The Assembly, ABC review: blunt questions, bright interviews

Journalism is a job where you learn by doing. University courses are relatively recent; working at a media organisation as a cadet is still one of the main ways new journos learn their trade. Usually they start off at the bottom handling jobs like fact-checking the tide times. Interviewing the Prime Minister? Not unless you’re one of the new journalists on The Assembly.

Mentored by Leigh Sales, these 15 Autistic journalism students have been thrown in at the deep end. No quick chats over the phone with the coach of the local amateur football team or the second prize winner in the jam contest at the local agricultural show here. Across six episodes, they’ll be speaking to luminaries such as Sam Neill, Hamish Blake, Delta Goodrem, Adam Goodes, Amanda Keller, and the aforementioned Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese.

Based on the 2023 French production Les Rencontres du Papotin (whose guests included French President Emmanuel Macron), each 45-minute episode features Sales guiding the team as they put together their questions, helping them to find angles that mean something to them – and, through them, their audience. There are obstacles along the way, from nervousness at dealing with big names through to the realisation that they personally may not have much of a connection with the subject but still have to come up with relevant questions.

Aged between 18 and 44, these students have a few rules going into the interviews. No subject is out of bounds, no questions off the table, and anything might happen; if the journalists need to fidget or take a break, that’s allowed too. Fresh out the gate, these students are surprisingly professional – in that they’re not out there asking offensive or inappropriate ‘gotcha’ questions that would bring the chat to an abrupt end. No car-crash interviews on Leigh Sales’ watch.

There’s still a fair amount of typically soft celebrity questions like ‘what is your favourite dance move?’. But the enthusiasm and conviction from the students often elicits a more authentic response than you’d get from, say, Angela Bishop asking the same question on the red carpet.

And often they come up with questions that you just wouldn’t get from mainstream journalists. They may be bluntly personal, but if the point of an interview is to reveal something about the subject (and let’s be honest: often with celebrity interviews the point is merely to promote their latest project), then these kind of questions are exactly what’s needed.

An interview works both ways. It’s no surprise that the line up here consists of the kind of celebrities who are generally considered to be decent people willing to put their lives out on public display. There are no notorious cranks or storm-out experts here; the drama comes from how much the subjects are willing to reveal of themselves in the face of unorthodox questioning, not whether they’re going to kick over a chair on the way out after being asked ‘what’s something your mum taught you that you still use to this day?’

The results are entertaining and often insightful. The students are keen and (usually) excited in a way that’s infectious, and their subjects seem genuinely interested in the questions – something that’s not always a certainty with celebrity interviews. Perhaps more importantly, this highlights the way many other celebrity chats (even the ones on the ABC) are more like tired rituals than actual information-seeking exercises, the same stale questions and rehearsed answers batted back and forth.

The ABC has a long history of boosting new talent, whether it’s their early 10s journalism series Hungry Beast or their more recent Fresh Blood online comedy showcase. It’s already been announced that the cast of The Assembly have been offered paid internships at the ABC. Judged on their work here, the ABC is lucky to have them.

The Assembly premieres on ABC on 20 August, with episodes airing at 8.30pm weekly on Tuesdays and on ABC iView. Watch the trailer.