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Summer is here

Chris Lilley in Summer Heights High
  • Posted at 2:45pm
  • 31 July 2008
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 1 comment

So summer is here, which usually in TV terms means "get out your boxed sets because there's nothing worth watching on proper telly". I have taken my own advice and am currently wallowing in mini DVD marathons of the lush Mad Men, the best drama of the year so far (with Damages a very close second) and 30 Rock (the finest US comedy since Frasier).

But I haven't given up hope. DVDs are all very well, but they can't possibly replicate the sense of community fostered by the shared enjoyment of "real-time" TV. And all is not lost because for those of us who aren't heading to gîtes in the south of France, for those of us who stay behind to make sure the wheels keep turning while everyone else goes on holiday, television still holds some delights.

Like Bonekickers (Tuesdays, BBC1). Yes, it might be the biggest turkey since The Borgias, but that doesn't mean it isn't sensationally funny and absolutely unmissable in ways that I'm sure creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah never intended.

There's even a little knot of us at RT who meet every Wednesday morning for Bonekickers' debriefings - extensive and minute discussions of its cavern-sized plot holes and dialogue that sounds as if it's not so much been written, but knitted with string.

It's been a good summer so far for comedy, too. I'm quite prepared to be the only person in the world who feels a certain warmth towards the broad and silly Lab Rats (Thursdays, BBC2) but I know I'm not the only person in the world who loves Summer Heights High (the series has ended on BBC3, but there are back-to-back re-runs of all six episodes on BBC3 on Saturday 2 August).

Comedian Chris Lilley, Summer Heights High's writer/creator, has produced a near-masterpiece of acute social observation and pure comedy. The show is set entirely in an Australian high school, with Lilley playing three roles - the self-obsessed Ja'mie, the insufferable drama teacher "Mr G" and angry, illiterate Jonah.

It's wildly and gloriously un-politically correct and shot in the style of an observational documentary series as Mr G stages what turns out to be a really, really terrible musical about the dangers of drugs, which I cannot get out of my head (sample lyric: "she's a naughty girl with a bad habit, a bad habit for drugs!'); Ja'mie organises a "formal" (an end of term dance) and poor Jonah continuously lashes out in anger and ignorance. It's brilliant.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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  • Posted on 06 August 2008
  • at 1:01pm
  • by Ionaclio

I must admit with "Summer" being here I have foresaken the telly for some excellent radio. The PROMS this year have been fantastic...not enough television coverage though.

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