You’ll be in Sitches

Utopia
ABC TV, 8.30pm, Wednesday
Utopia wasn’t my first choice to watch last week – don’t getting me wrong I love Working Dog and was devoted to the D Gen but, well, if you’ve seen Rob Sitch play Mike Moore in Frontline then you’ve seen all his characters, right?
I turned on to watch the political comedy The Hollowmen a few years ago only to turn off again with a strong case of de ja vu, mainly thanks to Sitch, so I was reluctant to waste another half hour on a Sitch-led comedy series.
However, after being coerced into it by the other half I’m kind of glad I did because, you know what, this one is actually funny – laugh out loud funny to be honest.
If you’ve ever worked in an office it is hard not to find parallels to real life.
Scarily the words “oh wow that happened to me” were uttered more than once during the half hour.
Sitch, is very much the straight man here, he isn’t playing for laughs and it works.
He is Tony the stressed-out departmental head of the Nation Building Authority, a private/public business putting together the Woolarong Urban Development. Around him a mix of very intelligent people, those who were hiding behind the filing cabinet when the brains were handed out and others who are just so absorbed with their own self importance that common sense seems to have been abandoned.
The first episode saw the team simultaneously trying to attract overseas investors as well going for a “hip” new logo – which they really don’t seem to need.
Of course, the logo change means that hours and hours are wasted on concepts, reprinting stationary, ID cards, repainting walls and changing business cards.
One of those ‘oh yes, I’ve been there’ moments came when finally, after attracting the overseas client, they realise there are no business cards to give them and suddenly they’re forced to use Post-it notes.
This comedy comes from the minds of Sitch and his long-time collaborators Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner although it seems to be firmly his baby this time – he directs and plays the main character.
However after Frontline, The Hollowmen, and even his appearances on The Panel it seems Sitch has finally learned subtlety.
You might say he finally knows that less is more or, in this case, less is not (Mike) Moore and it’s a lesson worth learning and this is finally a show worth watching.
– Tania Phillips