Dirty Laundry Live is one of those rare TV incarnations where going live to air is the least dangerous thing about it.
Each week, late on a Thursday night, the collective anarchy pokes fun at celebrity & celebrities, along with those that promote them and us for making them so. Hosts Lawrence Mooney & Brooke Satchwell came as a seemingly odd pairing when the show was announced in 2013 and quickly proved their mettle as season one played out. ABC2 commissioning the show for a second series in 2014 with more episodes confirmed that there is still a ballsy sense of humour within Aunty’s management and that the faith placed in the pair and the production team had been returned tenfold.
Mooney holds court as the show’s centre and the game (in the loosest use of the word ever) focuses on a set of questions to the panel including the blindingly-quick Satchwell and three guests featuring many regulars such as Zoe Coombs-Marr, Marty Sheargold, Luke McGregor & more. There’s puppetry, a ghost, a special “Eye on Bieber” segment, awkward red carpet interviews and more as the week’s serving of trashy gossip and entertainment “reporting” is given the bollocking it sorely deserves. The show has inadvertently courted controversy by dropping truth-bombs on people like Charles Saatchi or having Brynne Edelsten throw a drink over the picture of her ex-husband’s newer, younger girlfriend.
All this delivered with a trademark MoonMan cheesy, wry grin.
Satchwell’s inclusion in the show has proven the actor has far more to offer than the strength of her performances – her wit is as quick and direct as comedian Mooney’s with years of experience as the target of the kinds of stories they lampoon. Mooney delivers week on week as simultaneously the most and least sane panel member.
Show writers Declan Fay & Gerard McCulloch – who along with Mooney delivered some pearlers in 2013 – are joined this year by Greg Larsen and the foursome have stepped it up a couple of notches this year with the incisiveness (and accuracy) of their dissections of modern fame.
This conversation was recorded with Lawrence and Brooke Thursday 7 August a couple of hours before S02E13 of the show. They’re frank, funny and very generous in their responses.
[podcast]http://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/s04e07-dirtylaundry/MolksTVTalk-S04E07.mp3[/podcast]
Dirty Laundry Live – Thu 9:30pm, ABC2.