Really fucking funny

This article first appeared in the Age on September 18, 2004

I had dutifully watched three episodes of Hustle, two episodes of Cracker, and sat down to write a themed piece on crime shows on ABC weekend television when SBS sent me an episode of Steve Abbot's In Siberia Tonight (Thursday, 10.00p.m). Finally, I have found a tonight show that I can love and call my own - though it is more like being caught in a beach house in the rain and having to make your own fun, than a tonight show.

You might know Steve as his alter ego, Sandman. He describes himself as a puffy Dame Edna, and that's nor far wrong, though to my mind he's funnier. In Siberia Tonight features celebrity and non-celebrity interviews and a very weird weekly segment called 'The Family Eisteddfod', in which several generations of a family unite to make a 'musical presentation' in competition with other family groups. The studio 'band' is 18-year-old Marcello Maio on his piano accordion. If the pseudo credits are to be believed, the choreography is by Jim Whaley and there is additional humour by Carla Zampatti. Last week the entertainment came all the way from the Moulin Rouge in Paris with the Doriss Girls and the Rippel Brothers. This week we can expect 'Dogs Die in Hot Cars', a band from Scotland. Steve's mum, Evelyn, runs a weekly segment called "Teaching My Son How To Cook". Last week her Russian pancakes didn't work out so well and Steve became concerned that the segment was the least riveting piece of television he'd ever been involved in. I beg to differ. You only have to watch Evelyn for 60 seconds to see why her son is so funny.

It's a bit like a relaxed, Siberian version of The Kumars at No. 42. And let me reassure you that the humor is not at the expense of its guests as is the way with so much comedy these days. Steve Abbott loves these people. And by the end of In Siberia Tonight, so will you.

Perhaps I was so easily distracted from my original column because Hustle (ABC, Sunday, 8.30pm) is such a case of style over content. The show follows the exploits and fortunes of a group of con artists on the streets of London and is produced by the makers of that terrific show, Spooks. The cast is promising and includes Adrian Lester, Marc Warren and Robert Vaughn. Warren, in particular, is a real talent. Hustle looks fantastic though the credits are clearly rip off of the extremely fine credit sequence from Oceans Eleven, a film that has inspired this series. (So much so that, appalingly, the ABC has morphed photos of stars from that film - George Clooney, Brad Pitt - into the ads for Hustle). Indeed many scenes in Hustle that at first seem innovative are simply a case of canny derivation.

In the first episode Mickey Stone (Lester), master of the long con, pulls together his old gang for one final score. Stone is insistent that you can only rip off a greedy man, which is one way of ensuring he, and his team, remain loveable. He also decides to test the loyalty of the gang's newest recruit, Danny Blue (Warren) in a genuinely gripping fashion

So, what's gone wrong? Perhaps its a case of trying too hard. Hustle is so light that it struggles to hold your attention for the fifty minutes of each episode. Watch the reruns of Cracker which begin tonight (ABC, 9.30 pm). Robert Coltraine's performance as Fitz should serve to remind programmers that it takes more than being cool to make a TV show.

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