The Chaser Report - Australian Epic | Andrew Hansen

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Andrew Hansen joins Charles and Dom to discuss his new original musical TV show, Australian Epic. (Available now on ABC iView) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And today we have with us a wonderful old friend, old, old, old friend Andrew Hanson. We don't know him very well, but he's very old. Hello, Andrew Hanson. Well, hello. I mean, I feel like I'm probably a similar age to the people who host this podcast normally.

Yes, old. I can neither confirm or not. But, Andrew, you're here not for a social catch-up, you're here to plug some of your fine, fine work. And you managed to get a TV series up, which is a fantastic and slightly surprising thing. Congratulations. But it's very hard to do, I discovered, yes. It's not easy to get one of those things these days. I've always said the world needs more TV shows from white middle-aged men. So, congratulations. Look, it does. And I've tried my best to supply. you know, to contribute to the oversupply of TV shows by creating another one with Chris Taylor

or at least writing another one. I mean, you know, we've sort of tried to take on various duties in this thing called Australian Epic. It's a musical slash documentary slash comedy sort of mash-up shows. So it's kind of true. It's about true Australian stories that are very well-known stories,

but they're re-told in a fun and silly and satirical musical way. So if you've ever wanted, for example, to see the story of say Chappelle Corby or Stephen Bradbury the ice skater who won a gold medal because everybody else in his race fell over if you've wanted to see those stories

done with a combination of the real Stephen Bradbury telling the story plus me pretending to be Stephen Bradbury and singing very silly songs on an ice rink then Australian epic is the show for you well listen to some clips and hear more about this adventure in just a moment So yes, Andrew, I mean, if they're in the unlikely event that there are any fans of the war still around in this wide brown land devils, they might remember, you know, some of the musical items you did for that show and others, but then also if life were a musical, which was always such a fun segment because it meant, you know, you kind of brought that Busby, Berkeley showbiz thing into into unexpected spaces.

So it seems as though you've essentially expanded this into an entire series. What an extraordinary thing. Yeah, it was something, yeah, because Chris and I kind of wanted to eventually write a longer meeting. musical thing and we dithered around and spent many years not doing that and then spent many years actually doing it because the show took about five years to make because we wanted to yeah tell a full story rather than just write you know one silly song like that segment that you mentioned if life were a musical which involved you know us bursting into song in public places in inappropriate places i mean while that was kind of amusing and then i think shortly after that people started doing the same thing on YouTube and TikTok, so we were no longer the only people doing it.

We thought, oh, we'd better actually write a show full of songs. And so that's kind of how it ended up happening, although, you know, then you've also got the true parts of the show as well. And luckily Chris, you know, he used to be a journalist. So he has this sort of journalistic chops, and he was very good at doing the research. We also had some brilliant actual journalists doing the research on the show, too. People like Sasha Payne and Greg Muller from ABC who dug up all this interesting new information about some of these stories.

I was not expecting the interview to go in this direction, Andrew. I didn't think we'd have A, journalism and B, original research that unearth some stories. That's great. Well, yeah, because they're historical stories. So, you know, Australian epic tells six stories. As I mentioned, you know, Chappelle Corby, you've got Stephen Bradbury. We've got the story of Johnny Depp's annoying Hollywood dogs, Pistol and Boo, who skipped the queue and tried to get through quarantine

until Barnaby Joyce booted them out of the country. We've turned that into a musical. That was always destined, wasn't it? That was always destined to... Oh, I did a musical written all over it, especially when you were Barnaby and a pair of dogs. And we found some brilliant puppeteers to operate these very cute, fluffy dog puppets who in the show are voiced by some of the music theatre stars.

Phoenix, Jackson, Mendoza and Sammy O'Fune are the voices of the two dogs. Did you have to historically accurate, though? Can you have them being executed? Because I think we were all sad that the ending of that story didn't go the way we wanted. Well, I think everybody ended up wanting Johnny Depp to be a. executed, really. Oh, that too. That came out of year or two later, I think. Yeah, the show goes into some flights of fancy sometimes in the musical numbers, but the documentary stuff is very straight and serious, so it's very much like watching foreign correspondent or four corners or something.

Thank goodness. There's some more seriousness at 9pm on a Wednesday night in the ABC comedy slide. That's great. Well, you know, that's why the musical numbers work, because it's a, it's the juxtaposition of the two, you know, so you go from these very straight, interviews into a silly musical number, and that's kind of what makes it interesting. I must say, I think it's a genius format, though, because you're sort of combining, yeah, the silliness of that, if life was a musical type thing and the sort of hilarity, with the ratings Jaggernaut that is Australian story. So, you basically, it's got both ingredients.

