Australian Comedy Aftertaste Hopes to Cook Up Interest at Berlinale Series Market
JD Linville, provided by
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Already a hit for ABC Australia, where its first two episodes pulled in nearly one quarter of the audience share for its prime time slot, tasty comedy “Aftertaste” will now participate in the Berlinale Series Market and Conference looking to attract broadcasters abroad.
With its comic story of a cancelled chef and his upstart baker niece, “Aftertaste” is a recipe for laughs. Actor and producer Erik Thomson is Easton West: a celebrity chef with a city-sized ego forced to relocate to his pastoral beginnings and start again alongside his baker niece Diana, played by newcomer Natalie Abbott.
I wouldnât blame viewers if theyâre hesitant about Aftertaste for that same reason. Between all the brooding antiheroes and reality show excoriations of the past two decades, people are cooling on the âangry white guy shtickâ on TV too. The most critically acclaimed show of the past year was about a young black womanâs experience of sexual assault; the biggest star on MasterChef wasnât Ramsay or White or the disgraced George Calombaris, but Melissa Leong.
But Aftertaste is worth the benefit of the doubt. Itâs a sharp satire that skewers the hollow construct of the celebrity chef and offers a uniquely Australian pisstake thatâs often laugh-out-loud funny.
Behind the curtain: meet the writers shaping local TV in 2021
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From a drama about dying with dignity to a comedy exploring cancel culture, Australia isn’t going to run out of compelling local TV any time soon.
The pandemic has created a double-bind for the television industry: on one hand, we’re consuming more TV than ever before. On the other, productions – especially in Europe and America – have been cancelled and delayed left, right and centre.
Thankfully, the situation isn’t as grim closer to home. So what can we expect to see on our TV screens this year? Who helped craft these shows, and what makes them tick?