Thank The Lord For Season Two

Yes, for all you lovers out there, Thank God You're Here (TGYH) returned to our TV screens here in Australia last night. And all told, it was a great start to a new season.

Possibly the biggest drawbacks were the choice of winner (the weakest of the four, IMHO), and the fact that that judge Tom Gleisner was still there giving Dad Jokes a bad name.

But host Shane Bourne was charming as always. (I guess.)

First up we had our only 'experienced' TGYH patron (best to get him out of the way first so we can concentrate on devouring the other three first-timers properly, etc), Hamish Blake (now of Real Stories fame). Hamish was up to par on his season one work, working in some great one-liners and not being afraid to laugh (or smirk, actually) at his own silly answers. He was a 1950s teenager, collecting his date from her house and having a heart-to-heart with her father. He had some great lines (completely out of context, they were: "Admiral!", "Chat room", "Home run, baby", "Car rag", "Freshen up properly this time!", and "Let's see, what day is it? Tuesday ... Saturday"), but all-in-all I've seen him do better. He seemed to labour the point a bit and purposely deflect questions being asked of him that we wanted to hear him tackle. But certainly a good effort. In the pre-recorded bits, his work at the house auction was most amusing, particularly when he described the style of the back of the house as 'unfinished' ... and as the dentist, he was at the top of his form when he explained that the redness of the gums was known as red gum. (Simple, but very witty.) When he took off his gloves and the boy's mother protested, asking about the hygiene, I thought he missed the perfect opportunity to say he didn't mind, he's had his fingers inside worse mouths before (or something like that, that reversed the audience's expectation of the mother's protest), rather than go for the all-too-predictable rolling of the eyes and telling the boy his mother was uptight or whatever he said.

Next up was Anh Do (pronounced "Arn D'oh"), star of the recently-released Aussie film, Footy Legends (based on the NRL). Apart from constantly losing 'character' (if you can call it that) by breaking into smiles and chuckles (it's fine to do that a bit, but doing it all the time was a little annoying - for me, at least), and probably thinking for too long before saying anything with each line, he was okay. I must say I enjoyed him the least of the four, but he was by no means bad. I enjoyed how much fun he was clearly having. His scene consisted of him playing a head chef in a restaurant where a table of customers have asked to see him so they can complain. From explaining why the food was so bad ("You ordered the cheap stuff!") to reprimanding the customers ("You need bigger glasses"), Anh was able to work his way through the scene in stages. It wasn't as smooth-flowing as I would have hoped, but he did okay (I know I'm going to be roasted for being too harsh, but I guess that's just what I expect after season one). I very much enjoyed his explanation for why the toilets were closed for the winter ("When it's too cold, you risk freezing your bits"), and his fumbled attempt to describe fusion burgers only worked because he credited the loud noise that followed, purportedly from the 'kitchen', as the fusion burgers exploding. His final line to the food critic that she should say, "Even the cheap stuff's good" worked because he drew back to the first part of the scene, but contradicted the customers' experience. Still, I thought it was an okay performance. I saw nothing of note during the pre-recorded sections.

Third cab off the rank was Cal Wilson, the NZ-born comedian of Skithouse fame. I actually preferred Cal's performance the most of the four (and she was the week's token girl!), so felt a little robbed when she didn't win. Perhaps that just means she'll be back another week and has the chance to win again (I hope so). As a game show hostess, she excelled in the role. She was bright, bubbly, smiley and insipid. Her 'Adriana arms' were perfect, and she came up with some hilariously-unsuitable answers for some of the details she was asked to fill in (about the game, the contestants, and the faces on the board). What annoyed me about this scene was the way the actors stuck to their script to the point of 'blocking' (as it's called in the industry), or 'contradicting' (as it's called in real life) the answers she gave. Some of you have commented on this before and how it has irritated you (and how it's not part of Theatresports etiquette), but I haven't really minded before because often it's only been slight examples and it's been done to steer the scene back on course where the jokes are lying in wait. But here it made no difference if the character was an accountant or something else, or if the carry-over champ was celebrating her first wedding anniversary or the first anniversary of her engagement - so why correct her? That just killed the buzz. They should be going with whatever she comes up with (like they did last season), unless what she said really needs to be reeled in for the purposes of the next gag. But in this scene, each correction they gave her made no difference; it was just poor form (and led to Cal saying "That's what I meant" or "I was getting to that" too often, by way of getting back on track ... hearing these comments from her wasn't funny, but I don't blame her). But all that aside, I still enjoyed this scene the most. Describing the prizes up for grabs the way she did (brought to you by "Riobi bikini makers"), declaring the show a strip-based quiz game for wrong answers, and the brilliant fictitious names she gave the TV shows that the apparent famous faces were from ("Breakfast At Noon" - and he looked like he'd be on a show like that, didn't he!" and "Going Away On A Boat" - another perfect example of a silly travel show) was all hilarious stuff. But my favourite would have been the name she gave the man in the duck costume, who was supposed to be a children's entertainment character: Rodney the Fox. In the pre-recorded bit, her explanation that the house had a separate unit out the back that used to be used as a brothel until the family discovered what the eldest daughter was doing was another touch of quick thinking. Her stated experience in Improv was clearly demonstrated, and I thought it was wrong that she didn't win.

