Australian Tumbleweeds

Australia's most opinionated blog about comedy.

Rebel Outside The Law

We’re not sure which is funnier: this news item, or the fact a whole bunch of people sent it to us:

Actress Rebel Wilson is suing a glossy magazine publisher over a series of articles she says defamed her.

Wilson, a comedian and actress who has starred in blockbusters including Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect, says print and online articles in Woman’s Day, The Australian Women’s Weekly, NW and OK Magazine made her out to be a serial liar.

According to a writ filed in the Victorian Supreme Court, Wilson says her reputation and credit has suffered, and she has been humiliated and embarrassed.

But what horrible lies could they have published that could have caused her such distress?

Wilson says the stories last year accused her of lying about her age and her background, using a fake name and creating stories to make it in Hollywood.

Ah.

Now, at first you might be thinking “hang on a second, haven’t all those stories been, you know… proven? Rebel did change her name between school and Hollywood (it seems at school she went by Melanie Elizabeth Bownds), she did “forget” to tell Hollywood that her actual age was six years older than what she claimed (going so far as to say Rose Byrne was in an “older group” of actresses when Byrne is actually a year younger than her), and once you start leaving years out of your past then the stories about your awesome past fairly quickly stop adding up.

It’s not even like it’s hard to figure out: the article says “As a girl, Wilson was studious and, at 17, she was voted an Australian Youth Ambassador and sent to South Africa to represent her country”… but if her publicised birthday is correct she would have been 17 in 2003, the year Wikipedia says “she moved to New York after winning the ATYP International scholarship”. Busy girl.

But on closer inspection – and asking some people who know more about this stuff than we do – it seems likely that her case relies more on the way they revealed these facts than the fact that they’re, you know, facts. To wit: it’s one thing to say she told lies – we all do that. It’s another to suggest she’s some kind of serial liar.

Which we for one would obviously never do: as Rebel herself has pointed out , the “Australian system” is the real villain here.

John: Have you heard of this thing called Tall Poppy Syndrome?

Rebel: Yes.

John: Is that a real thing? Is that something that –

Rebel: That is a very, very real thing, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to come live and work in America. So what it is, it’s a cultural phenomenon. It’s where if you get too good or too successful in Australia, so if you’re a poppy and you grow too tall, essentially, people want to cut you down. [laughs]

Craig: Really?

Rebel: Like yes, that’s what happened to me in Australia. So I was on all these different television shows and people like, she’s had a go, let someone else. And I’m like, what do you mean? I’m now like experienced. I’m now like really experienced. I’m now ready to go the next step and have my own movies, or maybe. And the Australian system is like, no, you think you’re so good now, why don’t you go and be unemployed. And I’m like, no.

Damn Australian system, always forcing the “really experienced” into unemployment.

Supposedly if Wilson can prove malice – that the magazines in question told those stories about her in an attempt to damage her career – then she may have a case even if the stories they told are all 100% true. It seems that intentionally setting out to cause harm to someone’s career is enough to win this kind of case.

Presumably she’ll be suing whoever let her go ahead with Super Fun Night next.

Every Day I’m Juggling

It’s taken us a few days to figure out exactly what there is to say about the returns of Have You Been Paying Attention? and Mad as Hell this week because… look, they’re not exactly reinventing the wheel this many series in, you know? There’s a few minor tweaks here and there – more segment graphics on Mad as Hell, more segment graphics on HYBPA? – but for the most part they both know they’re getting the job done so they’re happy to get on with it.

This is, to put it bluntly, not a situation we’re all that used to in Australian television. For most of the 21st century, long-running comedy hits have been few and far between (unless you count Spicks & Specks, which we probably won’t). The Chaser have been around for ages but they usually do a (somewhat) different show every couple of years; Gruen wanders around aimlessly trying to find new topics for its crack team of smug rich people to pontificate on. And for scripted shows, it’s two series and you’re done, the upcoming revival of Upper Middle Bogan aside; we’re guessing the fact that Mad as Hell falls under “live entertainment” and not “comedy” at the ABC has played some small role there.

Not every show should have a long run, of course. You could argue that we’ve had such a high turnover of comedies in Australia over the last decade because most of them have been shithouse and you wouldn’t find much argument here. But the fact that pretty much all the long-running shows – the work of Chris Lilley excepted, because c’mon, he’s been making the exact same show under different names now since We Can Be Heroes – have been shows that most reasonable people would accept deserved their long runs, suggests that there’s probably been a few short-running shows that deserved another series or two.

Lilley’s also been the only long-running creator to actively wear out his welcome: both Micallef and creators of HYBPA? Working Dog have been in the business for decades and are still doing well, while The Chaser and (this pains us to say it) Gruen have been at the very least consistent in achieving the goals they’ve set out for themselves with their various projects. In Lilley’s case, as we’ve been saying since Summer Heights High, the problem was always that he could only do a very small number of things well; once audiences got sick of that, he had nothing left to offer.

