It’s not too often that Australian television dishes out new musicals, though recent titles include the Aids crisis-themed In Our Blood and the superb psych ward-set drama Wakefield. But the musical parody genre is an even rarer beast, musicalising unexpected subjects such as the housing crisis – in SBS’s short and zippy comedy Time to Buy: A Musical – and now, in the ABC’s six-part series Australian Epic, a collection of “Australia’s most defining stories”.
Here that rather loose criteria essentially means stories the writers – Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen of the comedy group the Chaser – felt were ripe for satire (albeit of a rather toothless kind; the first couple of episodes in particular play more like musical celebration). Part of the joke is the choice of topics: nobody would seriously suggest that the marriage of Mary Elizabeth Donaldson to Frederik, the Crown Prince of Denmark (the subject of episode two), was one of our most defining moments.
Ditto for the unlikely success of the ice skater Steven Bradbury, who won a gold medal in 2002 after all his competitors fell over (episode one). And double ditto for Melbourne’s ill-fated 120-metre-high ferris wheel (episode four). The remaining episodes cover the furore surrounding the arrival in Australia of Pistol and Boo, Johnny Depp’s dogs (episode three); the conviction of Schapelle Corby (episode five); and, in the only really interesting and dangerous choice, the sad debacle of the Tampa affair, including how the then prime minister, John Howard, exploited it.
Adapting a format that originated in Norway, the series’ central gimmick involves intercutting musical numbers with a standard talking heads documentary. Tune in when interviewees are talking and it will look like just another rote TV doco; a minute later there will be singing and dancing and all sorts of zaniness. The first episode begins in standard doco form, with Bradbury and his family reflecting on his upbringing before the director, Max Miller (who helmed Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café and Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun), suddenly launches into musical mode.
I prefer how the second opens: by prioritising the musical elements, which are what makes the series special. The staging in this episode is more adventurous than the first, with an unexpectedly impressive element: a fabulously swinging song presented in monochrome, and performed with great panache by Phoenix Jackson Mendoza as Donaldson, banging on about her desire to leave Australia and scale up in the world (because “Newcastle isn’t New York” and “Toowoomba’s no Time Square”). That number is infinitely better than an excruciating track in episode three featuring a dog groomer singing in unison with puppet versions of Pistol and Boo; the only thought my brain could process was “make it stop!”.
Australian Epic creeps into bolder territory in the Corby episode, which is still very silly, though you can feel the topic giving the show a riskier energy. This energy spills into the finale, which tasks the creators with saying something funny about the Tampa incident, requiring them to get their targets right and make interesting choices. These include casting the Australian-born Chinese actor Fiona Choi as Howard (conveniently caricaturable, with those big bushy eyebrows) and staging a penultimate musical number that sadly rings true: about how New Zealand – where 208 of the asylum seekers onboard Tampa were resettled – is “just like Australia … but with a heart”.
Making this the final episode makes sense; perhaps the producers believed audiences needed to warm up to it. If the series had been made during the original era of the Chaser, in the early 2000s, it surely would have been louder and bolder; instead, much of Australian Epic’s humour pokes at the idea of Australia as a kind of wannabe western nation stranded in nowhere (OK, kind of true), rather than having more particular and pointed things to say.
It wouldn’t be easy to make a musical parody that comes across as effortless – but this show feels as though it’s trying very hard. Sometimes the results are bubbly and fun, enlivening the moth-eaten documentary format; sometimes the songs make you want to run for the hills; most of the time it’s boisterous entertainment that feels a little empty. An eclectic mix.
Australian Epic premieres on Wednesday 8 November at 9pm on the ABC
