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Airdate: Jonah from Tonga

Chris Lilley's newest comic turn will begin in early May on ABC1.

2014-04-15_2222Puck you, Miss.

Chris Lilley’s newest comic turn, Jonah from Tonga will begin 9pm Wednesday May 7th on ABC1, replacing The Agony of Modern Manners.

Jonah From Tonga takes us into the life of teenager. Jonah Takalua, now in a new school but still up to his old tricks. The Tongan rebel finds himself in hot water with plenty of fights, frenemies, break-dancing & law-breaking.

17 Responses

  1. Interesting: the entire series is going to be shown on iView for a weekend (May 2-4) prior to screening on ABC1, and the BBC is doing the same on the same weekend. Perhaps it’s to help build a “buzz” around the series?

    As for Lilley, I enjoyed Summer Heights but that was it. Good luck to him but this sort of comedy just doesn’t work for me at all.

  2. Interesting that they are launching it online first. No doubt if the ratings are poor they will site that as the reason. They also release iview figures for Lilley’s shows when they slump in the ratings.

  3. If I remember, there was a recent piece on this site about the paucity of local scripted comedy shows. I’d suggest Lilley’s latest effort is evidence as to why that is so and if it wasn’t for the ABC network this show would probably not see the light of day.

    I shall give it a miss.

  4. I hope it’s good but Jamie was a little bit of a letdown (partially due to the focus on only one character and partially because it tried to outdo the character appearances on Chris Lilly’s other shoes)

  5. I did like his first series of SHH, but then watching Ja’mie was terrible and so over the top that it was so silly and not funny I tuned right off the series. I think he needs to move on from the characters of SHH and follow a new direction, wasn’t impressed by his last work on Ja’mie so I might give this one a miss.

  6. Gotta love Jonah !
    Looking forward to this as Jonah was one of my favourite characters from Summer Heights High.
    But like others here, do wonder if Chris can successfully sustain a whole series based around Jonah’s character alone.

  7. Agree with most of the other comments (Chris Lilleys characters work best in small doses) and would like to ad that he is getting too old to pretend being a teenager. Suggestion: write the material and let others perform.

  8. Kirk and tomothyd, I agree. I enjoyed Summer Heights High and altho’ the Jonah character was the weakest, it worked in small doses. If Ja’mie couldn’t sustain a whole series (and she couldn’t) there is no way that Jonah is going to be able to.

    Chris Lilley’s characters work best as an ensemble altho’ I didn’t like Angry Boys. I still think We Can be Heroes was his best.

  9. I’m not expecting much from this, based on the disappointing Angry Boys and Ja’mie. I really liked Jonah in Summer Heights High and the story was portrayed so well that you felt bad for him when he was sent back to Tonga. The same way as I loved Ja’mie in the same series, but now I cannot stand her and did not finish her stand alone series.
    Fingers crossed this is better than I expect.

  10. I’m not comfortable with the blackface so I won’t be watching but I hope he’s learned his lesson from Ja’mie and written an actual plot with a script that gives other characters some screen time and jokes. I’m not holding my breath.

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