★★★★★ 0/5

Warnie

With Shane Warne what you see is what you get: white teeth, guests basking in his aura and a format that relies heavily on filmed segments.

31
Leave a comment

Shane Warne’s whiter-than-cricketing-whites teeth debuted last night in his own light entertainment show on Nine.

He opened the show by admitting he was nervous, and after all the hype he had every right to be. So much of this self-titled show was anchored around him -a big ask given he has no form in the genre.

In publicity ahead of the show he also conceded he would be no Parkinson. And despite the set doing its level best to emulate a chat show the format relied heavily on filmed segments. The studio audience may have felt a little cheated.

That said, with Warne -the man and not the show- what you see is what you get. There’s no pretence with his delivery style, using straight-shooting, colloquial language that will probably win him fans:

“Life hasn’t always been beer and skittles,” he said.

“It’s bloody hilarious…”

“We all love your choons…”

“All of us cricketers…. ”

Warne’s little black book is also one of the show’s best assets. Being able to access big names is a coup. On Warnie they are showcased as matesy chats rather than insights.

First guest James Packer was one such coup. The billionaire, and new TEN shareholder, admitted he had agreed to the interview in a moment of late-night weakness (around the blackjack table perhaps?).

“I don’t quite know how I find myself here,” he conceded.

Packer was tackled on the subject of his father Kerry, family, jackaroos, nappy-changing and Tom Cruise. Just as the subject of TEN was raised it was deflected. A missed opportunity to talk TEN while appearing on Nine.

But Packer was clearly in awe of his friend, which is not a bad endorsement for your first show.

“We all wish we were you,” said Packer. “But if I can’t be you I’m happy being me.”

Next subject was Coldplay’s Chris Martin, answering questions on cricket, surfing, tim tams, songwriting, and children. Both Martin and Packer also interviewed their host.

During the first episode there were also filmed segments from David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, Darren Gough, Sam Kekovich and 12th Men puppets.

Today‘s Alicia Gorey brought a little bit of structure with her studio segments, a better contribution than the fluffy filmed segment with cricketer Doug Bollinger and his bad jokes.

Merv Hughes added a Footy Show-style “street talk” segment with Melburnians cricketing at Flinders Street and Federation Square.

For a show about cricketing, there wasn’t much preview of the Ashes series. One of the charters for the show will also be to win over a non-cricketing audience, just as the Footy Show has succeeded with a female following.

But the lack of being live is where the show misses the mark the most.

It’s understandable that with Warne’s lack of television experience this has been avoided. But the end result is a middle-of-the-road vehicle with training wheels, instead of being a must-see rollicking ride that hits the odd pothole and gets over it.

In terms of casting, it would also benefit from having  someone who is prepared to disagree with Warne and engage us in a cricketing debate rather than simply basking in his aura as many seemed to do. That notion will fade pretty quickly.

Somewhere in between the ads for McDonald’s  and Advanced Hair Studio (and those beaming, gleaming teeth) there is the basis for a vehicle, if it ever chooses to add more live, studio content instead of being a bit of patter in between its filmed segments. Summer may not be quite long enough to make that leap.

Warnie airs 8:40pm next Thursday on Nine.

31 Responses

  1. had to turn it off after about 10 minutes…i couldn’t handle his teeth….did he paint them white? seriously his fake white teeth are worse than the osmonds- very distracting.

  2. A comedically themed sports oriented talk show that you don’t have to be a hardcore sports freak to enjoy (like Live and Sweaty from the 1990s) would be cool as I miss that show, but a bogan ocker like Warne probably isn’t the guy to host it. It’d need a couple people from a stand up background to host, mixed with some serious sports journo people.

  11. It was very average. The show couldn’t really hold me to keep watching. I ended up just watching something else after about 20 minutes. The show could work a little better being 30 minutes, but that’s just me.

  13. What a load of crap. Warnie managed to singlehandly ruin Top Gear Australia, but I had to watch a couple of minutes of this out of morbid curiosity. I wish I hadn’t, as within about 30 seconds of turning this on, I just wanted to throw stuff at the TV.

    Nein really is run by a pack of muppets these days, isn’t it?

  14. Too many references to Victoria and AFL. Warnie needs to realise that Victoria is a small state and not the country and half the population couldn’t give a stuff about AFL.

  15. you could just see the thousands of viewers in NSW/QLD switching off when 5mins in the show he starts to crap on about vicball. (and on several other occasions)

    Warnie, remember your show is national not only shown in Victoria, so think about those (the majority) that hate vicball with passion and stick to the cricket.

  18. I saw a few snatches of the show last night and I agree with you, it relies too heavily on filmed segments. This will grow old very quickly indeed. I also agree that he needs a foil, someone he can discuss cricket with. I have always been impressed by Warne’s commentating and cricketing knowledge. He has a really good cricket brain and if I was a producer, I would have some sort of Controversy Corner style segment. That said, Warne is extremely likeable, comes across well onscreen and has the makings of a very good host. The show definitely needs work, however.

  19. Interviews – great, not in depth and probing, but interesting and entertaining. Warne does well in that environment
    The pre-recorded segments were pretty awful. The “comedy entertainment segments” such as the puppets and the Merv’s street talk and Alicia’s Lehmo/Dave Hughes-like segment were limp, time fillers.
    “Bumbles” Lloyd was surprisingly funny but he will wear thin.

    I’d suggest a thirty minute show, two big name interviews, a couple of links from Warnie and dump the rest. But then they would need a bunch of segment producers trying to justify their existence and a few “comedy writers” regurgitating tired ideas, would they? Producers need to step back and do less, cos what they bring to it adds nothing and detracts from the good parts

  21. Why was J Packer always looking away when he was answering questiuons?
    That seemed very strange.

    It was light hearted entertainment and yes, it relied too much on pre-taped intervies.
    Hopefully, there will be more live, in studio interviews.

  22. Nothing but softball questions and a lot of backslapping.

    Most questions were some variations of “Now mate, you’re a fantastic person, how does being so wonderful feel? Is it great?” “Well mate, you’re pretty amazing yourself and it’s an honour for me to be here.” “No mate, it’s an honour for me to interview you.”

    Wooden, awkward and genuinely terrible.

  23. It wasn’t bad for its debut. It will be in the upcoming weeks when we will see if it’s going to work. The show did seem to be missing an in-house band though.

Leave a Reply