You basically, it's an ABC program as wet dream. It's the most ABC program ever devised. That's a wonderful thing. It's very, very ABC. I mean, I mean, it's, you know, there are other historical, musical comedy shows, too. You know, one of the only people doing this. I mean, Michelle Brazier keeps saying it's like, it's like drunk history, but sung, you know, which I guess it's sort of interesting. That's a twist.

Yeah, because she's in it. I mean, the reason she's talking about it is she's in the cast. You have got a very eminent and impressive cast around you, Andrew. I must say, as you said musical theatre legends, you've got some chops yourself. But can you confirm or deny a thing I heard, which is that Christopher Thorndon. and Taylor sings in this show. Is that really a thing? Is that really a thing is happening?

You check out the trailer or the, or even, actually, you can hear him right now if you, if you stream the soundtrack album, which is out, the Australian epic original cast recording is available now on Spotify and Apple Media, etc, etc. It's even on DISA. Now, I was dreamed of having an album on Disa. Congratulations. The French one. Man, you can hear, you can hear Christopher Thornton Taylor singing some lead vocals.

He plays a couple of roles He's not central to the cast But he couldn't help himself You know He cast himself as an SAS drill sergeant In the story about the Tampa affair Oh, I was so hoping there was a Ben Robert Smith episode Series 2

Series 2 Oh, that's heavy I think we tried to only tell stories That have happy endings I don't know if that does That did for the justice system Didn't it? No, fair enough

It must have been hard to pick six though Only six stories Yeah they had to be the right shape the stories for a musical. So we had to, you know, there are so many great Australian historical stories. We considered some like the invention of the dual flush toilet, for example. That's an Australian piece of history.

We thought that would have got fun. Yeah, they've only got a half an hour to play with that, aren't you? Well, I know you've got a half an hour. That's right. That would have been a six-hour production just on its own, I think. So we sort of thought, what stories have a three-act structure? What stories have a happy ending? And also, you know, can you think of six or seven songs that they could be

broken up into was the other challenge. So like with Chappelle Corby, it's kind of made for songs because you've got the opening number which is called Bali High. And that's Chappelle and her friends planning the most bogan holiday you could ever imagine to Bali. And then they get there. And she's caught by the customs officers at the airport and they sing a song called the boogie-woogie-duby board, which is when they find this huge bag of hash in her boogie-board.

Then you've got the song, you pick the wrong crime, which is sung. by the Indonesian judge in the courtroom. And in fact, look, actually, I can roll out a bit of that song for you now. Do you want to hear a bit of your pick the wrong crime? Yeah, that'd be fantastic. All right, this is the judge and the prosecutors all singing at poor old Chappelle who tries to defend herself by comparing herself to Joan of Arc. Oh, you pick the wrong crime, sister can't pick wronger if you tried.

But if you want a soft a sentence, next time try genocide. See, when it comes to drugs, tougher judge than God get caught with an aspirin and you'll face the firing squaw you make the wrong crime you'll make the wrong crime your honour please are you for real 20 years ain't t t i feel i don't of awkward feel if she was done for dope not heresy but don't you see sweet sister and i'm putting this politely i could have sentenced you to death so you I'm not got a flight there. Oh, wow.

That's a little snippet of one of the tunes. It just lends itself to being told in the form of songs. It certainly does. Please tell me, because I know Chris was enormously, in fact, both of you were enormously interested in this. Please tell me Paris Hot Man, Huda Pia takes a role. Oh, yeah, well, that's the song. After you pick the wrong crime,

we've got a song called He's the Hot Man. Oh, good. And Sammy Afuny, who was in Hamilton, the Australian production. He plays Hot Man, and it was the most. The most fought over role in the whole series, actually. I bet. Everybody wanted to be Hotman Paris Huta Paya, the celebrity lawyer who wears bling and drives sports cars

who defended Chappelle Corby for a while until he just gave up and left her in the lurch. So Sammy Afuny tears up the disco dance floor on he's the hot man with Amy LaPama who plays Chappelle. So he's got a disco number. Can I ask, Andrew? Because I've always wanted to know the answer to this. And I know you've done a research, a lot of research. She said you had Chris Taylor's journalism background and a dedicated research team looking at these stories and uncovering new information.

