australian television information archive

Kath and Kim take the UK

Kath Day-Knight has finally found her way onto a plane at Tullamarine airport.

Kath and daughter Kim have landed in Britain asking themselves “Will the Poms get us?”

They asked the same question a couple of years ago of Australian viewers who responded by making the ABC’s hit series Kath and Kim the most successful comedy in the country’s television history.

And now British viewers are being served a Fountain Lakes slice of Australian suburbia to go with their helpings from Sylvania Waters and Erinsbrough.

Some critics, however, still need to grasp the new dialect.

“Trust me, you will be using the term ‘horndog’ in everyday conversation,” wrote The Sun’s TV critic, somewhat confused about Kim’s status as a hornbag.

The Sun was one of four national British newspapers to declare Kath and Kim their “Pick of the Day” for its premiere on cable channel LivingTV this week.

The Evening Standard described it as “a kind of Neighbours meets The Royle Family, with some fantastic pronunciation and expressions. Brilliant stuff.”

The Times was equally enthusiastic: “The parody of the language is brilliant.”

The Telegraph compared it to an Australian TV icon: “Think Cell Block H (Prisoner), but set in the prison of suburbia.”

Kath and Kim creators and stars Jane Turner and Gina Riley believe their mangled outer suburban Australian whine and localised humour will make the show more appealing to the British rather than have them shaking their heads wondering about blue light discos, hunks o’ spunk and savoury shapes.

“They like that specific thing. It’s a very specific place, it’s not generic, Fountain Lakes is very Melbourne, very Australian, people like that colour and richness it gives,” Turner said.

Turner, who plays Kath, believes the regional references will make Fountain Lakes as alluring for international viewers as the New York of Woody Allen movies.

“I get a lot of inspiration from Woody Allen films,” she said.

“You love seeing New York, just because you live in Australia doesn’t mean you can’t relate to it. You want to see it, it’s like fantasy land, like going travelling, seeing different places.”

But there was no grand scheme behind making Kath and Kim as deliberately Melbourne as possible.

“So many programmes are made in that generic mode because they want overseas sales,” Riley said.

“But we always wanted to be really specific about where we were and what we did. God, we never thought of overseas sales!

“When we were writing the first series, we’d just look at each other and say ‘Oh my God, is anybody going to get this at all? Is this just going to be for us?”’

The duo has written seven of eight episodes for the third series which should go to air on the ABC toward the end of the year.

Living, one of Britain’s biggest payTV stations, took on Kath and Kim after it acquired a cult, but small, following on boutique station Ftn.

“It’s been tested in the UK on a small audience, would Britain like it? We know they will,” said Hannah Barnes, deputy controller of LivingTV.

“Some of the subtleties will go over British people’s heads.

“But the relationship between mother and daughter, daughter and husband, daughter and friend is all universal.

“It’s a really sophisticated, clever, funny, funny show.”

Some of that cult have even recognised Riley and Turner on the streets of London while on their promotional tour this week.

“It’s really surprised us. They say ‘we’ve stumbled across Kath and Kim and we’re obsessed by it’,” Riley said.

They have a cable following in the US and the show has been sold to Ireland and Finland where it will be screened later this year, while the ABC is negotiating further European sales.

If there was some worry over whether the British would get it, what will the Finns—and the rest of Europe—make of hunks o’ spunk, hornbags, indoor cricket and Shane Warne?

“I think they’ll be alright,” Riley said.

“Some Italian friends showed it to some Dutch friends of theirs and the Dutch went wild for it, they said it was exactly like suburban families in Holland.

“But it’s hard to know, obviously one layer is our funny accents.”

They were unsure whether the show would be dubbed or subtitled, but were conscious that much of the humour would be lost if translated.

“They’ll miss out the language jokes and verbal jokes but they’ll pick up the situation jokes and the plot and the fact that Sharon looks so funny,” Turner said.

As for the British viewers, Turner and Riley were confident Noelene Donaher and her brood in Sylvania Waters and the Ramsay Street locals in Neighbours have given them enough of an insight into Australian suburbia.

Now Kath and Kim can give them something else.

“It’s probably more realistic than Neighbours,” Riley said.

April 9, 2004
AAP