For a man so consistently hilarious, it’s a little surprising that Shaun Micallef has never quite cracked the secret of sitcom success. Welcher & Welcher has its defenders – ironically, they don’t include Micallef himself – but it’s generally seen as more miss than hit, while the first season of The Ex-PM never really scaled... Read More »
Comedy isn’t a competition, but there’s only so many hours in a day so why settle for second best? Hackneyed writers spouting cliches we may very well be, but even we can recognise that Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell is the best Australian comedy of the year. Again. Do we even need to write a... Read More »
Okay, so Mad as Hell is back and it’s as brilliant as ever. What more do you need to know? The first episode back seemed slightly more desk-focused than previously – it felt like around ten minutes of Shaun talking before they cut to something else – but when the material’s this good who cares?... Read More »
What is there to say as we wave goodbye to another year of Mad as Hell that we haven’t said at least four times before? Much as we’d prefer to have Micallef end each season with a Charlie Pickering-like threat of a guaranteed return, the fact that each series of Mad as Hell could be... Read More »
Over the last decade or so, Australia has failed to develop an international – or even local – reputation for quality cinematic comedy. Could Down Under be the film to change that? Has Australian comedy finally moved beyond ethnic stereotypes and bogans doing stupid shit? Oh well, there’s always cutting edge comedy on the small... Read More »
Shaun Micallef’s The Ex-PM finished up last week, going out the way it lived – as a half hour sitcom. Which made it a bit of an oddity on Australian television in 2015, as the days when the ABC’s head of scripted comedy was willing to make (or with the funding to make) sitcoms that... Read More »
Recent episodes of The Ex-PM have seen a shift away from plots which rely on the audience believing that Andrew Dugdale was once Prime Minister (as we pointed out in our first review of the series, this is difficult), to plots which rely on the audience believing that Andrew Dugdale is some guy who’s very... Read More »
It’s hard to believe that Andrew Dugdale was ever put in charge of anything, let alone this country, but that’s the premise of The Ex-PM, the new ABC sitcom written by and starring Shaun Micallef. Once upon a time Andrew Dugdale (Micallef) had a popularity rating of 76%, which saw him win four elections and... Read More »
Once again the internet was flooded with an outpouring of grief at the news that the current series of Shaun Micallef is Mad as Hell will be the last. Well, a few people mentioned it. To us at least. Fortunately this seemed based largely on Micallef ending the series pretty much the same way as... Read More »
Over twenty four hours later and we’re still trying to get our heads around this: I just remembered that I don't work with Shaun Micallef and other people who aren't me do. Deeply depressed. — Ben Pobjie (@benpobjie) March 28, 2015 In case you don’t know, Ben Pobjie is a professional, five-day-a-week-TV critic in the... Read More »