The ABC is set to launch the latest Rob Sitch series, Utopia, a comedic play on government bureaucracy set to air next month.
Sitch and Working Dog Productions, the team behind Australian favourites Frontline and The Hollowmen, will debut their latest offering Utopia, “a satire about the difficult process of taking grand, uncosted, inadequately planned, fundamentally flawed schemes — and passing them off as ‘Nation Building'”, on ABC1 on August 13.
Following on from the success of other foreign comedies poking fun at government operation, mostly notably US hit series Veep, Utopia stars a (mostly) comedy-friendly cast including funny man Sitch, Kitty Flanagan (Full Frontal, The Project), Celia Pacquola (Offspring), Dave Lawson (I Love You Too), Luke McGregor (Please Like Me), Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann (The Project), Emma-Louise Wilson (Any Questions For Ben?), Michelle Lim Davidson (Playschool) and Toby Truslove (Laid, Outland, The Strange Calls).
Long-time Sitch collaborators Tom Gleisner and Santo Cilauro also pulled weight on the eight-part series, set in the offices of the newly formed Nation Building Authority department and follows the executive team’s supervision of major infrastructure tasks.
“It’s really about how smart people produce dumb results,” said Sitch told TimeOut of Utopia.
“The theme of the series has been bubbling to the surface for a few years but the recent election and budget seem to have made “nation building” the number one priority.”
Utopia premiers on ABC1 Wednesday, August 13, at 8.30pm.
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