In contrast, one of the secrets of the success of all these long-running shows has been their variety. For Gruen and The Chaser, that’s been obvious: they’ve shifted formats and topics every year or so. But while Mad as Hell and HYBPA? have kept the same formats over the years – Mad as Hell is a news comedy with Micallef the same patrician newsreader he’s been since Newstopia; HYBPA? is a news game show – they’ve still found ways to mix things up.

In comparison with a show like The Weekly, which contains only the “news satire” ingredients you’d expect going in and nothing more, Mad as Hell is full to bursting with all manner of comedy, from Micallef’s expressions to wordplay to fake ads to character material to a swipe at The Project which (for at least one of us) was the funniest thing all week. The container is standardised: what’s inside varies from minute to minute.

Likewise, HYBPA? is a news quiz first and foremost, but – thanks in large part to coming from Working Dog, a group of producers who seem to really value working with people they get along with – it’s also managed to build up a decent sub-level of character comedy. Sam Pang is never going to win (unless he does); Mick Molloy is a sleazy drunk (in a family-friendly timeslot); Ed Kavalee is… well, it’s always fun to have him around. Unlike the endless series of failed ABC panel shows, there’s a sense of people who get along with each other having fun that operates above and beyond the (scripted?) gag answers, which helps the show stay entertaining when other elements flag.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. Neither show would have stayed on air this long if they weren’t working on more than one level. But when you see how many shows make it to air here that barely even work on the one level they’re advertised as having, it’s not hard to be impressed by shows that make juggling multiple balls look this easy.

[no, we will not be ending on a “juggling balls” joke about Please Like Me – ed]

Meeting the (Kind-Of) Mavericks

Of some interest to comedy lovers has been the ABC arts series Meet the Mavericks, five half-hour conversations between five pairs of “mavericks”. The second program saw Magda Szubanski (Fast Forward, Kath & Kim) speak with UK artist Grayson Perry, while last week it was comedy-musician Tim Minchin (Matilda) gabbing with Late Night Live’s Phillip Adams. In the final episode, which aired last night, John Safran (Race Relations, Sunday Night Safran) and British journalist and author Jon Ronson, played pool and talked in the top room of a pub.

Of the three episodes of Meet the Mavericks featuring comedians, Safran vs Ronson was probably the best. The two have met several times already, have similar backgrounds, and have had fairly similar careers, each known for spending time with people with strange and extreme views, and for delving into areas that few others do.

Minchin and Adams also had a number of similarities, and their chat spent a lot of time talking about comedy, the arts, offensiveness, pushing boundaries and the Australian cultural scene.

Even the least comedy-focused conversation, Szubanski and Perry, which spent much of its time on gender, identity and self-confidence, was pretty interesting. There are worse ways to spend half-an-hour than watching Meet the Mavericks.

Not that there aren’t negatives about this show. As people interested in comedy, we’d far rather have seen a more comedy-focused discussion. Maybe something along the lines of A Quiet Word with…, although that would have required an interviewer and a bit more planning and money, whereas Meet the Mavericks clearly had a budget of about $5 and was shot in half a day.

We weren’t expecting Meet the Mavericks to be like Kerry O’Brien’s interviews with Paul Keating, but, and this is getting a bit off topic, is this really the best the ABC’s arts department can do? Are they that cash-strapped that all they can afford to do is to set up some cameras in Philip Adams’ front room and hope for the best?

There Can Be Only One… oh wait, hang on a second

Now more than ever, Australian comedy is built around winners and losers. No, this isn’t some convoluted lead-in to a discussion about the Logies: pretty much the only thing of interest to be said there is that The Project won stuff while The Weekly, aka the ABC’s attempt to clone The Project right down to hiring a former host and cast members, won nothing. Which is pretty much what you’d expect from a popularity contest.

Trouble is, over the last few years the ABC seem to have been going out of their way to turn their comedy department into a popularity contest. First we had two years of Fresh Blood online, now Comedy Showcase is – supposedly, because Lord amercy do we have our suspicions about this one – a contest to find a pilot the ABC can throw money at. It’s almost as if they don’t have anyone there who can make a programming decision.

But of course, at the end of the day a decision is going to be made by someone at the ABC as to which shows are going to go to series and which ones are going in the bin. And without making the voting process transparent – as in, actually collecting and tallying up votes and then letting us know the results of that tally – people (us) will always suspect that the “competition” is just a promotional device and the end result is rigged as fuck.

