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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.

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. hey warnie love your work as a spin bowler my self from the old grade cricket dayswhere the new talent is coming from you could could have a segment called ‘come in spinner’ to get guys on the show to highlight there skills and bowling figures present and retlred theres a lot of talent out there regards greg

  2. One thing I liked about the show was that the interviews are of a decent length. Not at all like 7pm Project, Sunrise and Today where the interviews are fairly rushed and most of the time, don’t cover much.

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