Summer Heights High

Ok so I have a confession, I found out about this excellent Aussie comedy series from that trash juice monger Perez Hilton. I know, I can't help it everyone has guilty secrets. My interest was aroused when reading that SHH was a 'mockumentary' about a school, recently bought internationally by the BBC and HBO. It is made by a guy called Chris Lilley, who I admit I had never heard of until watching the show. This show has many fans and the praise for Lilley is deserved. It is utterly charming and a pure joy to watch. It is the lovable bastard child of Christopher Guest, brilliantly acted and tackles similar social subject matter such as racism and disability in a less uncomfortable cringe inducing manner found in The Office. It's light like Kath and Kim with horribly exaggerated yet some how strangely lovable characters. Particularly so of 'Jonas' the Polynesian foul mouthed disruptive schoolboy, by far the funniest creation. This character is universal - there is a 'Jonas' in everybody's classroom no matter what!

Update: Since I am fantastically obsessive to OCD levels, I sought out Lilley's earlier work "We Can Be Heroes" in 2005. I can't gush enough about the show. He really is up there with Guest. He doesn't play one 'type' of character doing their shtick which could be applied to Ricky Gervais, Larry David or Gary Shandling. Lilley is a chameleon, versatile enough to believably play a teenage vacuous girl, a club foot frumpy housewife, and an inexplicably exuberant Chinese student for detailed comedic character studies. It mixes different reportage/film techniques into the program, which helps create a very sophisticated yet realistic 'documentary'. What's more, it's all written by Lilley which is ridiculous. Everything is spot on, you will find it difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction!