News

The Jesters: Who’s laughing now?

The Jesters, the comedy group in the Movie Extra series, is more successful than ever. Will the real show match its fictional counterpart?

Movie Extra’s series about the making of a comedy show The Jesters was positively received when it first aired in 2009, so it was only natural they’d be back with more biting satire. Kevin Brumpton and Angus FitzSimons (both writers and executive producers of the show) once again take aim at the entertainment industry – and their former CNNNN colleagues The Chaser, complete with a parody of their infamous “Make a realistic wish” sketch – with eight new episodes shot in Sydney in mid-2009.
At the end of the first season, the career of once-famous comedian Dave Davies (Mick Molloy) was back on track thanks to his new talk show, Remembering, encouraging him to cut professional ties with his protégés – the comedy group The Jesters, who had already become celebrities in their own right thanks to their outrageous pranks. This year the show will explore what happens when your career is resurrected, or when you find success in show business.
“We’d like to think there’s something for everybody in there, from obscure references and sophisticated jokes to broader stuff; we’ve got everything from a pie in the face to a relationship type of comedy,” said Brumpton about the humour in the new series.
“We tried to write it in the same kind of way tonally; a Bringing Up Baby meets Gilmore Girls type of style, that sort of pace where everyone is talking faster than they should. The satirical comedy has been maintained,” added FitzSimons.
“We’re also being careful with having our characters become a Sam and Dianne (Cheers) or a Ross and Rachael (Friends). It was one of the few notes from the network, making the relationship between Steve and Kat less overt and I think it worked quite well. Romantic involvements can burden a comedy show.”
But reality can be stranger than fiction, and Brumpton and FitzSimons found themselves writting storylines that seemed almost prophetic.
“We wrote an episode where Dave Davies gets in trouble for doing one of his old sketches, ‘Francis the faggy flight attendant’, which is a very over-the-top gay parody from the 80s which would be unacceptable today. Shortly after we’d written it, Mick Molloy made a couple of jokes about ice skating in the Winter Olympics and all hell broke loose. We thought ‘He’s going to think we’ve written it as a comment on that’, but it was
completely coincidental.”
The original Rozelle location was unavailable, so the production moved to the empty site of Gladesville Hospital in Sydney’s north shore, replicating the layout of the previous set. There are also more locations that in the previous season.
“We’re getting out and about more, and it’s also because we’ve already established the characters and we can develop them further. For example, we’re going to Dave Davies’ farm for an episode, and that’s something we probably wouldn’t have done in the first series because we had other things to establish first,” explained Brumpton.
The new series also sees The Jesters adapt their TV program into a live show, with scenes shot at the Roxy Theatre in Parramatta. Davies’ meetings with Di the agent always take place over lunch at a restaurant with harbour views, but this time the production moved to an even more scenic location, Flying Fish at Jones Bay Wharf in Pyrmont.

NO INTERMEDIARIES
The eight episodes were shot by cinematographer Roger Lanser once again using the Sony F35 in a single-camera shoot – although the series also utilises handycam footage for a plotline in which The Jesters are
being pranked by a rival group called Stunted. This year, FitzSimons also takes on the role of directing the series, replacing Kimble Rendall.

“It was something I’d always been interesting in doing, but I didn’t think I had anywhere near the experience or capability to do it last time. Kimble was fantastic, always explaining how things are done and why and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without his help in the first series, but the network was good enough to let me do it this time around. When Kevin and I write, we read the material over and over again so we have our own sense of how it should go and flow. Now that I’m directing, rather than having an intermediary – however talented and helpful that intermediary is – it’s good to have a go at it yourself,” explained FitzSimons.


The Jesters
– Season 2 is currently screening on Movie Extra, 8:30pm on Tuesdays.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.