Which why we raised an eyebrow when the Fresh Blood winners were… well, we’re guessing they were announced at the ABC 2016 upfronts, but this seems to be the only place that actually mentioned the winners:

In the Fresh Blood initiative with Screen Australia, two pilots will proceed to a full series: one from Skit Box , the Sydney-based trio of comedians Adele Vuko, Sarah Bishop and Greta Lee Jackson, the other the Melbourne collective Fancy Boy.

This result seemed a little odd because we, and pretty much everyone we know, figured Aunty Donna was easily the funniest of the five finalists. But before we could do much more than hoist an eyebrow at this somewhat suspicious-smelling series of events, all was revealed:

Hey there Australia! We like you, and you like us… we think. So it’s with great joy to announce our first local commission! Melbourne based sketch comedy group Aunty Donna. Aunty Donna will be making an excellent web series for our Not For TV platform.

This will be the first of several original Australian projects that Comedy Central will develop as part of Not For TV. Not For TV is Comedy Central’s platform for unique and fresh comedy and has birthed shows such as Broad City. We’re looking for the next hot potato, and we think the hottest potatoes (among many hot potatoes) here in Australia land right now are Aunty Donna.

First video? Right here.

This is pretty much the best of all possible worlds. The cream of the crop – that’d be Aunty Donna – are, um, creamed off by a commercial network; the up-and-comers now have a chance to hone their skills on the national broadcaster. One of the bigger problems with Australian television comedy over the last twenty years or so has been that once an act has had a run on the ABC there’s nowhere for them to move on to. This kind of thing, especially if it takes off, could be a solution to that.

It doesn’t hurt that Aunty Donna are pretty damn funny too.

Vale The Weekly season two

We’re just going to come right out and say it: The Weekly taking on Clarke & Dawe was perhaps the funniest thing we’ve seen on television this year. Not that the sketch itself was funny: oh no no no no no no fuck no. It was utterly pointless at best and bewildering at worst – so your typical Weekly fare really.

Seriously, what was the point? To show that Charlie Pickering and Tom Gleeson could do what Clarke and Dawe do – that is, be funny – if they really wanted to but they’d rather take a barely metaphorical shit on their viewers instead? Or did Pickering and Gleeson decide that enough was enough and someone had to finally step up and explain in laborious detail to the general public exactly what it is that Clarke & Dawe have been doing every week for the last 25 years? Fucked if we know: we’re pretty sure they didn’t know either.

No, what made the opening of the final episode of this season of The Weekly hilarious was the sheer cluelessness of it all. Clarke & Dawe may not be to everyone’s taste but they make a point, it’s usually a funny point, and then they piss off. Which is three things more than The Weekly has managed to do over 34 weeks. Way too often on The Weekly their idea of comedy seems to be “explaining things”: if that was an actual real approach to comedy then your third grade teacher would be touring with Hughsey as her support act.

What makes this so painful is that it seems – to us at least – kind of obvious that the writers of The Weekly know they suck. Why else would so much of their material be the kind of self-parody designed to say “don’t bother trying to tell us we suck, we’ve already made all those jokes ourselves”? The Clarke & Dawe bit literally stopped in the middle so they could let us know it wasn’t a parody but a tribute; arse-covering one, comedy zero.

So why did it all go so wrong? Why couldn’t The Weekly actually deliver on the promise of being a halfway decent news satire? Here’s a clue: it was put together by people who thought we really needed thirty-four weeks of Tom Gleeson.

That’s not a bitchy comment – well, it is, but it’s not just a bitchy comment. We’ve just had thirty four episodes plus an end-of-year special of a show built around three cast members, and out of those three all three were doing the exact same thing every episode. Shaun Micallef turns up out of nowhere in the final five seconds to dismiss the whole show as “left-wing drivel” and gets the biggest laughs of the entire series: maybe that’s a sign that you need to hire funnier people?

The Weekly had a lot of flaws – seriously, have you got all day? Buy us lunch and we promise we won’t shut up – but one of the big ones was that it never quite figured out how to make being weekly work. Part of why The Daily Show works is that it’s a show that’s on daily; doing four episodes a week means audiences are just that little bit more forgiving of a format that’s largely just a guy ranting while jokes are flashed up behind him. Only being on the air once a week makes you more of an event. One guy doing a couple Project-level monologues and an interview while his two sidekicks do the same segment each week? Non-event.

We ask again: why were there only ever two correspondents? Mad as Hell has a cast of six, not counting host Micallef, and those six often play two or more characters. Sure, Mad as Hell has sketches and fake ads and so on, but it also has a bunch of characters sitting across the desk from Micallef having a chat… you know, just like The Weekly does. Only funny.

It’s not that Gleeson and Flanagan’s segments were entirely lacking in comedic potential either. It’s that they were roughly the same premise every week: Gleeson would make some counter-intuitive argument (or worse, talk about his popularity), Flanagan would explain how some part of society was nutty. Week after week. For thirty-four weeks.

