Wednesday, February 09, 2011

DVD review – “The Olden Days/Bargearse” (2005) ****1/2

This holds up incredibly well –although I’m not that surprised after listening to the audio commentary and finding out how much work Tony Martin put into this. Months of it apparently – I’m surprised they had time to work on other sections of the show (a possible clue, Martin makes a joke about Tom Gleisner writing about 80% of The Late Show).
It’s a brilliant, hilarious take on two old Aussie TV shows, Rush and Bluey – neither of which the D Gen were a particular fan, but the vision suited their purposes (old, over the top, involved using people in uniforms so episodes could be cut around; apparently two other shows which were considered were Truckies starring John Wood, but it wasn’t visual enough, and The Young Doctors, which was eventually vetoed by Grundys who thought they might get another re-rerun out of the show).
They actually try to tell stories within the episodes, which made it hard work but which pays off excellently. “The Olden Days” is superb, with my favourite bits including the “South Pacific” sequence. But I think “Bargearse” is better because it more obviously revolves around the one character, whereas "Olden Days" is split between the army officer and the John Waters cop. "Bargearse" is also in colour, benefits from a hilarious concept anyway (Lucky Grills as a cop), and has Judith Lucy and Rob Stitch doing main roles on voices.

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