Did she do it? I don't want to give spoilers. Because our research didn't uncover a definitive answer on that. I mean, the Indonesian justice system ruled that she was guilty. But there are different views expressed by the people who we interview on the show about that. We get to hear what one of her lawyers thinks. We interview him, Erwin Siragar.

We've interviewed Alexander Downer on the show because he was very central. Oh, of course, in fishnets. He would have been up for a bit of, we did ask him if he could put them on for the. But then it was only, the interviews were only shot from the head up. And so even though he was quite willing to wear them, unfortunately they're out of frame. It's a shame. So he gives his, I mean, that's one of the interesting new bits of information in the Chappelle episode is Alexander Downer, because it's so much later now.

he's allowed to say what he really thinks and whether she's guilty or not, and that's in there. Fabulous. But I don't want to spoil it for you. What's the one that's on this week? What's episode one? Yeah, one is Bradbury, doing a Bradbury. It's the story of Stephen Bradbury. I mean, it was an interesting discussion.

You know, our ideal episode one was actually Chappelle Corby. Yeah. But, you know, the ABC executives had a preferred order of the episodes, and we just had to agree to whatever they thought was the best order. So Bradbury's going to be. Look, they're all good stories, I think. I think we're all happy with all of them anyway, so it doesn't really matter what order, but if you want to, you know,

because it's a binge release on Eye View. So if you want to be cheeky, and if you want to watch the series, I'll give you this, this is just a Chaseer Report exclusive here. The writers and the director's preferred episode order is Chappelle Corby first, and then Pistol and Boo,

and then Stephen Bradbury third. And fourth is the story of Melbourne's disastrous Ferris wheel. The building of that is just so. How catastrophicly comical. It kept falling over and cracking in the heat, and it took years and years and years. It sat there, you know, had to be pulled down and rebuilt. So we turned that into a musical. That is definitely going to be my number one.

That's going to be the one I watch first. When I heard you were doing that story. That is the best story ever. That is the most Australian story ever told. Yeah, and then fifth Princess Mary of Tasmania. Oh, beautiful. Who married, you know, the ordinary woman from Hobart married a Danish prince. That's our love story, the fairy tale romance story.

And it gave us the chance to satirise kind of what Australia feels about the royal family, you know. So the sort of the satirical edge in that episode, I guess, is why are we so obsessed with these bloody princes and princesses? And then the last episode is The Tampa, which is a dark left turn, and it's a much more emotional, meaty story. It's, we hope it's quite a moving sort of. A very depressing place to leave the series and make people glad that it's over. I think it's very sensible to. But it does have a certain logic, doesn't it, that you didn't want Steve Bradbury to come first? and yet he did anyway.

He pulled a Bradbury even in our episode order. You're right, that's brilliant, Tommy. I hadn't thought of that. All five of the other episodes fell over and let Bradbury come first. Hey, more with Andrew Hanson in just a moment. The Chaser Report, now with Extra Whispers. Now you've got some more audio, and I'm really keen to hear more after that clip. Which bits have you been authorised to sample for us?

Have we got any of Mr Bradbury? Yeah, if you want to hear a bit of, of Stephen Bradbury, what surprised us was, you know, we all kind of know the story of how, sure, he won the Olympic gold because everyone else fell over. But the story of what his life was, even to get onto the ice, he had the most incredible sort of blood-soaked, difficult journey

full of horrible accidents and disasters. We just couldn't believe his actual story. It's quite astonishing. So he goes through hell. And when he finally gets his gold medal, well, this is a little bit of Australian epic from that moment. Have I listened to this. I got a skate, go clean through my right leg and almost died.

I break my neck. I was lucky not the one up in a wheelchair. But now here I am. It's taken for Olympics, but this time I've really won. And all my bad luck demons have been finally outrun. I've conquered Salt Lake City without becoming aim or mun. I think we need a name for what it is that I've just done. And because we know the name.

It's doing a breadbury, isn't it? So that song then turns into the final song, which is called Doing a Breadbys. For many years, when I used to do the quiz on radio, whenever anyone won it, you know, came in at the last minute, just answered one question and got the prize that was doing a Bradbury, and then one night we got him on. Oh, did you get Bradbury on the quiz?

Yeah, I had the same experience. Because without going into any, spoiling any of the details, it is extraordinary. I mean, my stomach turned. He did viewing the guy about all the stuff that had happened to him. And so the notion that he didn't really deserve the gold medal and just sort of fluked it, I mean, if it was in terms of suffering, he probably deserves 20 or 30. The guy is essentially a martyr, almost, as you say. Yeah, yeah, that was one of the great things about the story.

And that's how our story starts is, you know, we say to call him lucky is only half true. A lot of people think, oh, he just fluked it, but. Actually, he went through the most extraordinary stuff to get there. I can't believe you had him on the quiz, Dommy. Did he win? Was he good at the quiz? Well, he didn't look like he was going to, but of course at the very... No, we got him on, I think, right afterwards.

And it was a very popular interview, because by that stage, I think, it'd been mentioned every night for several years. So it just made it a great sense. He was the nicest man, too. I never quite got the sense why anybody in their right mind would want to become an Olympic speed skater. It sounds awful in so many ways. But he was very sweet and full of irony about himself, which, let's just say that people who, you know, do pro-athletics and stuff, they don't always have a sense of the irony of their own existence, but he certainly did.

No, no, he must have done a lot of self-reflection after becoming so famous for winning a race. On all those occasions. Such an odd way to win. Well, I never met him. I was worried because I play him in the show, I didn't want to meet him. So Chris interviewed Stephen Bradbury, and I still haven't met him. I want to wait on, you know, well, see what he thinks of the show. show because he hasn't actually watched it yet.

He has to wait until it actually comes out. If you win awards for this, and I hope you do, if you win the Logie or something. Or an Olympic gold medal. What needs to happen is you need to be just up there poised to give the speech and then Bradbury just rushes to the podium and just gets in front of both of you. Yes, yes. We fall over crashing into each other. I think that's what you should do.

On the way to the mic. Mark it here. That's what you should do on the night. You know what? That's a very funny idea. You should actually do that. We should book him in just in case. You're on, Domi. I love that idea.

I'm sorry he didn't manage to make an episode about the big drama in the history of the chaser. That would have been a wonderful chance for self-reflection. Oh, look, it would be too sad. I think we've got one more clip, do we? Yeah, do you want me to bang out? Yeah, we can have a... Let's go out on high. Listen to another little tune.

So this is the moment when Australians were getting ready for Johnny Depp and his dogs, Pistol and Boo, to arrive on the Gold Coast to film a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Here we've got our fantastic ensemble cast Singing a number about the excitement That's building up on the Gold Coast Goes like this Have you heard The whispers

Have you heard the news A private jet has just touched down And wait till we tell you who's The Gold Coast has gone giddy Silly grins from here to hear No one's lost the shit like this Since we've filled big brother here But this is even bigger

A high so high we won't come down Because Aussies feel much better So, so, so much better When an American's in town And that's the Takeaway message That first song, an Americans in town And the whole story is really about

How funny is a paradoxical relationship That we have with Hollywood celebrities We love them, we adore them, we look up to them We're so excited if they notice us for five minutes But at the same time we hate them We don't like it if they think they're better than us. I can just hear the two of you making a serious pitch to television executives about the profound reflections on Australian culture and offer

and the deep insights into the true stories and the journalism that's being brought to the table as a pretext to spend years making your silly songs. I'm so glad you got to do it. That's right. Yeah, we had to at least pretend to the ABC that there was some deeper engine to all of this. But yeah, it was really just fun just running around and singing a lot. Boy, it was cold though. Every time I look at the clips in the show,

I just feel freezing because the whole thing was shot in Melbourne towards winter. I can't even do a Ferris wheel in that city I hear. Yeah, well, the Ferris will too. And we had to pretend, because we didn't have the budget to travel. And so for the Chappelle Corby's story, we somehow had to make somewhere in Melbourne in winter look the same as Bali as a Bali holiday resort. Max Miller, our director, did a great, we had actually made a genius location scouts as well who found these little places in Melbourne where you could fake it to look like. the Gold Coast or Bali. Max Miller, who directed all of Auntie Donner's screen stuff, he directed Australian Epic. And, you know, we really wanted somebody like that who had a really good

comic sensibility, a lot of, you know, he's directed things that are really fun and silly. But he was also able to, you know, fake things on a very low budget to make them look like an MGM musical that was shot on location, even though it was actually knocked out in Melbourne during the middle of COVID lockdown. I'm sure that there's, isn't there a small bar somewhere that's decorated exactly like Carobacan prison. Of course there is. We've got that here in Melbourne. It's just near the satanic vegan bar.

I kid you not, there is one. I don't know if it's still open, but it was in Footscray anyway. They make great satanic croissants there, apparently. Oh, delicious. Oh, yes. And great blood sacrifices, but no blood involved. I must say it's brilliant having the kind of proper Shobis singers. I mean, as wonderful as you are, Andrew, and I'm sure as extraordinary as Chris's singing is going to prove to be.