When The Weekly returned in 2016 basically unchanged from its 2015 form, it had the stench of death about it. Not because it was a terrible show at the end of 2015 – as lightweight news it was perfectly serviceable; it only sucked if you expected it to be funny or take a stand on anything even slightly controversial – but because there was clearly room for improvement and yet no improvements had been made.

Did anyone really think the core appeal of The Weekly was the fact it was Charlie Pickering, Tom Gleeson and Kitty Flanagan? That power-packed trio held together by the raw power of Pickering’s willingness to laugh at their jokes and… well, Gleeson and Flanagan almost never worked together on the show, did they? Seems slightly odd.

Pickering they couldn’t lose, though they really should have; charm, wit and righteous anger are what a Daily Show knockoff needs in a host, not smug self-satisfaction and the occasional deadpan stare. But even if you didn’t want to ditch Tom Gleeson, why wouldn’t you bring in a new comedian or two just to vary things a little? Did Charlie Pickering really cost that much to hire that they couldn’t afford another cast member?

It doesn’t really matter now, whatever happens with The Weekly. Pickering ended the show by shouting “we’ll be back!”, but he didn’t rule out in pog form. After two seasons of the same old, any major changes would look like desperation; smaller changes won’t be enough to save it.

… though by “save it” we mean turn it into something watchable, which almost certainly isn’t something the ABC is all that worried about. Charlie Pickering is a personality and they’re all about the personalities at Aunty these days. Well, that and shows they can put on for months at a time and just forget about.

And if there’s ever been an ABC show you can forget about, it’s The Weekly.

Talking Pictures with Mr Rabbit and the Bearded Lady

If you’ve ever wondered what Judith Lucy gets up to when she’s not touring the country, then may we direct you to Mr Rabbit and the Bearded Lady, a podcast focusing on “movies and the fine art of conversation”. It’s an irregularly released podcast – sometimes more than a month goes by without an episode – but it’s one to look forward to, as Judith (she’s the Bearded Lady) and “Mr Rabbit” (we’ve no idea who he is!), know their stuff when it comes to movies and TV, care about the mediums, and are interesting and funny to boot.

A discussion of Woody Allen’s Irrational Man is peppered with references to Allen’s previous films, and why many of his recent ones have been disappointments (not to mention how hard it is to watch any of them these days without thinking about his private life, alleged or otherwise). Similarly, the pair’s review of Bridge of Spies discusses how fascinating the real-life story is, and what a great director of beautiful-looking, slick films Steven Spielberg is, but also why neither of those things made this an amazing film.

If you’ve ever thought that critics on TV or radio, or those writing for big publications or websites, weren’t going into enough detail about the production they’re reviewing, or giving enough context about key personnel, or should’ve had a few drinks beforehand, then this is the podcast for you. Lucy and Mr Rabbit really love cinema, they’re film nerds, and they talk about cinema like they’re in a pub discussing their favourite thing in the world. This often leads to some tangents, but they’re always interesting ones, and even with these and Lucy’s trademark acerbic remarks about anything that trips her trigger, this is a very economical program, with the runtime for most episodes being somewhere between 30-45 minutes – the perfect length for your journey home from work.

The segment where Lucy tries to summarise the latest episode of Nashville in one minute doesn’t quite doesn’t do it for us (or presumably for anyone who isn’t a fan of that program) but we’re warming to What Can’t Mendo Do?, a regular feature discussing the many and varied roles of Ben Mendelsohn – truly Australia’s answer to Kevin Bacon. It’s certainly introduced us to some lesser-known films Aussie flicks.

Basically, if like film (and TV, and comedy, and drinking), then you’ll enjoy this. Especially the pair’s vale to beloved Balaclava video shop Video Vision at the end of episode 9.

Dame Edna went on The Project and the media and Twitter totally lost their shit

You know how when you’re on a news website, and you realise that an article only exists because a few people reacted to a thing on Twitter in a similar way? From news.com.au:

It’s not unusual for Dame Edna to make things a little awkward, but the Aussie icon’s Thursday night appearance on The Project was more than a bit peculiar.

Live in the studio to promote her involvement with Australian pyjama brand Peter Alexander, Dame Edna took several small swipes at host Waleed Aly in the stilted interview that was dragged out over two segments.

…

The awkwardness could be felt by viewers in their loungerooms. Cringing wasn’t enough for some of them, and they took to Twitter, with one person asking: Was Dame Edna “sh*tfaced?”

Wow! It must have been totally out of control if Barry Humphries is back on the drink after more than 45 years of abstinence. So what happened, exactly?

