Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell is the best Australian comedy of the last decade. Unless you’re a fan of … let’s sayFat Pizza, in which case congratulations because it’s not like Paul Fenech is going to stop making his brand of low budget slap-happy violence any time soon. But for the rest of us, Mad as Hell ticks all the boxes – including the one that explains why comedy is seriously struggling in the television economy of 2022.
Now in its tenth year (and 13th season), Mad as Hell manages to be both extremely accessible and a maze of callbacks and in-jokes, while always being very funny no matter what.
Anthony Morris is a freelance film and television writer. He’s been a regular contributor to The Big Issue, Empire Magazine, Junkee, Broadsheet, The Wheeler Centre and Forte Magazine, where he’s currently the film editor. Other publications he’s contributed to include Vice, The Vine, Kill Your Darlings (where he was their online film columnist), The Lifted Brow, Urban Walkabout and Spook Magazine. He’s the co-author of hit romantic comedy novel The Hot Guy, and he’s also written some short stories he’d rather you didn’t mention. You can follow him on Twitter @morrbeat and read some of his reviews on the blog It’s Better in the Dark.