Just having that kind of full trained ability to kind of belt those notes just add so much to the kind of satirical nature of it all. Yeah, it does. It makes it sort of funny. You're right, Dommy. It makes it kind of funnier in a way if you've got a really good singer, you know, like Phoenix Mendoza or, you know, Amy LaPama, these beautiful music theatre vocals in the silliest situations as well. So when you've got Amy LaPama singing about very small Australian things like Koshy or John Fane's Melbourne radio show, and she's singing about it in this Broadway voice, it's really very funny, yeah. Better than getting comedians to do it who can't sing well, like Chris and Mabat. Even though we are in it. That's not true of you. I'll go as far as that.

You're a wonderful singer, but yeah. I can build it a few notes. I mean, Chris is fine because he plays the drill sergeant and he also plays a sailor, an old sea dog in a sea. Shanty. Mind you, there is a... I can give you a bit of inside info. If you watch the Seashanty number in the Tampa episode where Chris and Nicholas Kong and I

play the three sailors on board the Tampa, we've got the three of us singing at once, but Chris, that's not his voice. I've actually sung Chris's part. It's got two Andrews and a Nicholas Kong singing. That reminds me of all the chaser musical numbers where it's just you multi-tracked. The guys are my big...

Yeah, yeah. Well, congratulations. But it is Chris as the soldier. Chris sings his own drill surgeon. Okay. All right. Well, we'll keep an eye up for that one. Maybe use Peter Jackson's technology to isolate the vocals and have some fun with that.

I've tried so hard to put John Lennon's vocals into this show. I couldn't work out how to separate the damn things with the ABC's editing software. Well, congrats on getting it up. So that's 9pm Wednesdays for the next six weeks. And on I View now, where you can binge Chappelle first the way it was meant to be. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, on Ivy, it drops same time as episode one. So, yeah, 9 p.m. Wednesday.

And you can check out the soundtrack album, which I must say has a nicer mix of the music than the TV version. Because for some reason with TV, there's this sort of rule that you have to mix the music for people who own a state-of-the-art sound system in their house. And for everybody else, it sounds a bit not so good. That's how all TV shows are made, I've discovered. On the soundtrack album, yeah, it's an even better mix. And it was mixed by Dave Manton, who normally does Live of the Wireless for Triple J. And pretty much most bands who recorded Triple J, Dave Manton does it. And, Domi, you and I, you know, we worked with Greg Wales at Triple J years ago.

Oh, that was wonderful. The Blow Parade. So Dave Manton is kind of the, he's the Melbourne version of Greg Wales. Yeah, he produced it really nicely. I'm glad we've ended up reference to our most successful piece of work ever, the Blow Parade. The Blow Parade had to be watched. One an Aria, which I've put on my CV, even though I didn't write it in it. It did with it.

Actually, speaking of the aria, I've got it here. Oh, it's right there. I keep it, there it is, there it is. There might get another one of these, who knows. There's an actual aria. That's fantastic. All right.

Well, well, well done, totally good. Ever manufactured. And I guess we'll look for series two in about five years. Well, I think it'll be a limited release. I think it'll be special. I think it's just going to be once this show. Probably because it had so many bureaucratic problems that nobody wants to touch it again.

Nah, it'll explode. Everyone in Australia will watch it and people will demand We'll take to the street to demand a second series. That's what I'm predicting. Yeah, it'll be like in La Mise. Do you hear the people sing? Get your banners out. Get your Australian aback banners in it.

Gina Reinhardt will probably cough up for series two. If you put another Barnaby Joyce story in there, I mean, his marriage would be a good one. Well, in a very late night time slot, maybe. That was great, Andrew. Good luck. I hope that's made you vague. interested in tuning into the bloody thing.

Otherwise, I've wasted my time here. Yeah, well, no, I'm not going to watch it, but I'm very happy for you. I'm going to watch it on Eye View. I'm not going to tune in. No one tunes in anymore. Nobody tunes in. No, no, no. But I've doubt stream away.

You're asleep by then. So, yeah, I views the way. I'm definitely going to open Deaser and listen to the soundtrack right now. Check it out on Deaser. Let that Deaser into your ears, let me tell you. Don't Spotify it. Dizer it. Our gear is from right.

with part of the Iconiclass Network, and I'll catch you next time. Thank you, Andrew. Thanks, Charles. Thanks, Domi. See ya. Bye.