Dame Edna passive-aggressive? Yeah, it’s not like she’s been doing that for 60 years…

Or, to put it another way: Some people who aren’t familiar with and/or don’t understand Dame Edna’s schtick have posted on Twitter that they don’t understand Dame Edna’s schtick, and a number of news sites (including the Sydney Morning Herald, Yahoo7, The Guardian and The Daily Mail) have pretended they also don’t understand Dame Edna’s schtick in order to write pieces agreeing with the people on Twitter, so they can stir up some controversy and get more readers.

If you want to see the full Dame Edna appearance – as opposed to the compilations of the controversial-seeming bits that you can watch on the above news sites – view it on TenPlay, but meanwhile, we’re going to look at the main complaints in the above articles and tell you what we reckon.

Dame Edna attacked and was a bit racist towards Waleed Aly

At the start of the interview, Edna calls Aly “Little Wally”. Not especially hilarious, although it may come across as bit patronising to Aly if you aren’t aware that Edna’s been getting laughs out of shortening famous peoples’ names since the 1980s.

This was followed by her addressing the studio audience (another Edna trope is to ignore the interviewers and speak directly to the audience), saying “And I have to tell the viewers, that he really does look like this. He does! It’s not a trick of the lights!”. Clearly wondering whether this was an attack on his ethnicity, Aly responded: “I’m just trying to figure out what response you are looking for here.” It was a bit of a weird moment, but largely because Aly didn’t get that it was a reference (a rather oblique one, admittedly) to Aly’s recent Logies nomination, and the media’s reaction to that.

And does anyone seriously think this was some kind of racist attack? There is literally nothing in the entire interview attacking Aly’s ethnicity or faith.

Anyway, the appearance continued, with Edna speaking to Carrie Bickmore about her young children, and recommending a cure for stretch marks (wombat spleen, a gag she’s been doing since at least 1990). She then turned to Fitzy and his background as a footballer, landing a very funny comedic punch about the importance of appearing on Big Brother to his career. Everyone howled with laughter.

Conclusion: This wasn’t an attack on Aly, racist or otherwise, and everyone on the panel “copped” something from Edna.

Edna talked up Malcolm Turnbull and went Aly for being a lefty

If you just saw the “highlights” packages on the various news websites, which included a positive-seeming comment about Malcolm Turnbull, and Edna’s comment that Aly is a “pinko”, this looks like it’s true, but watch the full appearance on TenPlay and it looks a bit different in the context of the wider conversation.

While Edna did mention Aly’s left-of-centre politics, she hardly endorsed Turnbull. It went more like this, having been asked if she’d like to enter politics Edna quipped “There are so many dreadful people involved in that.” Then continued, “I don’t think we have the politicians we deserve, I’m afraid I don’t, though I would disagree with Waleed. I think Mr Turnbull is a very strong and impressive Prime Minister. I don’t like him very much personally but I think he is a good chap, good fellow for the job.”

Conclusion: Hardly a ringing endorsement, even speculating that perhaps Humphries broke character and expressed some of his own, self-professed, right-wing politics.

Edna took over the show and things spiralled out of control

Yes, she did take over the show, or more accurately, the segment. And Bickmore’s exasperated “Why did we even bother to write questions?!” says all you need to know about her and The Project: they didn’t know how to handle Edna.

But as TV hosts the world over have learnt – Michael Parkinson, Jay Leno, Terry Wogan – if you let Edna takeover, do her pre-prepared material, and get her digs in at you and the rest of the guests, you’ll have TV gold.

Want further, hilarious proof? Here’s a compilation of the Dame’s Logies appearances. In one of them, she goes the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke, then the entire room. They all love it.

Conclusion: Edna taking over is the point. Let it happen, and enjoy the ride.

Edna isn’t funny, the whole thing was totally awkward and it’s time for Barry Humphries to stop doing his old-school gags on TV

Admittedly that’s mainly a view expressed by this website, and also, Dame Edna wasn’t on top form the other night. She stumbled over a few of her gags, and a few others landed badly, but it’s what you’d reasonably expect from an Edna appearance in 2016. It was Barry Humphries being Edna like he’s been Edna for the last 60 years, and hardly crossed the line in any really shocking or unexpected ways. The only real problem and this is not something the news websites seemed to be prepared to say, is that Barry Humphries is an 82-year-old and his age is starting to show. He’s not quite as quick as he was 30 years ago.

It’s also fairly easy to see why anyone under 30 might not get Dame Edna, or be able to spot the difference between a Dame Edna gag that worked and a Dame Edna gag that didn’t – Dame Edna’s is an act that you have to see a few times to get, and she’s not on TV that often these days. It would also be even harder to point out in 140 characters, exactly why a quip on The Project hadn’t quite worked.

All of which adds up to: this ain’t news, this is a beat up. These articles were written not because people writing for news websites don’t get what Barry Humphries was doing, they were written because an audience who traditionally shun news websites – millennials – don’t get Barry Humphries. So, news websites have written articles tapping into the views of the audience they want to attract, in order to win them over. And if that means implying Barry Humphries is racist or was attacking people for no reason, fine.

