Chances are you’re not a viewer of the ABC’s Tonightly with Tom Ballard, and for that you need to be given a stern talking to.
Yes, it’s on ABC Comedy – the channel that only exists when ABC Kids finishes and Hoot goes on the night watch – which not everyone can easily get. Yes, it only rates about 50,000 viewers, which would be enough for a commercial network to execute everyone involved. And yes, it makes Communications Minister Mitch Fifield very, very angry because it uses bad words and makes fun of politicians – specifically in this sketch…
It’s also the best thing on television and we here at GOAT freakin’ love it. And so we rejoiced hard at the news that the show has been renewed and will be back in June.
Like all the best comedy – especially ones with a tiny writing team who don’t have the luxury of making a leisurely edit of a first impulse idea – Tonightly isn’t afraid to go with a premise that fails badly, but then they manage something like their genius response to the news that Peter “Send ‘Em To Nauru” Dutton mysteriously reversed deportation orders on two British au pairs illegally working in Australia and has been refusing to give any more details on why he did so…
Comedy is a fine place for getting information out in easy-to-digest ways, and the show does a bang up job of it at a time when the actual news has never been more miserable and fiercely divisive. Australian television – and Australia generally – is a better place for Tonightly.
We’re looking forward to seeing what they do when they return in eight weeks or so with new showrunner Dan “Hungry Beast” Ilic. Even if we’re slightly annoyed that we can’t pinch their writers.
Maybe the ABC could give them a slightly bigger cupboard to film in next season though. That audience member sounds nervous.