Laura Imbruglia’s New Webseries ‘Amateur Hour’ Brings Back The Australian Variety Show
Variety shows used to dominate Australian TV, but now they're almost non-existent. What gives?
Much like white dog poo, Australian variety shows were a big part of many of our lives growing up, but are now mysteriously elusive. The Don Lane Show, The Graham Kennedy Show, Recovery, Rove, The Eric Bana Show Live: (!) so many homegrown variety shows have hat-tipped off into the sunset, with nothing to replace them. Having run for almost three decades, Hey Hey It’s Saturday did try for a revival in 2009 but found viewers were no longer receptive to their “retro” style “humour”.
When you’re left pining for the comic stylings of Hey Hey (pre-Jackson Jive, of course), you know something’s not right. For Melbourne-based musician Laura Imbruglia, it was the lack of current locally made variety shows that got her feeling nostalgic.
“Australia was great at variety and music shows when I was growing up in the ’90s,” she recalls. “The shows that I loved were Recovery, and even Hey Hey It’s Saturday to a degree. I didn’t love it, but my family was like The Castle family. Dad would really be obsessed with watching Hey Hey ―he taped the finale.”
“I even watched reruns of The Don Lane Show, which I watched in high school because Mum and Dad remembered it. I also used to like Liquid Television, which was on SBS and really strange, with manga cartoons and just weird stuff.”
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Feeling “a bit flat about music and not inspired to rush into the next album”, Laura decided to instead direct her time and energy into creating her very own arts and culture variety show. She’d been encouraged by a film maker friend to pitch an idea for one, but at the time that sounded like more work than just going ahead and making it.
Having endured some painful TV appearances herself (including a scattered host who called her “Natalie” on air), she was keen to give musicians a platform beyond the usual tour/album spruik.
“If there’s a band touring, they just want the lead singer and an acoustic guitar. It’s not a representation of the band at all and it’s a tired formula. I knew that that could be improved on, having been through the rounds myself as a musician,” she says.
“I hadn’t seen anything good for years, so I was like ‘I know even I could do better then some of the shit that gets pumped out’. I just wanted to try it my own way and see if I’d have any more luck.”
Amateur Hour was hatched as “Wayne’s World crossed with Recovery crossed with SNL”. Laura recruited friends and strangers through both her personal and musician Facebook pages, throwing her cards on the table by admitting that she had “no idea what I’m doing, but it should be fun”. A mix of experienced crew and newbies assembled to work on the 30 minute, six episode pilot season over the Christmas break.
She had an “intense feeling of comfort and support” after her call-out for help she says. “So many people put their hands up (to mix bands, design, run errands, organise things) and when we had our private launch party it was a really special vibe in the room. I sound like a hippie.”
Made for less than $1000 (which can’t even buy you a Franco Cozzo bedroom suite) and the sweat of volunteers paid in sandwiches, Amateur Hour went live last month. The six fortnightly episodes are packed full of chaotic fun and feature such guest appearances as Sarah Blasko, Teeth & Tongue, Neil Hamburger, Clementine Ford and Signor Cozzo himself.
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As well as the stress of passing deadlines, dwindling funds and possible RSI from hours of sanga making, Laura also had to deal with onscreen nerves. Having acted when she was younger, it was playing the role of interviewer which made her feel uncomfortable.
“It’s pretty scary if you’ve never interviewed someone before and you’re interviewing peers,” she says. “The first two shoots were just so full on and scary, but then it became less stressful. I just told the people I was interviewing that it wasn’t going to be heavily promotional, it was going to be more like a chat and that it was probably going to be slightly awkward, cos I’m awkward.”
As well as having different bands and comedians appear each episode, there are regular segments such as LJ’s Lazy Guide To Health and Memories With Ray, hosted by musicians Laura Jean and Ray Ahn from the Hard-Ons.
“They’re both friends of mine. Laura is from the same part of NSW that I’m from, and I worked with Ray in a metal record shop in Sydney. I knew he was really funny and I’d seen him do lots of caricatures at work of annoying customers and workmates or whatever and he’d do it very quickly.”
That’s very Hey Hey.
“It is! Oh I didn’t even think about that. There you go, it just creeps in.”
The mesmerising ‘Cats!’ segment is also a show staple, created by guitarist Ben Salter. “He wanted to either review video games, or talk about cricket, or do something with cats―that was his list of things,” says Laura. “I hate cricket and I don’t care about video games, so I was like okay, I think you should just interview cats.”
Episode 3 was uploaded earlier in the week, and with three episodes still to come, Laura’s hoping that the show will continue past the pilot season. With a Go Fund Me page set up, Laura says she’ll need more help to keep the show going. “It’s so much work. I don’t have a social life at the moment, I just sit in front of the computer editing.”
With Amateur Hour giving local talent a platform that’d previously been missing, Laura wants viewers to feel inspired to support Australian artists, as well as perhaps create their own art. “I hope people get the feeling that Australia can do better, and do more for arts visibility,” she says.
“I also hope we leave them with the knowledge that they can do anything they set their minds to, provided they have something to be passionate about and like-minded people to join them.”
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Samantha Allemann is a Melbourne based writer, educational content developer, sometime radio announcer, occasional Tweeter and frequent cat cuddler. She once propositioned Joey Jeremiah, but she doesn’t like to talk about that.
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Feature image by Carbie Warbie.