hey Hey… – and the various 30- and 40-something comedians enthusing about how much they loved it as kids – in last night’s Stop Laughing… This is serious and wonder when those comedians were going to say “But we don’t think that now”. We kind of still are.

Also, having a 10-minute segment on Hey Hey… at the start of this program, before skipping back in time see how it and other TV variety shows were influenced by vaudeville theatre, isn’t a great start to anything. It kinda suggests that Hey Hey… is THE MOST SIGNIFICANT VARIETY PROGRAM ON AUSTRALIAN TV EVER. PERIOD!

It might have been for one or possibly two generations, but others would argue that IMT, The Don Lane or Rove Live was Australia’s greatest variety show. These programs, which were at least as significant as Hey Hey… were barely covered in comparison to the time lavished on Daryl and friends. Sure, every Australian comedy documentary ever seems to have dwelt on IMT for maybe too long, but doing 10 minutes on Hey Hey… is a bad way to counteract that. Especially if you go soft on the Jackson Jive, and don’t give Daryl a bit of a kicking while you’re at it.

The far briefer looks at IMT, The Don Lane Show, The Norman Gunston Show, The Big Gig, Blah Blah Blah, The Late Show, Denton and Rove Live that we did get were interesting, and showed how variety evolved from novelty acts on stage to TV shows which included more contemporary entertainment styles like stand-up, sketch, satire, and interviews. But ultimately, too much ground was covered in a short space of time and this show felt a bit rushed.

Like we said before, Stop Laughing… This is serious would have been better off if it had spent more time looking at key shows and genres in a bit more detail. You could easily get a very interesting multi-part series out of the history of Australian TV variety, let alone any other aspect of homegrown comedy. And as more contemporary styles of documentary-making show – from the podcast Serial to Netflix’s Amanda Knox and Making A Murderer – pace and structure are as important in telling the story as the getting the facts right.

Where were pace and structure when they were needed in this program? Stop Laughing… This is serious is a show we want to see, but it should have been an awful lot better.

They’re Lining Up Around The Block

As we really should have mentioned earlier, Ten has grabbed the free-to-air rights to the local version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and starting tonight they’re screening it in (roughly) the HYBPA? timeslot for comedy fans who demand their laughs at the same time each week.

Unfortunately for those who demand their laughs be funny, this all-improv show is, as we mentioned earlier, not a high water mark in Australian comedy. So while it’s good news that it’s now available for free, whether it’s actually worth that hefty price tag is up for debate.

And as a debate is often what the “banter” on this show resembles, watching it tonight is a great way to prepare for the long argument to come as you wonder whether this whole “Australian comedy” thing is still worth your while. 9pm tonight! Enjoy!

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