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Sydney Morning Herald

Monday April 3, 2006

GREG HASSALL

The Worst Week of My Life

ABC, 9pm

A fairly conventional Brit-com but funny nonetheless. Howard (Ben Miller) and Mel (Sarah Alexander) are getting married in a week and, as the title suggests, all hell is about to break loose. In this, the first of seven episodes (one for each day of the week), Howard loses the wedding ring, is confronted at work by a crazed ex-girlfriend and is caught fishing through the toilet by Mel's deeply conservative father (played with grumpy aplomb by Geoffrey Whitehead).

It's not a wildly original premise (has anyone ever enjoyed the lead-up to their wedding?) but the cast is great, particularly Miller as the perpetually worried Ben, and the situations appropriately embarrassing. Recommended.

Inside Australia: Give Me a Break

SBS, 7.30pm

Having a crack at your dream job sounds fine in theory, but if you're at all ambitious that means being thrown in the deep end. And that's rarely much fun.

So it is with Renae Simpson, a 17-year-old schoolgirl from the tiny West Australian mining town of Mount Magnet. A confessed drama queen, Renae thinks acting sounds like fun. But two weeks in Perth under the watchful eye of drama teacher Rick Brayford dispels that notion. Renae is a lovely girl but she's a little bit lazy and a little bit homesick and Brayford is having none of it. To him, acting is a serious discipline and he makes no allowances for Renae's age or inexperience.

Brayford has two weeks to prepare Renae for a performance of Louis Nowra's Radiance. There are lines to be learned and the basics of acting to be grasped and Brayford pushes hard. Does she sink or does she swim? Tune in to find out.

The Wordshed

TVS, 8pm (and Sunday 2pm)

TVS? That's TV Sydney, the reincarnation of community station Channel 31, with a signal now strong enough for most of Sydney to receive (it's 31 on the UHF band). The station had a soft launch last year but is now beginning to feature a diverse selection of cult, ethnic and educational programming.

Produced and presented by the telegenic Johanna Featherstone, this new series about Australian writing falls somewhere between educational and cult. It's a magazine format, combining intimate interviews with pieces to camera and readings from various writers (tonight's premiere includes David Malouf, Delia Falconer and Sonya Hartnett). They are articulate, intelligent and occasionally oblique, which is what you'd expect from people who work with words for a living.

The camerawork, editing and post-production are suitably experimental and while it doesn't all come off, it's nice to see someone pushing the boundaries. If the ABC is wondering how to improve its arts coverage, taking a look at this would be a good start.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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