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Tag Archives: Chris Lilley

Angry Boys: Australian comedy mockumentary (12 Episodes) that follows 6 people – Identical troublesome teenage twins Nathan and Daniel; a kid’s hip-hop star S.Mouse; mother & manager of American-Japanese skateboarder Jen Okazaki; veteran juvenile prison officer Gran; and former surfing world champion, Blake Oakfield. There’s a 50-50 split between the better and more believable stories/characters (the twins and Gran) and the ridiculous stereotypes of Okazaki and S.Mouse – Blake just feels like filler. Six comedy characters is a large remit for shape-shifting Lilley, but he throws himself into the roles well. Not unlike his previous outings smut and shock provide the most laughs – although every episode only has about one or two proper laughs, and the rest is just ‘funny enough’. It’s also just as politically incorrect, and with a the Asian and Black characters there’s some line-treading racial stereotypes. There’s no real story convergence until the very end and the ‘big finale’ is quite the let down; although would have been almost impossible to execute. Angry boys is entertaining enough to push through the season, but not by much more. The scope of 6 characters and 12 episodes diluted and hid some of great material and characters in the script.

Score: 5.5/10

Summer Heights High: set over the course of a school term this eight episode mockumentary follows three characters; a camp drama teacher, private-school girl on exchange and disruptive Polynesian kid. Not for the P.C crowd, the series constantly throws up jokes about disabilities, gingers, suicide, molestation, drugs, rape… basically, nothing is taboo. There’s some great running gags through the episodes and the characters are all solid, well-resreached / acted & genuinely humorous. Not without is faults the series does start to drag around he 5th/6th episode, some dialogue gets lost in scenes with several people talking or arguing (particularly with the girls) and the majority of the laugh-out-loud parts are crude, relying more on shock. Between the believable way that it’s shot and the harsh content it wouldn’t be too obvious that it was a comedy if you found this channel surfing. The breakdancing ‘Polly’ character (Jonah) and Mr G’s play at the end were my highlights of the show. What ‘Neighbours’ should be like!

Score: 7/10