Hard as it might be to believe after his twenty-odd years in the spotlight, The Joy of Sets was Tony Martin’s first lead role in a television show. In fact, every other cast member of The Late Show (where Martin first made a serious TV splash) has more up-front television experience than Tony Martin has.... Read More »
It must be hard to know which way to turn sometimes when you work at the Melbourne Herald-Sun. One day you’re gleefully running columns calling the Prime Minister “Julia-in-wonderland” (Terry McCann, July 13th) and claiming “either we’re smarter than every other country [for installing a carbon tax] or Gillard is dumber than every other leader”... Read More »
If, like us, you're often sceptical of Australian TV comedies then consider this: is it better to give comedy a try and not always succeed, or to give up entirely and just import it? All too often we get defeatist about it and chose the latter, but down that path dangers lies, for history tells us that when there isn't much original, locally-made comedy on TV not only do we get lots of imported shows, but local re-makes of British shows – and is that actually what we... Read More »
The Comedy Channel's first local production for the year premiered on Thursday, a remake of the British panel show You Have Been Watching. Like TV Burp before it, it was a disappointing view if you like the... Read More »
What’s that smell in the air? Why, it’s the AFL Finals – and yet, amazingly, when the public’s eyes drop disinterestedly to the TV listings, they find no trace of Peter Helliar and The Bounce. Which is really kind of strange, because when it got the chop back in April, Seven’s Head of Programming and... Read More »
The White Room is perhaps the most important comedy program you will see this year. Not because it’s any good, or because you’ll get any laughs out of it at all, but because it’s important to be reminded that the only people who make television shows funny are the people who write and perform them.... Read More »
This week sees the last episode of Channel Seven’s sketch series Double Take. Unlike its former stablemate, the Ed Kavalee-hosted TV Burp, there are no calls for a second... Read More »
So farewell then TV Burp, the bought-in British format that could have worked. Some have argued that TV Burp wasn’t good enough to care about but, while it wasn’t the funniest thing ever, it was getting better. It certainly got more praise than its partner show Double Take (admittedly, not difficult), hence Seven swapping the... Read More »
It’s fairly easy to overlook Rove’s stranglehold on Australia comedy at the moment. Even on Ten, Good News Week and Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation aren’t from the Roving Enterprise stable. But Nine has no Australian comedy to speak of, and Seven’s efforts are token at best (Kath & Kim every few years and Thank God... Read More »
One of the rarely mentioned but screamingly obvious factors behind the success of most of the ABC’s local comedy ventures over the last few years is the... Read More »