The funniest thing about watching Randling at this stage isn’t just the grim suspicion that you might be the only person on Earth doing so; it’s the knowledge that all the people you’re seeing on-screen have no idea of the train wreck this series has turned out to be. In case you’ve spent the last... Read More »
For a few years now – well, it feels like years at least – we’ve been complaining / warning that Australian television likes everything about comedy but the making-people-laugh stuff. Of course, who listens to what we have to say? And so it has come to pass that in a few short weeks (July 25th)... Read More »
Ben Pobjie would be the first to tell you he isn’t a TV critic. Rather, he’s just a guy with an opinion about television and who really cares what he thinks because everyone’s opinions are equally valid and it’s just television anyway, right? Let’s pause to salute the Fairfax press for giving someone with such... Read More »
You know us, we're not exactly the home of Australian comedy positivity. So as balance here are a small number of Australian comedy things which may not want to make you slash your wrists. Well, not slash them heaps of... Read More »
We may have been a bit hard on the ABC of late, what with all that pointing out that their current Wednesday night “comedy” line-up is not only a bit shit but currently rating like people have realised it’s actually a bit shit. Don’t worry though, we’ve just been forwarded a press release letting us... Read More »
Sometimes it’s good to take on board opinions diametrically opposed to yours to broaden your view on a subject. Other times you find yourself reading something that’s just plain wrong. Guess which is which with regards to The Sunday Age‘s Melinda Houston and her most recent write-up of Randling? Everyone, including the audience at home,... Read More »
A brief glimmer of hope came when watching Randling last night – before we realised wait, we’re watching Randling – with an increasingly rare appearance of one Anthony Morgan. Hurrah! It’s always far too long between television gigs for this particular funnyman (he moved to Tasmania around a decade ago), which prompted us to wonder... Read More »
Is there anything more insufferably cringeworthy than announcing to the world your 'love of words'? Some go one step further, however, and devise entire quiz shows based on their self-congratulatory linguistophilia, of which Randling (which began tonight on ABC1) is the latest in a long and woeful... Read More »
If you like comedy and didn’t have reason to dislike the inordinately smug Andrew Denton before now, thanks to a recent interview he gave to Fairfax, now you do: In a perfect world, Denton says, Randling would have been a companion piece to the popular music-trivia show Spicks and Specks. But two weeks after pitching... Read More »
In yesterday’s Green Guide Debi Enker wrote something that will come as no surprise whatsoever to long-suffering readers of this blog: “Wednesday night ratings are not giving Aunty much joy”: In recent years, the ABC has established Wednesday as a home for crowd-pleasing light entertainment. Reliably anchored by Spicks & Specks, it offered a selection... Read More »