Miss (you) Melbourne meets The Nation

Now I understand why all the funny women are missing from our television screens. It's because Janet McLeod has them all holed up in Trades Hall entertaining swarms of Melbourne comedy lovers.

McLeod received a $15,000 arts grant from the Melbourne City Council to produce Miss (You) Melbourne, an 11-night series of evenings featuring fantastic female comics talking about their experiences of life in Melbourne.

The production features a revolving cast of female comedians and tonight's line-up included:

Tanya Lossano

Terri Psiakis

Geraldine Quinn

Corinne Grant

Sue-Ann Post

Man, that Janet McLeod knows how to throw a party. There's a home-made art installation in the foyer, Janet greets you at the door looking all Melbourne-glamour-goth fantastic in a red corset and patent-leather lace-up boots and before the show officially kicks off Janet warms up the crowd with a quick game of heads and tails and a door prize of a block of chocolate and a hand-knitted pink donut crafted by McLeod's mother. The show begins with McLeod's quirky multimedia presentation and then we're straight into five 15 minute stand-up routines.

The audience was certainly diverse with young Fitzroy coolsies in funky-spex, bookish couples in cardigans mixing it up with middle-aged mums on a girls' night out and father and son man-dates. But wherever they came from, or whatever their leanings this audience lapped it all up. There were no flat spots in the whole evening and some excellent material from Lossano and Quinn. Although if you had to single out one stand-out performance it would have to be from Corinne Grant who had the crowd in hysterics as she recounted her introduction to Melbourne as a wide-eyed work-experience kid. We could really use her back on our telly screens.

So while McLeod is celebrating Melbourne and women and comedy and hosting a bloody good night out - over at Channel Nine Mick Molloy is struggling on with The Nation and still not listening to the reams of advice I have left for him on this blog. The outrage!

If you want to go back to the 1960's just check out the sporting segment on Episode 4 of The Nation. There's some chatter about sport but even better you get to see tennis player Maria Sharapova rolling in the sand in a bikini and some nudie shots from US swimmer Amanda Beard's Playboy shoot.

I got two laughs during Molloy's show and neither of them involved Molloy - there was Gary Eck doing a stand-up routine in character as a death-row inmate and actually Akmal pulled out a few good ones in his chat at the desk.

After seeing a show like Miss (You) Melbourne that's full of energy, talent, excitement and laughs it just makes me feel that The Nation is a really just a lazy, lacklustre effort that promised to be so much more.

Sorry but MS Paint just keeps pulling me back...

Apologies

It is true that my recent shenanigans with MS Paint have been nothing but immature and ridiculous. But it was fun.

Proper blogging returns tomorrow with reviews and interviews and all things grown-up.

Does the Beard Maketh the Mirth?

UK comedian Daniel Kitson has had a long-standing dislike for The Age's backpage dirt-dishers, Diary. Rumour has it that it all started when Suzanne Carbone approached Kitson to chat about an article she was writing about comedians with beards. Or funny beards. Or men having fun with beards.

Perhaps it was part of a series linking humour to hair? Later columns were to look at the power of laughter when linked to baldness, brazilian waxes and troll dolls.

I never read the article. Maybe it was never written. I can only try and recreate it visually here and test Carbone's theory that men with beards are funny.


First sample: Daniel Kitson

"I ate your thesaurus and all I got was this voluminous vocabulary and
perspicacious wit!"

So far, so good. Let's test it again with the thinking latte-sipping left-leaning woman's sexy-man and former bed-pimp, Rod Quantock.

Hey, Rod Quantock certainly supports Carbone's theory.

Let's give philosophical carrot-lover Dave Callan a crack.

Don't mind if I do Dave.

But wait, what if the beard is worn by a man who ISN'T a fully-fledged comedian? Will he still be funny?

ABC 774 broadcaster Jon Faine slides into the test tube. He is a man with a beard after all.

Hmmmm, he has his moments but he kind of lost me at the "Take my mother-in-law..." bit.



Alright, so what happens if you add a beard to someone not renowned for their wit? Does he instantly become funny?

