Sammy J: “The PM is yet to return my calls!”
Following from Clarke & Dawe was a big ask, but Sammy J sees light at the end of the tunnel.
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When he was asked to succeed the great John Clarke and Bryan Dawe in ABC’s Thursday night satire slot, comedian Sammy J knew he had very big shoes to fill.
Sammy J, often seen regularly alongside wisecracking puppet Randy, had been flying solo with Playground Politics, a web series muckraking during the federal election.
“The ABC came and said ‘Would you like the Thursday night satire slot?’ where Clarke and Dawe had been. It’s a weekly slot for 40 weeks so it was a far more daunting prospect,” he tells TV Tonight.
“It was a huge leap of faith and I feared I would come crashing down in March!”
But with a year of sketches now behind him Sammy J is hand-picking the best for a festive special, Sammy J: The Twelve J’s of Christmas.
“I’m hosting a dinner party with Santa and Rudolph”
“I’m hosting a dinner party with Santa and Rudolph, and we are awaiting the arrival of the Prime Minister,” he explains.
“I’m not giving much away when I say the PM is yet to return my calls! So the chances of a cameo are becoming increasingly slim!
“But I don’t just want my face throwing to sketches with my face. I would want to punch myself – let alone the viewers! So there are sketches and other guests along the way, to mix it up.
“Next year thanks to a minor budget increase, we’ll have more guests and cameos.”
Amongst the sketches revisited are The NBN Rollout, 30 Losses, Antiques Roadshow, Egg Tampering Crisis, Libspill Yoga and Barnaby on Ice.
While politics forms the backbone of his work, other topics are also given scrutiny, courtesy of his co-writers Chris McDonald & James Pender.
“It’s a political spot but I always knew I would get bored, and so would the audience, if it was entirely political,” he continues.
“So once I didn’t get yanked off air in a scandal I started to spread my wings a bit. Some of the more enjoyable sketches this year have been the sillier ones.
“I feel like the audience is getting to know me”
“Politics will always be front and centre, but I feel like the audience is getting to know me and my sense of humour. Hopefully we can push things a bit more in different directions.”
Produced by Buxstock Entertainment (he stresses he is not an ABC employee!), the Thursday spot suits his working week and juggling other comedy commitments.
“We get together on a Monday and have a chat about where we think the week is heading. You have to second guess it a little bit about what you think people might be doing, because there are other shows also making fun of the news,” he explains.
“In a good week we write 2 or 3 sketches and throw 2 of them out, so you are left with the best one.
“On Tuesday we watch the news to see if anything changes, and then we film on a Wednesday and edit that night.
“Now I’m not doing my own make-up!”
“The last few years I’ve tended to film out of a warehouse in Brunswick, but this year ABC offered more support, which is nice. Now I’m not doing my own make-up! But it’s still a skeleton staff.”
Next year he plans to resume touring but does it mean his days with Randy are over? Not necessarily. The ABC sketches have been good to reiterate the two are not joined at the hip.
“People sometimes assume I’m a ventriloquist,” he laughs.
“We remain best friends and we talk every day. We’ve been doing some writing with a view to doing something, either Live or TV. But it’s been really nice not to have the pressure of having to work together.
“We will be doing more stuff in the future but for now I’m happy riding this ABC wave until badly crashes into rocks, as showbiz tends to do.”
Sammy J: The Twelve J’s of Christmas 9:30pm Thursday on ABC Comedy.
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