TV

Does ‘Open Slather’ Mean We’re Ready For The Return Of Australian Sketch Comedy?

This new show was Foxtel's highest-rating series premiere ever -- and it's definitely not as bad as it looks.

by Garry Westmore  5 June 2015

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When billboards and posters starting popping up for Foxtel’s new sketch comedy show Open Slather, I can’t say I was excited. Seeing Shane Jacobsen and Stephen Curry dressed as priests, Glenn Robbins in a Superman costume, and Magda Szubanski as Gina Rinehart didn’t exactly inspire confidence. And, even when I saw that these sacred cows of comedy were joined by Kath & Kim‘s Gina Riley and Jane Turner, I was fairly certain Open Slather would be another ill-fated and unfunny Aussie sketch show.

It was surprising then to hear that Open Slather reigned in Foxtel’s biggest-ever audience for a debut show. Its premiere on May 24 racked up an average of 250,000 viewers and that’s not even including the people who watched on the Comedy Channel’s website, or the thousands of views on YouTube.

Even more surprising: it’s not actually that bad.

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The Good, The Bad And The Meh

For a 45-minute show Open Slather is quite fiercely paced. With everything sitting between one and three minutes, sketches that don’t work aren’t as grating because they’re over as soon as they’ve begun, and the good ones aren’t ruined through bleeding the joke dry. Though Foxtel’s marketing campaign gave the impression the show would just be poking fun at pop culture icons, prominent figures, and TV shows, it actually has a bit more variety too.

The best sketch of the premiere was about a verbose medieval army leader challenged to simplify his speeches. It isn’t ground-breaking in its setup, but it’s well-written, well-performed, and to the point. And, even when the targets are predictable, the piss-takes work really well. See: an existential take on Masterchef, a simple idea about The Slap, and 60 Minutes — where the “stop the boats” furore is about has-been foreign celebrities sneaking into the country to become talent show judges.

Others sketches such as a satire of Downton Abbey and Man vs Wild just scrape by, and there are predictably some that bomb; the ever-dependable Gina Riley’s creation, Gina Rileyano (based on The Real Housewives of Melbourne’s Gina Liano) unfortunately amongst them.

Episode two provided more of the same, ranging from the clever (Game of Thrones characters on Family Feud) the kind of funny (the Serious Face Football Show) to the unremarkable (a sketch about family bumper stickers).

But that’s the nature of this kind of comedy; you can’t win them all. As the great Tina Fey once said, “They’re called sketches for a reason. They’re not called oil paintings. Some of them are going to stink. You have to let them stink.”

Fortunately, the team behind Open Slather seem smart enough to get the balance right and the variety isn’t just in the content. Counter to what the advertisements may lead you to believe, the show benefits from not leaning too heavily on the familiar faces of Curry, Robbins, Riley or Turner. Instead they’re complemented with energetic newcomers like Holly Austin and George H. Xanthis who often steal the show, lighting up certain sketches with confident comedic delivery. With such a big cast, you rarely see the same performer more than three times in an episode, with old-hand Michael Veitch barely featuring in the series opener at all.

Another thing Open Slather has going for it is some great production value. It’s well shot, the costumes are fantastic, and locations and sets don’t leave anything to be desired.

Workin’ with that sweet Foxtel money.

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Could This Be The Start Of Something?

The fact that Open Slather pulled in good numbers doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a runaway success; in fact, ratings dropped significantly between the first and second episode, from a healthy 250,000 to a not so impressive 131,000. You could infer from those figures that people were intrigued by the show, ready to give sketch comedy another go, but perhaps didn’t like it enough to come back for a second viewing. Still, 131,000 viewers is nothing to sneeze at, and the positive feedback on social media suggests there’s still a market for it.

It will be interesting to see where Open Slather goes from here: will Foxtel pull the plug if the ratings don’t hold? Could we have another Let Loose Live or Ben Elton: Live From Planet Earth on our hands? Maybe it’ll carve out a couple of seasons like Skithouse or The Wedge, before fading into obscurity? Open Slather so far, seems to be a cut above those shows, but it’s still early days. Some will love it, some will hate, and many will be indifferent.

The problem is sketch is so subjective, perhaps even more so than other forms of comedy. And when it comes to those shows from the so-called halcyon days of Australian sketch comedy like Fast Forward, Full Frontal or The Comedy Company, we all seem to have a selective memory — for every memorable character and classic sketch there were twice as many terrible ones. With sketch comedy you have to take the good with the bad, and even the most successful shows like Saturday Night Live would have lowlights reels hours longer than any highlights compilation.

Perhaps we need to bear that in mind when critiquing Open Slather. It’s by no means perfect but there are some seriously smart, funny people involved in the writing and performance of the show; the very fact it’s here and has started relatively well is a good thing for fans of sketch comedy and fans of Australian comedy in general. It would be unfair to pin the whole fate of Australian sketch on Open Slather and those involved, but there’s certainly a sense that viewers — and not just Foxtel viewers — might be ready to give it a shot once more.

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Open Slather screens at 7.30pm Sundays on The Comedy Channel.

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Garry Westmore is a Melbourne-based educator, freelancer and Film Editor of Spook. You can find him on twitter @GarryWestmore.