The Hollowmen

Last few weeks I've been catching up with The Hollowmen on pay TV. I missed most of it the first time around, but one of the great things about cable is that everything makes to the small screen again. And again, and again...

The Hollowmen is a cynical, very funny, often whimsical satire on the political process. It's based in the Prime Ministers office and the behind the scenes advisors and bureaucrats there trying to make the PM look good and to advance his political aspirations. There is nothing that can't be exploited for political gain - national security, global warming, big spending, and so on.

It's really very cleverly written as you've come to expect from the Working Dog team (The Castle, The Dish, Frontline), but the real beauty of it is in the diversity of characters each representing a different perspective - the earnest, the innocent, the honest, the blindly cynical, the loyal footsoldier, the oblivious, and so on - and all perfectly cast.

I don't know much it actually reflects political reality, but I doubt it's meant to be a literal representation - it is a comedy after all - but rather the comedic exaggeration of a much smaller reality we all believe to be true. I hope there's a second series coming.

It reminds me of another very funny Australian satire I watched re-runs of earlier in the year. The title of The Games refers to the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and was actually made in advance of that. It takes the form of a documentary on the remarkably small organising committee and the government minister they deal with. It details the variety of challenges and controversies they have to overcome, not to mention the political shenanigans they have to manage, not dissimilar to what is represented in The Hollowmen.

John Clarke, who doesn't do near enough TV, heads a stellar cast - Brian Dawe and Gina Riley join him. It's very funny, very clever program which may seem dated with the Sydney Olympics fading into the distant past, and in truth the ripping, brilliantly organised success the games became turned a lot of the program on its head. Funny is funny though, and just as good watching now years after as it was when the games were ahead of us, an unrealised hope we all keenly awaited.