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The Dartmouth
June 14, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

As Seen On: 'High' times for comedy television

During my senior year of high school, Chris Lilley's HBO show "Summer Heights High" hit it big, and the hallways were filled with the sounds of people trying to quote Ja'mie, Mr. G or Jonah three characters on the show all played by Lilley. It seemed absurd that people would act out whole episodes, but given the absolute awesomeness of the high-school mockumentary, who could blame them? After all of the hype and hysteria, though, "Summer Heights High" was over just eight episodes later, and television was once again boring and deprived of the brilliant humor of Lilley, who also wrote and produced the show.

Now my excitement level is cranked up to 11 over Lilley's new project, "Angry Boys," which will premiere on HBO on Jan. 8. Once again, Lilley takes on several roles in the show, including Daniel Sims, who lives on a farm with his 90-percent deaf identical twin brother Nathan Sims, and Jen Okazaki, a Japanese mother of three who intensely manages her son's skateboarding career. Okazaki starts a company called "Gay Style Enterprises" because she believes being a homosexual will help her son's "image."

Lilley often pushes the envelope in his work, but he goes so far that any sort of discomfort with the subject matter just seems to disappear. For example, Mr. G of "Summer Heights High" writes a musical based entirely on a girl in the school who has recently died of an ecstasy overdose. When he is reprimanded for the subject matter, he changes the musical to be about himself, an even more ridiculous premise. The end result is hilarious and arguably the most entertaining fake high school musical I've ever seen.

The official online preview for "Angry Boys" has Lilley fans craving for more, especially given that some of the characters are drawn from his award-winning Australian mockumentary show "We Can Be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year." It chronicled the lives of five individuals, all played by Lilley, who are included on the show for "nominations" ranging from the world's first eardrum donation a nomination bestowed upon the same Daniel Sims of "Angry Boy" to rescuing children from an unsecured bouncy castle that got tangled in power lines.

Lilley got his start as a cast member on "Big Bite," an Australian sketch comedy series that ran in the early 2000s and spawned his Mr. G character. "Big Bite" was only moderately successful, but the show also produced one of Lilley's more hilarious characters, Extreme Darren, who, you guessed it, is into extreme "sports" such as golfball dodging and providing tips on what to do when your parents go away. Darren also suggests seeing how long you can hold on to a moving ceiling fan before you fall off.

Lilley's impeccable comedic timing and ability to breathe life into the quirkiest of characters drives all his performances. His roles are filled with eccentric behavior that no one appears to bat an eye over, and the seriousness he brings to each makes them creepily believable so much so that you seem to forget you are watching the same actor in many different outfits.

Most of Lilley's projects to date have been shot in a mockumentary style, with Lilley relying on heavy improvisation for his material and long bouts of editing before the final masterpiece. This differs from other mockumentary-like shows on television, such as "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation," which use fully-written scripts more often than actors' improvisation. For me, there has been no greater disappointment than the progression of Dwight Schrute, who went from an easily riled twit on the British version of "The Office" and early episodes of the American one, to the scheming, diabolical dude that he is today. I wonder if more shows could take a hint from Lilley, who has remained consistently funny and, most importantly, true to the divergent personalities of his characters. Perhaps a little improvisation might freshen up the stale writing of "Office" episodes past.

It's been just about four years since "Summer Heights High" premiered on American television, and "Angry Boys" should definitely quench the thirst for Lilley's comedic genius. Hopefully it will shake things up in American television too.