Cool Aussie comedies show what stuffy old ABC is missing
We’ve all been on bad dates. But this brilliant new six-part series is home to one of the most calamitous ever screened on TV | WATCH
We’ve all been on bad dates with people we thought we might like. They seem perfect, they seem nice, they just suit you.
Within minutes, they’re not laughing at your jokes, they’re not flirting back. And at the end, they’re telling you they’ve decided they really do love their partner back in Switzerland – whom they never mentioned previously – and they’re going to ask for their hand in marriage. (OK, maybe that just happened to me.)
Latecomers – a sparkling, heartbreaking, hilarious gem of a show on SBS On Demand – takes bad dates and first loves and all that jazz to a new level.
It’s a show about two young Aussies with cerebral palsy (Hannah Diviney and the show’s co-creator Angus Thompson) who are pushed together by both a desire to be loved and a world that just assumes they’re perfectly suited to each other. They ain’t.
Diviney is an uptight, shy, smart as a tack sex expert who wants to know what romance is really like.
Thompson is a bombastic party bro who fears his burly mates are really just laughing at him.
They like each other, but it’s not true love.
That becomes apparent halfway through this six-part series in one of the most calamitous first dates ever shown on screen (spoiler, there’s vomit involved).
This moment encapsulates everything Latecomers has to offer. This show is so funny, so sad, so poignant.
Diviney is a total star. She’s the smartest person in the room and, as the show rolls on, the sexiest too. She’s the heart of the show and you’ll be cheering her on as she grows from a bookish wallflower to a confident, powerful woman.
Thompson is fabulous. He has great comic timing and wonderfully portrays how the small cruelties and condescensions people with disabilities face every day just build up, sometimes making them stronger and sometimes breaking them down.
Latecomers also brilliantly shows how the relationship between people with special needs and their carers are not just clinical. The carers in these shows are not child-minders or nurses, they are best mates and lovers and equals.
Not a surprise since one of Thompson’s co-creators, the comedian Nina Oyama, is his own long-time carer, and that bond shines through this script.
Patrick Jhanur – who plays Thompson’s carer – is an utter dreamboat who should be on every casting director’s list if they’re looking for a leading man.
Every episode he adds more and more layers to his “pretty boy” character, who’s just as lacking in confidence as everyone else.
And Miriama Smith, playing Diviney’s carer, is hilarious as the yummy mummy who’s constantly taking Diviney out on the town and can’t help but snare much younger fellas on the way.
Latecomers is the kind of edgy, innovative show we should be seeing more of in this country. It’s got great, diverse, young talent behind it.
Anyone who likes Latecomers would be highly advised to watch SBS On Demand’s 2021 comedy gem Iggy & Ace, about two young gay mates who drink their way through disaster in Perth. Iggy & Ace’s leads, Josh Virgona and Sara West – like Diviney, Thompson and Jhanur – are also a pair you should be watching out for.
With all these great shows geared towards young audiences, SBS On Demand is halfway to creating its own dramatic universe.
The multicultural broadcaster is showing everyone that giving young writers and actors the backing they deserve can pay massive dividends.
While the ABC gets itself into a tussle about whether it backs young people or if it’s ageist to question their commitment to Aunty’s older stars, SBS is just getting to work and filling the youth vacuum.
One can only hope Ita Buttrose and Co. are watching things like Latecomers and taking note.
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It’s the oldest story in the world: boy meets girl, girl flashes boy, boy – entranced by the female form – runs over poor wee dog in the street.
So starts Colin From Accounts on Binge, a far more conventional love story than Latecomers but an incredibly fun ride nonetheless.
Harriet Dyer is the girl – a clumsy and anxious medicine student fresh from a disastrous breakup.
Patrick Bramall is the boy – a brewer on the wrong side of 35 who doesn’t quite know how to keep up with the young and spiky Dyer.
And the title character who brings these two together, Colin, is the cutest dog you’ll see on television this year.
It’s this unlikely trio that gives Colin from Accounts enough heart to make so much more than your usual generic Aussie rom-com.
Dyer, in particular, is a revelation as the quirky female lead with a complex mother, a horrid housemate, and a now odd attraction to the older man she’s now sharing a mutt with. She just bounces off the screen with charm and energy and a slight hint of mania.
Bramall is exactly the kind of bloke you want your daughter to fall in love with. He’s dependable, sensible, but still a little bit hot.
And Sydney stage favourite Helen Thomson gobbles up the screen every moment she appears as Dyer’s trainwreck of a rich mum, constantly coming up with total zingers like: “Darling, he’s bipolar. I know, I message him every R U OK? Day.”
Annie Maynard also shines as a vet called Yvette – that joke doesn’t get old – and Emma Harvie is great as Dyer’s laidback mate who’s later struck by tragedy.
David Roberts – best known most recently as Josh Thomas’s reserved dad in Please Like Me – is also great as Harvie’s father. His extraordinary blow-up at the most annoying relatives imaginable is a series highlight.
Latecomers, streaming on SBS On Demand.
Colin from Accounts, streaming on Binge.