Agony Uncles, ABC1, Wednesday, 9.30pm
Des Dowling, Scott Brennan and Adam Elliot come clean about their experiences of
sex and love in this new series.
With tongue firmly in cheek, writer and actor Adam Zwar (Wilfred, Lowdown)
bravely goes where few people have hitherto dared: inside the psyche of men and the
rituals of love and romance.
On paper, this could have been a stinker. A bunch of self-satisfied blokes sitting
around discussing their experiences of women and the game of love has the vague
stench of locker-room misogyny.
The clip-and-talking-head format of this also bears strong similarities to the tedious
Grumpy Old … franchise, in which washed-up boomer-era comedians nostalgically
kvetch about what’s wrong with the world today.
For starters Zwar, who narrates and can often be heard in the background laughing
at the responses the discussions elicit, has rounded up a diverse bunch of men who
span generations, cultural backgrounds, personalities and sexual preferences.
There are blokes’ blokes like broadcaster Tim Ross and comedian Lawrence Mooney,
SNAGS such as Josh Lawson and Damian Walshe-Howling, Muslim academic
Waleed Aly, out-and-proud gay filmmaker Adam Elliot and the odd-couple pairing of
father-and-son John and Tom Elliott, among others.
As they talk about the first tentative steps that single men take in their quest to meet
Mr or Miss Right, or to paraphrase Robin Williams, Mr and Miss Right Now, what
emerges is a far cry from the stereotype of blokes bragging about their sexual
conquests, an image reinforced by background, Puberty Blues-era footage of leering
surfers standing next to their shining ”shaggin’ wagons”.