Vale Frayed series 2
Despite some difficult subject matter in series two Frayed managed to portray the issues sensitively and keep the audience laughing.... Read More »
Tag: Sarah Kendall
Still Frayed
Frayed, unusually for an Australian dramedy, has a compelling and suspenseful plot, lots of funny lines, and well-written, complex... Read More »
Vale Frayed
Frayed, which ended last night, has been a lesson to dramedy makers in this country: that it’s possible to mix drama and comedy in the one show and for that show to be good. And after years of programs like Rosehaven and – gulp – Channel 9’s reboot of SeaChange, who knew it was even... Read More »
No fraying at the edges
Short-run Australian TV series often start well, leaving us with high hopes and keen to see more, before they crash somewhere around episode two or three, and then slowly burn out over the rest of the run (a big hello to everyone who sat through all of Content). But this is not the case with... Read More »
Frayed (or How To Do Dramedy)
One of 2018’s better comedies was the three-part BBC radio series Australian Trilogy, based on Sarah Kendall’s real-life experiences growing up in Newcastle in the 1980s. As a teen, Kendall was an enforced loner, stuck in a traditional but depressed industrial town where anyone different – especially a nerdy redhead girl – was always going... Read More »
Stand up and tell a story
Stand-up is the main route into comedy these days. Try naming a comedian who’s been well known in the past 10 years who didn’t start their career in stand-up. Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney? The Chaser team? Chris Lilley? Sammy J? Adam Zwar? Troy Kinne? It’s a short list*. And one that means that the dominant... Read More »
Extreme re-working: How The Chaser’s Extreme Vetting went from bad idea to good idea in just four episodes
Remember those suggestions that The Chaser would stay with Triple M after Radio Chaser finished up? Well, if by “Triple M” they meant “Austereo’s new podcasting platform Podcast One”, then yes, The Chaser now have a podcast there called Extreme Vetting. What’s it about? Well, it takes Peter Dutton’s new super ministry and the general... Read More »
The Unbelievable Delays
It’s always a bit puzzling when a network goes to the effort of making a brand new comedy show and promotes the fact that they are doing so (i.e. in The Age and the Herald-Sun), and then sticks that show on the shelf for... Read More »