But even if you think that Barry Humphries is fair game because he’s a wealthy ex-pat who only seems to turn up here when he’s spruiking some product, there’s still a problem here. Major news websites aren’t being fair to comedy or comedians. They’re taking comedy out of context because it’ll get clicks on articles, and aren’t reporting the work of comedians or their comic intent accurately. We shouldn’t accept this kind of reporting about comedy. Even if it’s just some shit-stirring about a rich man in a dress helping to flog some pyjamas.

Comedy Showroom 2: Surrealism vs a Loser vs an Ageing Rebel

In this the second of our blogs about Comedy Showroom, the ABC’s pilot season, we look at the final three programs. The episodes are going to air at 9:00pm on Wednesdays on ABC while all six episodes of the series are now available on iView. You can read our blog about the first three shows here.

The Future of Expensive

Who’s Involved? Eddie Perfect (Offspring, Shane Warne: The Musical) wrote the script and the music and plays the lead role. Matthew Saville (Please Like Me, We Can Be Heroes) is the director.

What’s It About? Eddie is an inner city stay at home Dad who lives in a nice house and seems to spend his time looking after his two-year-old daughter and doing DIY while his wife works. According to this article on TV Tonight, Eddie’s a musician, although there’s very little evidence in the pilot that he has any kind of career, apart from maybe the scene where Paul Kelly turns up to sing a song while Eddie’s building a deck. In fact, it’s almost like they forgot to set up the fact that Eddie plays gigs at night, or whatever he does, and just thought it would be funny for Paul Kelly to turn up and play for a bit. Er, okay…

Is It Funny? No, it’s just weird. And badly done weird at that. There are various scenes where the show tries to get laughs based on heightened realism or bizarre surrealism, but it just doesn’t work. The first scene ends with Eddie being chased out of the local park and one of the people chasing him being knocked down by a taco truck. Later, when Eddie has to take his daughter to a friend’s birthday party, Eddie complains that the birthday boy is a little shit, yet we never meet the boy. The closest we get is meeting the boy’s Mum, who takes the present Eddie’s bought and smashes it up. There’s an implication that she does this because her son would just end up breaking it, but that’s never made clear. It’s just basically a 30-something woman smashing up a wrapped gift box while Eddie doesn’t really react. Also, is Eddie some kind of sociopath? Or is his wife? Or are all the characters?

Should It Get A Series? Not on the basis of this, it shouldn’t. This show really needs to work out what it wants to be and how it’s trying to get laughs. Is it a dramedy or a piece of avant-garde surrealism? Or an unwanted revival of whatever style of program Ally McBeal was, but with sociopaths.

Bleak

Who’s Involved? This is written by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (The Katering Show), with Kate McLennan in the lead role of Anna. Also in the cast are McCartney as Anna’s boss, Jean Kittson (Let The Blood Run Free, Kittson Fahey) as Anna’s Mum and Shane Bourne (City Homicide, Hey! Hey! It’s Saturday, Are You Being Served?) as Anna’s Dad. Kate McCartney is the director.

What’s It About? Based on McCartney and McLennan’s web series of the same name, this is about what happens when graphic designer Anna loses her job and her boyfriend on the same day, and realises she’s a friendless, directionless loser whose only choice is to move back in with parents who are, at best, indifferent to her.

Is It Funny? Sort of. It’s hard not to feel sorry for Anna, who, while fairly annoying, doesn’t really deserve this. And it’s here the problem lies: it’s hard to laugh at the various quite funny things that happen because it keeps cutting to Anna’s heartbroken face. As the series develops it will probably get funnier, but, as the title says, things are pretty bleak in episode 1.

Should It Get A Series? Maybe. As we said above, this will have to become a lot funnier fairly quickly to justify taking this to a full series, but there are good indications that it could do so. The cast includes a number of great comedy actors, with fabulous timing – Jean Kittson as Anna’s drunk/indifferent Mum especially – and McLennan and McCartney can always be relied upon to get laughs. However, we felt the visual scenes could have been better written and directed – the scene where Anna steals bubbly, champagne flutes and a cheese platter from her parent’s kitchen should have been a lot funnier, for example. Also, Anna’s going to need to start winning at some point, or this will just feel like it’s about laughing at a loser.

Moonman

Who’s Involved? Lawrence Mooney (Dirty Laundry Live, stand-up) plays the title role and is credited with additional material while Scott Taylor (Neighbours, Home & Away) wrote the script. Ian Smith (Neighbours, Prisoner) plays Lawrence’s colleague Ian, and the show’s directed by Clayton Jacobson (Kenny).

