Back in the mid-80’s, some people in the UK came up with an idea for an improvised comedy radio show called Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which was a sort of mash-up of theatre sports and stand-up, inspired by a regular improv night at London club The Comedy Store. Following the radio series, it was... Read More »
It’s been a long time coming, but that Working Dog animated series announced back in 2014 is finally within sight – especially if you’re the kind of person who’s okay with illegal downloads (and we don’t mean the Get This CD): Netflix is amping up its animated slate with a new comedy, “Pacific Heat,” hailing from... Read More »
The second season of Utopia saw it evolve from a sitcom which was mainly about how difficult it is to build infrastructure in this country, to a sitcom about an office in which people find it difficult to build infrastructure in this country…hey check out that subplot about the overzealous plant hire guy! This change... Read More »
Remember when people used to complain that Have You Been Paying Attention? was too scripted? Yeah, because actually writing jokes is a bad thing when you’re trying to be funny. But after the opening segment of their first episode for 2015 it’s time to throw those complaints in the bin, as the combination of actual... Read More »
The fact that the final episode of Utopia involved the Nation Building Authority missing out at an awards night was yet another might big clue that whatever Working Dog were seeking to achieve with this sitcom, a bluntly realistic look at the infrastructure management of this once-great nation probably wasn’t it. (ok, sure; there probably... Read More »
Has anyone put together a program to randomly generate Utopia episodes yet? It shouldn’t be all that hard, going by this list of discussion points we just whipped up: *Malfunctioning office equipment / computer (VERY IMPORTANT) *Interchangeable dialogue for the two ditzy office assistants (though their running jokes don’t overlap – if one is struggling... Read More »
The word “utopia” is defined as "an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect"…and, obviously, in the case of Utopia that’s not quite how things are for the main... Read More »
So last week we went to see the Working Dog play The Speechmaker, and just to make it clear from the start: we’re not regular theatre-goers. Sure, we occasionally visit the theatre district to check out a live performance – usually featuring Shaun Micallef – but it’s fair to say that our knowledge of theatre... Read More »
“Fuck You, Kevin.” And with Ed Kavalee’s joke about the title of Julia Gillard’s forthcoming memoir, we had pretty much the only reason why Have You Been Paying Attention? was airing at 9.30pm. Ok, there was also a rush of jokes about Mick Molloy’s scrotum at around 10.35pm which probably justified the late night timeslot,... Read More »
Working Dog’s much-loved (by us) comedy game show Have You Been Paying Attention? (or HYBPA) tried something a little different last night: they went to air at the usual time (6pm) with the usual episode, then at 10.30pm they ran an extended “after dark” version that was around ten minutes longer. Has society gone mad?... Read More »