"I’ve never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I’ve
never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument."

"I'd like to be seen as an average Australian bloke. I can't think of... I can't
think of a nobler description of anybody than to be called an average Australian
bloke."

"We won't just automatically click our heels and follow the Americans."

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhh, my sides just split!

Never seen in the same place at the same time...

Possibly separated at birth?

The Chaser's Chas Licciardello and Australian Idol microphone-tapper [no pun intended] Anthony Callea.

Oh well, it could be worse...

Our Work is Done

Yes, yes, yes I have been harping on for weeks here, here, here and here about blokey television and the lack of funny women on air.

Finally the mainstream media have decided to have something to say about it too. And all three of them in less than a week.

Read Melinda Houston's piece in The Sunday Age here.

Read Catherine Deveny's op-ed rant here.

Read Marieke Hardy's take on it here.

Dead Man Walking - The Nation Episode Three

Episode Three of Mick Molloy's The Nation was close to the most depressing hour of Australian television I've ever seen. There was a complete air of failure and everything about it seemed forced. Even Mick Molloy acted like the show was already axed with chatter about dismal ratings with guest Peter Rowsthorn. If this is the show that Mick Molloy wanted to make and thinks is good television then I'm afraid to say, this guy has lost it. I can't even be bothered giving you a run through, just trust me, this show has 2 more eps - tops.

The Nation - Episode 2

After what I have already had to say here and here and here and here I thought you would be sick of reading my thoughts on Mick Molloy's intriguing mish-mash The Nation. But judging from the stats - I was clearly wrong.

So you want to know what I thought of episode 2?


I thought it was a slight improvement but still has a long way to go. Perhaps this is best said in pictures.













Welll do you girls?













If the dismal ratings and varied reactions are anything to go by then some changes need to be made. Otherwise it's off to the crap heap with Libbi Gore and her plastically enhanced mates from The Catch-Up.





So what would I do differently?

• Never sign on all the talent at the start. Remember when The Panel started? They had a six-seater desk and a set panel. It didn't take long for them to realise that five was better than six and that a revolving panel worked better. Then they could keep the same formula but freshen it up each week with some changing faces. Obviously you have a regular crew but you share it around - like they do with Thank God You're Here. So instead of having Akmal sitting at the desk each week - have someone different. There are absolutely heaps of amazing, talented, local comedians out there - bring them on. People who don't like Akmal are already tuning out but if next week Greg Fleet or Denise Scott or Cal Wilson is going to be doing the desk chat and the punter likes him/her - they're back.



• If you're going to do vox pops do them well - not some pathetic poor imitation of something The Chaser boys might have done.



• Don't disrespect your female audience. Please. Hire some more writers. Hire some female ones. Lose the Ralph TV ads. Don't have hot young ladies fluffing about and average-looking forty-something blokes providing the funny. It doesn't wash. I mean this with no disrespect at all to Nikki Osborne, Tiffany Cherry and Jackie O. They are three fine looking ladies who all have some talent. But what are they required to do? Honestly, Osborne has brought absolutely nothing to this show - maybe she's tried but the Molloy Boys can't see her doing anything other than copping a feel from Calleja in an ordinary sketch?



• Lose the sport and entertainment bits. If people really want to know about this they don't want to see it here. The entertainment segment is nothing more than an opportunity to talk about Hollywood startlet trainwrecks and if we want to know about this sort of stuff we'll just log onto one of the many, many websites covering it.



• How about using some more local talent with a vox pop/video segment? Did you see Lawrence Leung's show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival? You should have. He has a couple of hilarious short video segments that include him trying some awkward pick-up techniques on the ladies and also doing some excellent breakdancing in a local competition. Use him. Get some other local talent to try their hand at it too.



• Mick Molloy - make a show you want to watch. I don't think you are. You are making a show you think people want to watch. But they don't. Trust your gut mate. It's big enough.

Finally I would like to leave you with this thought. A certain broadcaster thinks Mick Molloy would be more comfortable dressed as a dog. What do you think?