Finally we got to see one of my all-time favourites, Tony Martin, embrace his Scene Of Death (TM). You'd all know Tony from The Late Show, but he was also the writer/director of Bad Eggs, co-host of runaway 90s radio show Martin/Molloy, and current host of Triple M's Get This at 9am weekdays (TGYH ensemble cast member Ed Kavalee is his sidekick on Get This). If none of that sounds familiar, he plays the blink-and-you'll-miss-him non-speaking part of Charles 'Bud' Tingwell's son at the end of The Castle. Anyway, he came out wearing a bit of a mish-mosh of clothing, so it was hard to work out what he was doing. But it was harder still for Tony himself, who didn't have his glasses on and said later (and I believe him because he was clearly stumbling around in the scene a bit) that he thought he was on the set of a surfing show. Clearly, it was an MTV-type show, talking about all things teenage like SMS, gaming platforms, musical celebrities, the Internet and so on. Tony may have felt a little ill-at-ease, but he was still a lot of fun to watch. Saying that he'd just been to LA where someone shot at him from a car, reporting that Lenny Kravitz had been arrested for his last three albums, explaining on demand what 'moondogging' was, and saying that Madonna had shocked the world this week by actually wearing clothes were his highlights. Although throwing in an "extremely radical" in a relatively bland-sounding tone made it all the more amusing. His explanation that the text message they showed him (could he even read it?) was the result of someone having a heart attack was fine work, as was his call that the only good thing about anorexia was the money you could save on food. When they asked him what he'd be doing on next week's show, I laughed out loud when he replied, "I'll be doing a bit of Antiques Road Show". During the pre-recorded bits, he was a little hesitant in the dentist scene but still amused me greatly when he said he'd put on his gloves because he'll be making sandwiches a little later. Great stuff.

The group scene consisted of all four participants as Knights of the Round Table, returning to King Arthur to tell him of their various adventures abroad. Given Anh's lacklustre performance in his individual scene (and in the pre-recorded bits), I would have expected more from him here (particularly as Tom had given his usual "It all comes down to the final scene" rubbish - if that were true, Anh would have lost the title for sure with this scene!), but as it was he barely spoke ... and when he did, it was nothing humorous at all. (If you think I'm being unfair, please let me know what he said that was so funny. Like I said earlier, I like the guy and enjoyed his attitude, but as far as witty comments are concerned, I thought he was the fourth best performer on the night. Anh, if you're reading this, don't do a Julia Zemiro - take this in the spirit it's intended. I mean you no harm.) Hamish made a joke that sounded suspiciously like one he (or someone else perhaps) made last season in relation to Fifi Box or another of the female guests in Viking gear or priest gear or something else; that line being, "A spell that made the rest of us very happy indeed," referring to Cal's gender being magically reversed by Merlin. Cal herself was good value in this scene, as was Tony (who was clearly more comfortable wearing his glasses, even if they didn't suit the time period).

When it was all said and done, this was another great hour of top laughs and amusing mayhem that I thoroughly enjoyed watching (just like I always do). It's great to have the show back on our screens so soon after season one, and I very much look forward to seeing who all the special guests will be in the coming weeks.

You can watch Anh Do's chef scene for yourself here.


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