I WAS really looking forward to Black Comedy (ABC, Wednesday), as all the trailers I'd seen had been great and the stories I'd read about it were very positive.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It's a half-hour comedy series written and acted by Indigenous people.
Some of the first episode was really funny, especially Blakforce, a police team that hunts down and criminalises blacks who are not black enough, like buying Delta Goodrem's albums, not eating KFC and not having a coat hanger on their car for a radio aerial.
Other sketches I found a bit weak.
My trouble was that I was comparing Black Comedy with something I saw many years ago in the 1970s called Basically Black.
It had Indigenous people as the dominant force in Australia and all our customs and way of life were turned upside-down.
As I remember, it was absolutely hilarious.
Okay, perhaps my memory is false, but it was so unusual at the time that I laughed and laughed.
Now we have Legally Brown on SBS, which is a Muslim comedy show, and, in its way, is not unlike Black Comedy.
I'm certainly going to keep watching.
It's just that my expectations were too high.
I WROTE a week or so ago about Salamander, a Belgian police drama where the policeman in question is fighting the whole establishment.
Anyhow, SBS inexplicably stopped playing it on Wednesday at 9.30ish and replaced it with repeats of Fargo.
After much searching I found Salamander at 11am on Monday night, and I'm really cranky with SBS as I missed an episode.
ANOTHER SBS program has caught my eye, Have I Got News For You at 10pm on Friday night.
It is a panel show hosted by British personalities, different ones each time.
There are two permanent panellists and two guests and they hilariously take apart the latest news from all over the world, but Britain dominates.
One of the permanent panellists is Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and the other Paul Merton.
Evidently Have I Got News For You is recorded and broadcast the next night as this gives the BBC lawyers time to go through it with a fine tooth comb as many of the remarks made are very controversial and possibly defamatory.
Everyone who appears on the show is chosen for their wit and verbal dexterity so it's immensely entertaining and, unlike Eggheads, it's not too British to be able to appreciate the subject matter.
