Interview: Jason Stephens

When The Choir of Hard Knocks won a Logie as Most Outstanding Factual Series the voice over boomed, “Accepting the award is the show’s creator and presenter, Jonathon Welch!”

Except, that didn’t quite give viewers the full picture. What was that guy from the D-Generation doing there beside him?

Jason Stephens, who conceived the ABC series, has long put his performing days behind him, preferring to work creatively in production. His CV is quickly becoming dotted with projects that are heaped with praise. The King. The Choir of Hard Knocks. Newstopia. In our relatively small industry, that’s tantamount to ‘hitmaker’ status. He spoke to TV Tonight about his rise to glory, with two of his projects scoring wins at the Logie Awards.

“We’d won a couple of ASTRAs and some AFIs, so I was quietly confident (The King) was going to do ok,” he said. “But you go to those nights thinking it’s a bit of a lottery. I was particularly happy for Stephen (Curry) because he’d worked so hard and I think, all kudos to him because he gave such a great performance. And at the end of the day the whole film rested on his performance. There was a fair bit of pressure that went with it as well.”

Stephens is now Director of Development with FremantleMedia –a cushy title if ever there was one. He is given the envious task of overseeing a small team constantly looking at new formats that will be pitched to networks, and should they become hits, franchised internationally. In such a role, he doesn’t miss the on-screen days of the Late Show, preferring a vehicle that facilitates his passion: new ideas.

“The D Generation was always working on fresh ideas and having them to go air nationally each week. Now that I think about it I was always writing comedy scripts and thinking ‘gee who could play this?’ as opposed to thinking I was writing for myself. I guess that was a bit of a clue that performing wasn’t the number one priority for me.

“When I meet people who want to do stand up or want to be actors the ones who are driven, who kind of get there are really committed. I was never that sort of driven. Unless you’re passionate about those kinds of things you’ll quickly fall off.”

On Sunday Stephens stepped back into the spotlight, albeit momentarily, for due praise in creating the Choir of Hard Knocks. Choirmaster Jonathon Welch has traditionally been ‘the face’ of the hit show, a function that has served the project well. Despite it being Stephens’ concept, he remains comfortable with the media focus on Welch. It was something of a ‘win / win.’

“In terms of making the show we made a decision, not even a conscious decision. It was never going to make good TV to talk about where the idea came from. You don’t really want to put that television construct in the storytelling. It kind of gets in the way.

“So we said, y’know, Jonathon started up his own choir -which he did really. But we didn’t talk about the couple of stages before that which were me tracking him down. He’d already done it before in Sydney on a smaller scale about 4 or 5 years ago. But I tracked him down and said ‘I’ve read about this homeless choir in Montreal, and know you’ve done the same thing in Sydney and said would you like to it again in Melbourne on a much bigger scale with real support?’”

Now the show is being considered by a number of territories including France, Denmark, Germany and New Zealand.

This year Stephens has been busy with two projects, Newstopia for SBS and the upcoming Comedy Slapdown for the Comedy Channel.

After its second series, he is comfortable with where Newstopia is sitting and acknowledges the positives and negatives of not being in the spotlight of prime-time commercial television.

“We’d like to have more people watching it,” he concedes. “I feel like it’s a strong show but the problem has always been it’s ‘Off Broadway’ on SBS. It’s a network that doesn’t always attract a lot of people by the nature of it, but there’s advantages to that too.

“We’re given complete creative freedom and the show’s allowed to organically grow, as opposed to having the pressure of being on a commercial network. In an earlier timeslot the pressure’s on so I guess you can’t have it both ways.”

Stephens is in discussion with SBS about a third season of Newstopia hopefully eyeing September or thereafter.

“I think they’re really happy with the show. It’s been good for both sides.”

Comedy Slapdown meanwhile is another original format, bringing together 17 comedians, in theatresports-style rounds set in a wrestling ring. Comedians including Tom Gleeson, Julia Zemiro, Stephen Hall and Matt Tilley will comprise 5 teams of 3 round robin competition over 12 eps. It is hosted by H.G. Nelson.

It’s all part of a role that sees him oversee a number of genres. Busy boy.

“In terms of drama I’m developing a couple of different projects. And then there’s light entertainment, and then factual shows. So we’re across about three or four different genres and always working them up at various stages of development.

“Personally I’d love to do another drama off the back of The King. But I think in terms of the company’s sake it would be great to have a long running variety / light entertainment show, which I think everybody’s after.”

With his ninety-seconds of award glory for the Choir of Hard Knocks over, Stephens is back to the business of finding the next hit format.

“It was nice. It was good to get up there with (Jonathan). I’d been living with it a year even before I pitched it.

“The Logie for that was liberating in a way just to put it behind me and move on.”

TV1 will re-screen Stephen Curry’s Logie-winning performance as The King this Sunday at 8:30pm.