Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth

In 2009 I was asked to audition by FremantleMedia Australia, for a new sketch comedy TV show. I should have smelled a rat. When I read the scripts for the audition I thought they were probably first drafts, roughed out by the writers for the actors to have something to work with. They weren't very sophisticated. I was a little concerned about what this show would be like. I had made Comedy Inc and Double Take with this company, that is, I had done enough sketch comedy with FremantleMedia for them to be reasonably assured of my abilities. Regardless, I auditioned.
Meeting Ben Elton was the most nerve-wracking element of the process. This man came with a reputation for contributing to some of the most important comedy of my generation. Then I learned he had written all the scripts and that he would be writing all of the scripts for the show himself. I began to worry, but I thought it best to keep my concerns to myself... you never know, don't count your chickens, etc... Besides, I was working with old friends, FremantleMedia, and Jason Stephens, my old mate from Laminex on the Rocks, our uni revue of 1987. Besides that, I needed the work.
In the end, I was right to worry. Things didn't turn out too well on Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth.
Meeting Ben Elton was the most nerve-wracking element of the process. This man came with a reputation for contributing to some of the most important comedy of my generation. Then I learned he had written all the scripts and that he would be writing all of the scripts for the show himself. I began to worry, but I thought it best to keep my concerns to myself... you never know, don't count your chickens, etc... Besides, I was working with old friends, FremantleMedia, and Jason Stephens, my old mate from Laminex on the Rocks, our uni revue of 1987. Besides that, I needed the work.
In the end, I was right to worry. Things didn't turn out too well on Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth.

The cast were lovely. Many new people, all very talented, and more women than men, which I thought was great. Genevieve Morris, from Comedy Inc, was on board, playing an interviewer character called Elaine Front, and she was lucky in that she could control the material in her sketches by writing questions herself and, of course, improvising.
Unfortunately, those audition scripts I was concerned about ended up being the exact ones we performed in the first episode - no second draft! It was hard to work out what the target of the satire was, or whom, or why they were being targeted. Big problems to solve for a live satirical character-based sketch comedy show.
I was fortunate (and I got the feeling I should count my lucky stars) that I was allowed to impersonate then-PM Julia Gillard, who had not that long been in the top job. (I mention this only so as to skite about the fact I've played every PM since John Howard on TV (including Tony Abbott) . So there. It's the little things that get an ageing thespian through...)
The show lasted two episodes. We were contracted for six episodes, to be paid even if the show was cancelled. We have never been paid out. Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth may have been the first sketch comedy show to be killed by Twitter. The condemnation was intense in what was then a relatively new social media platform. But was it justified? Maybe.
Unfortunately, those audition scripts I was concerned about ended up being the exact ones we performed in the first episode - no second draft! It was hard to work out what the target of the satire was, or whom, or why they were being targeted. Big problems to solve for a live satirical character-based sketch comedy show.
I was fortunate (and I got the feeling I should count my lucky stars) that I was allowed to impersonate then-PM Julia Gillard, who had not that long been in the top job. (I mention this only so as to skite about the fact I've played every PM since John Howard on TV (including Tony Abbott) . So there. It's the little things that get an ageing thespian through...)
The show lasted two episodes. We were contracted for six episodes, to be paid even if the show was cancelled. We have never been paid out. Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth may have been the first sketch comedy show to be killed by Twitter. The condemnation was intense in what was then a relatively new social media platform. But was it justified? Maybe.