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Thank God revival could work with new comics, says Rob Sitch

Rob Sitch still has a lot of love for a favourite improvisation show if a network wants to bring it back. "Bullshit is really funny."

2013-03-04_0141If TEN is, as reported, considering a revival of Thank God You’re Here then finding time with the Working Dog team will be one of its hurdles -but co-creator Rob Sitch says there are new comics that could work in a new version.

Sitch, who performs alongside plenty of young comedians for Working Dog’s upcoming ABC comedy Utopia, told TV Tonight the improvisation show remains a firm favourite.

“There is no shortage of love from our end for it,” he said.

“It took us a couple of years to work out the difference between (the show) and improv. It’s actually about ‘bullshit’ and we worked out that bullshit is really funny. I guess it’s an arm of improv, but a very specific one and maybe Australians are particularly amusing when they do it.”

The series, which screened on both TEN before being poached by Seven, featured many comedians including Hamish Blake, Rebel Wilson, Andy Lee, Josh Lawson, Julia Zemiro, Shaun Micallef, Glenn Robbins and Angus Sampson.

“We did quite a few shows, which is easy to forget. Every show involves 4 or 5 people, and in one year we did 20 episodes in a year. So it sort of got to the end but you could almost do it again now because there are a lot of new people that are available,” said Sitch.

“One of the ironies of comic success is that if you come on Thank God You’re Here and you’re really successful, then you become so successful that you can’t do the show anymore.

“Rebel Wilson did the show 2 or 3 times and was really good on it. But now I don’t know that anyone could afford her, because she’s a Hollywood comic superstar.”

Fitting a revival into their busy schedule could be a challenge.

This year alone Working Dog has been busy with Have You Been Paying Attention? for TEN, Utopia for ABC, Santo, Sam and Ed’s Total Football for Foxtel, The Speechmaker for the Melbourne Theatre Company and another upcoming comedy for Foxtel.

But Sitch, who returns to television as the head of the “Nation Building Authority” in Utopia next Wednesday night, is not ruling out a revival if the stars aligned.

“We’ve never not wanted to do another series, but there’s only a handful of us and we tend to be so heavily involved with every project that we tend to pull a hamstring somewhere around October and run out of puff,” he said.

8 Responses

  1. Yeah!!!

    There are heaps of cool young comics around at the moment who would be perfect for this show. Can you imagine how good Ronnie Chang or Luke McGregor would be? ha ha ha

  2. Yes pls. They are obviously getting inspiration from 50 years young. Now what was good news week on that?
    They need to bring back rove, gnw as well
    And don’t forget more offspring! It was #1 after all.

  3. Ooh, yes please! I’d totally be up for more TGYH.

    @Cam Reed – I’d also love to see the return of GNW. God knows the current government provides a veritable comedy goldmine.

  4. I remember when the US writers strike was on and TEN revived Good News Week; it went gang busters, I think the same would happen with Good News Week. TEN should revive Thank God You’re Here, it has been away long enough to work again, just like Good News Week was in the past.

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