What’s It About? When we meet Lawrence he’s being arrested for drunk driving in a golf cart as part of a celebrity golf day bet gone wrong. But it turns out that Lawrence isn’t actually much of a celebrity, he’s a midnight-to-dawn DJ on Soft FM, he’s in his 40’s, and his heavy drinking, partying ways have clearly taken their toll. But on the plus side, maybe, his girlfriend’s pregnant and he’s starting to realise that he needs to straighten out his life and get a job he finds more satisfying. Can he do it?

Is It Funny? A bit. Lawrence Mooney’s a funny guy, and Ian Smith (Lawrence’s sort of sidekick and foil) is a good character actor, but the script really lets things down. Maybe it’s because most of the show’s set at night in either the seedy radio station or near the dodgy kebab van Lawrence frequents, but it just reminds us a lot of Roy Hollsdotter Live, a bleak but fairly realistic telling of the what show business at the mildly-successful-but-this-won’t-last end is like. There are many moments that could have been a lot funnier if they’d been better written and directed, but most of the time this is a pretty downbeat show.

Should It Get A Series? Maybe. We can imagine a series where Lawrence, having quit his job at the radio station, tries his hand at various day jobs and fails. And although this pilot’s not amazingly funny, it’s well-enough executed to suggest it could have a series in it. We’re not sure how Ian’s going to fit in, though, what with Lawrence not having to work with him anymore, and the pair hating each other. Maybe they’ll move in together and it will get all The Odd Couple?

Comedy Showroom 1: Asians vs Babies vs Bogans

The first episode from Comedy Showroom, the ABC’s new pilot showcase, Ronny Chieng International Student, aired last night and all six episodes of the series are now available on iView. In this blog we review the first three episodes; tomorrow, we’ll look at the final three programs.

Ronny Chieng International Student

Who’s Involved? Stand-up Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show, It’s A Date) is the star of the show, and he also co-wrote the script with Declan Fay (The Sweetest Plum, Dirty Laundry Live, Rove Live). Also in the cast are Dave Eastgate (Open Slather, The Moodys), Anthony Morgan (Denton, Problems) and Felicity Ward (stand-up), and the show is directed by Jonathan Brough (brother of Alan, and director of Sammy J & Randy in Ricketts Lane, The Family Law and the upcoming Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor sitcom Rosehaven).

What’s It About? First-year law student Ronny is just off the plane from Malaysia and has sort of accidentally fallen in with a group of other first-year Asian students and Aussie Asher. In between fending off angsty Skypes from his mother, and invitations to a skulling competition from blokey student rep Mick, he makes enemies of a group of posh students in his first lecture. In a quest to complete their first assignment, things escalate between the posh students and the Asians, and the two groups find themselves pitted against each other in Mick’s skulling competition. Can the Asians win? With Asher’s help, maybe.

Is It Funny? We laughed a lot. Ronny Chieng’s got a good eye for highlighting stupidity and pomposity, and this compliments Declan Fay’s spot-on skewering of Aussie bloke culture (always one of our favourite elements of The Sweetest Plum).

Should It Get A Series? There’s a lot of potential for a series, here, with Ronny and his gang of the fish-out-of-water international students pitted against the poshos, baffled by Aussie culture and student traditions, and running into a variety of other weird and wonderful university characters. We’d like to see more from Anthony Morgan’s wrestling-obsessed law professor, and Felicity Ward’s postgraduate student, driven so mad by her research that she doesn’t seem to have left the library for years, but mainly we like this because it’s one of the best piss-takes of university life and Aussie culture we’ve seen for a long time.

The Letdown

Who’s Involved? Alison Bell (Laid) is the star of the show and co-wrote the script with Sarah Scheller-O’Donnell (No Activity). Also in the show are Noni Hazelhurst (Play School, City Homicide, Better Homes and Gardens) and Lucy Durack (Wicked the musical, and guest roles in shows such The Moodys and Here Come the Habibs). One of the producers is Julian Morrow (The Chaser), in fact, it’s a Giant Dwarf production, and the director is Trent O’Donnell (Review with Myles Barlow, The Moodys, The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide To Knife Fighting).

What’s It About? If you imagine Alison Bell’s character from Laid changed her name to Audrey, got married, and gave birth to her first child 12 weeks ago, you’re pretty much there. Audrey’s dealing with the fact that her lovely life in a nice inner-city house in Sydney is now dominated by a 12-week old she doesn’t know how to care for. The new mother’s group she’s joined just makes it worse, her husband’s never around to help, and she just wants to attend to her friend’s birthday dinners and go clubbing like she used to.

Is It Funny? If you’re a parent it’s probably hilarious. Or, at least something you can relate to. But if you don’t have kids the flaws stand out. This is one of those semi-serious sitcoms, the kind of show that wishes it was Offspring so it could tackle more issues. Instead, it’s boxed itself into the corner marked “wry”, and you find yourself watching a scene where a new Mum hides her 12-week old under her coat in order to get into a bar with her friends and do shots.

Should It Get A Series? As much as this is a show about a subject that a great many people can relate to, we didn’t think it was terribly well executed. It could work if the joke rate was upped. Or if they’d found a way to make the mother’s group scenes a lot more hilarious. When you’ve got that many crazy female stereotypes in a circle, plus Noni Hazelhurst in seen-it-all hard woman mode, it should be a lot funnier.

The Legend of Gavin Tanner

Who’s Involved? The Legend of Gavin Tanner debuted as a short web series in 2014 and has now been made into this full-length pilot. It’s from the WA-based group Mad Kids, who are responsible for DAFUQ? Series writer Matt Lovkis plays Gavin, and also in the cast are Emily Rose Brennan (:30 Seconds, Underbelly) and Adam Zwar (Wilfred, the Agony series).

What’s It About? Mad West Coast Eagles fan and small-time outer suburbs drug dealer Gavin Tanner has a problem: he’s lost a bet to some Freemantle Dockers fans and now they want to tattoo his balls. Meanwhile, ex-Army officer and stay-at-home Dad Marshall (Adam Zwar) has just moved in next door, and Gavin wants to be his mate.

Is It Funny? There have been a lot of sitcoms about bogans and outer suburbs-dwellers in the past couple of decades – Kath & Kim, Bogan Pride, anything by Paul Fenech – and while this is slightly better than Fenech’s oeuvre, it’s nowhere near as funny as Kath & Kim. There’s a strong sense that we’re expected to laugh at the bogan characters, rather than with them and that always leaves a bitter taste in our mouths.

Should It Get A Series? No. Give the money to Ronny Chieng.

You’re Back in the Tomb

“Yes,” said one of the contestants on the final (ever?) You’re Back in the Room, “hypnosis is real”. Well that’s just awesome news, isn’t it? There are people walking around out there with the power to make anyone into their unwilling zombie slaves and there’s absolutely nothing the rest of us can do to stop them. The only thing that’s worse? They’re working with Daryl Somers.

C’mon, we all know how this is going to play out: Daryl – with the help of his hypno-buddy – is going to saunter into the Nine board room and before anyone there can say “sorry, the auditions for Human Toilet 2016 are next door” ZAP and they’re all in a trance. And with our nation’s top commercial broadcaster now in the hands of the man who laughed at Dickie Knee for over two decades, who knows what atrocities will follow?

Obviously he’s not going to try and bring back Hey Hey It’s Saturday; nobody alive is that deranged. It’s a show that was past its use-by date five years before it was axed; the rapid failure of the 2010 revival only underlined that. And yet You’re Back in the Room did manage to suggest a way forward for Daryl if only he had the strength of will and the passion to see it through.

Make no mistake here: You’re Back in the Room was total widescreen rubbish. If we wanted to watch an hour of people acting like dickheads frantically trying to complete meaningless chores, we’d watch a cooking show. But if it was a short segment on a variety show… well, it’d still be rubbish, but it’d be fast-moving, done-in-one rubbish. And who knows? Seeing Daryl doing his Igor act with clay smeared over his face might actually be funny when it’s not in the middle of a full hour of the same kind of crap.

Much as it pains us to admit it, Daryl is one of the few hosts currently working on Australian television who could front a variety show. We’d much rather see someone good in the role, but with Australian television in the state it’s in any variety show hosted by an unknown is almost certainly doomed. Daryl has a fanbase, Daryl has experience, Daryl is a promise of a certain kind of television experience that some people want to have. There just isn’t enough of them to bring Hey Hey back.

A tight one-hour variety show – it’d basically be a tonight show, only on earlier in the night – fronted by Daryl is the kind of thing that might work. Interviews, dumb stunts, maybe a live band, stand-ups telling jokes: it couldn’t do worse than anything else comedy-shaped the commercial networks have tried in the last decade. Hypnotism? Why not. Variety’s the spice of life.

But this, of course, would require Daryl to fucking give the fuck up on his fucking insane desire to reanimate the utterly fucked corpse of that fucking shit show Hey Hey Get The Fuck Off. And not even the full force of stage hypnotism – which, let us remind you, is really really real and in no way made up bullshit – could bring about that much of a shift in Daryl’s thought processes.

Hey Hey is a terrible format and why Daryl remains committed to it is a legitimate mystery of modern medical science. His devotion to it remains the single biggest obstacle to him having any kind of serious career on Australian television. It’s not coming back, and while he remains somehow convinced it will he’s unable to play any kind of serious, long-term role as a presenter or host.

Actually, we don’t have a problem with that.

 

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