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Creativity starves insanity
Set up for nationalities is enough for a paltry joke, and it's one that doesn't really eventuate. Thankfully. Three of the four guests plug their wares, DVD for two and one on the radio. Two freak on with what could possibly pass for LEGO style hair cuts, skull fitting and round.
Forty-two seconds is all it takes for the first guest player to dress up, rushing at the collar before the first door.
Tahir Biljic as a thoughtless husband is away outright from hostility and favours choice sly lines. Gathering steam, the roll into the segment is promising save for the lower end as it drops a beat and loses focus. Still, even with that infraction, it starts the night off well and in a tone of up.
Flashman is Tony Martin, a caped crusader who looks quite the pensioner he battles as his archenemy. Stings on the jab at John Howard, a pin hole assassin's shot with the acuity of a sense of humour. Throwing him out, the side cast actually includes one Mrs Jenkins, his sidekick and though there may be no hope of a flourishing superhero career, it's hilarious watching it burn.
Cooking with table not sea salts, the four are hitting the kitchen skills with Ann-Maree Biggar on 9am with David and Kim. Defence is up and the guards are working a bit with Arj Barker sniffing silly on the white powder. Food? Cooks? No plates are seen and it's a hungry lunch for those bating with utensils.
Cal Wilson frocks up for an appearance on the Miss Universe competition as Miss Caicos. An accent pops out of nowhere and carries a lot of the game. Alan Fletcher, Kimberly Davies and Matt Welsh pop on as the beauty pageant judges. Infectious with a smile that appears at once delirious and malicious, the Wilson act is bubbly sharp.
Laid back to the point of stoner acid jeans, Arj Barker in a share house works the Californian in him to deliver lines with a calm seemingly second nature. Stylistically, it's a guarded shot without any real ill will, keeping the spirit clean for the most part. For the most part that is.
On the set of a sequel to a particular picnic at Hanging Rock, it's a Wilson and Barker show. Their misdirection and digressions overshadowing the rest of the cast to the point of painting new legs on a white horse.
A reunion special brings the four, on a show that dregs the past for the good of killing time. Evasive and extremely wary, the play up in this fact and walk about with crushed eggs underfoot. The wind is gone for the most part when they break into the fictional theme song, a wincing send off that delivers the curiousness all the way to the end.
Wilson's manic and maniacal turn as a throat gunning Miss Universe contestant sashays her way across to pick up the prize door.
Soon Van - Thursday, 19 October 2006 - 11:36
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