News! Well, for internet values of “news”: Australian cult comedy blogger David Thorne has confirmed new forays into TV, with an eight-part HBO series and a one-off snowboarding mockumentary with Chris Lilley. Hmm, guess that answers those “what will Chris Lilley do now that his career is over” questions. Let’s read on. The Lilley project... Read More »
Jonah from Tonga marked a big step forward in Chris Lilley’s career: it was the first time in living memory he gave characters not played by himself serious air time. Ok, by “serious air time” we mean “an occasional solo moment”, but by Lilley’s standards that was massive. One of our biggest complaints against Lilley’s... Read More »
Was there ever a television series more utterly unnecessary than Jonah from Tonga? Even in the darkest days of Ja’mie: Private School Girl at least we knew that Ja’mie was always going to cruise through life, an eternal and unchanging sitcom character where what little laughs there were came from dropping her in different situations.... Read More »
Oh look, it’s the episode of Jonah where Chris Lilley reuses all the “Gran” stuff from Angry Boys rather than reusing the “Jonah” stuff from Summer Heights High. A few years ago Lilley opening an episode with two non-Lilley characters talking to camera for an extended period would have been hailed by us as a... Read More »
Hey, where’d everybody go? Two weeks ago we could pad these reviews out with loads of quotes from various articles denouncing Jonah as racist tripe or praising it as cutting edge comedy from Australia’s favourite satirist, and now… nothing. What gives? Oh, that’s right: Chris Lilley’s career is over. Actually, it was over a couple... Read More »
So, exactly how much of this week’s episode of Jonah from Tonga was just a bunch of schoolboy dickheads running around hiding from authority figures? We’re not saying that kind of thing can’t be funny; we are saying that when you’re Chris Lilley and the only string you have to your comedy bow is your... Read More »
Wow, Jonah really is stirring up some serious shit: A new Australian television comedy about a rebellious Tongan teenager has been condemned as “self indulgent” and “deeply offensive” to Pacific Islanders. Chris Lilley’s six-part ABC TV comedy series Jonah From Tonga follows the life of a 14-year-old schoolboy and his run-ins with family, friends and... Read More »
And Jonah From Tonga isn’t a show which requires or demands your absolute concentration, it’s basically a series of scenes in which Jonah and his gang bully other kids in the school and exchange toilet humour-peppered barbs with other... Read More »
Press release time! AUSTRALIA BINGES ON A PUCKLOAD OF JONAH! The ABC created an Australian first for audiences, serving up the ultimate binge-fest with Chris Lilley’s series JONAH FROM TONGA having its world premiere on ABC iview in a weekend-long event. With the ABC initiative replicated in the UK by BBC Three, the binge... Read More »
For one weekend only, the ABC have made available for streaming all six episodes of Chris Lilley’s new series Jonah from Tonga. We’ll be honest: we couldn’t make it all the way through. Here’s why: ‘Most of my characters never change as [a series] goes along,” says Lilley. ”There’s a familiar structure to television where... Read More »