The early 1900’s saw the decline of vaudeville in America due to the introduction of “talking
pictures”, the closure of venues, and the high costs involved in performing.
Music Hall Music hall Is the British equivalent of vaudeville. Just like its American counterpart, it also
played host to a number of acts that were singers, dancers, acrobats or comedic. It became
so popular by the 1850’s that many houses were knocked down only to have large music malls
built in their place.
The First World War saw music hall reach the height of its popularity with many of its performers and composers of the time helping with the war effort.
Music hall began a slow decline after the war. The last of the music mall theatres closed their
doors in 1960. It is interesting to note that even though most of this period was dominated by
the Americans and the British, Australia had its own star of the vaudeville/music hall era: Ray
Mo (Born Harry Van Der Sluice in 1892) was Australia’s leading vaudeville star for close to 30
years
Sketch comedy moves to TV 1960- 2000
It’s fair enough to say that the British and American sketch comedy invasion continued well
into this era of the genre. Giving audiences such memorable shows as “Monty Python’s Flying
Circus” and “Saturday Night Live”. Australia has produced some good (and some not so good)
Sketch Comedy Series for TV over the years, a few examples include; “The Big Gig”, “Big Girls
Blouse”, “The Comedy Company”, “Fast Forward”, “Full Frontal”, “The Micallef (p)rogram(me)”
and “Skit-House”.
The truth is, when you move something that was ultimately from the stage to the screen, it
can be seen as a huge risk; sometimes you hit... and sometimes you miss. There have been
some truly memorable moments of sketch comedy on our screens. From” Auntie Jack” and her
menacing “I’ll rip ya bloody arms off” to the theme from “The Big Gig”, these shows have
always found a way to make Australians laugh. However, it seems that TV Comedy, particularly
sketch comedy, has been doomed to die a slow, agonising TV death. We all know Australians
like comedy. So why is it that this version of sketch comedy didn’t quite take off to the dizzying heights of that which came before it? Audiences are fickle and as the old saying goes
“you can’t please everybody all the time” and that appears to be the case here.
Australian sketch comedy reached its peak in the late 80’s and early 90’s. It has launched the
careers of some of Australia’s most famous faces in comedy today but those shows remain
forever locked in time as a memory to some great Australian viewing.
Since the year 2000 there has been limited success with sketch comedy on television. The
commercial networks seem to have lost interest in it completely. That being said, local and
community television stations are producing “light entertainment” sketch comedy shows that
hopefully will bring it back into the lime light and back on to our screens.
The Future of Sketch Comedy: Where to next?
Sketch comedy seems to have gone full circle. It started out on the stage over 100 years ago
and now it appears to be making a return to the boards in the form of improvisational
comedy. As well as this, it has also branched out into other mediums such as radio and digital
media.
If you were to type sketch comedy into YouTube the results would be endless. Sketch-based
comedy web series are becoming quite popular. Local radio stations are also taking off with
the sketch comedy genre. “LOL Radio” is a prime example of this.
It seems that sketch comedy has found a new home in web-based comedy series and radio
broadcast here in Australia. We will always have our British and American friends to fall back
on when it comes to what we see on TV. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, sketch
comedy will make a triumphant return to our TV screens but for now there’s always YouTube.
And that’s good enough for me.