📺 ANDREW HANSEN: Australian Epic

Andrew Hansen joins Jonesy & Amanda to chat about his new show, Australian Epic. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And Amanda gam Nation.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Our next guest is one of the brains behind The
Chasers War on Everything. He's teamed up with his old
mate Chris Taylor, also from The Chaser, to create a
new comedy series. It sounds incredible. It's called Australian Epic.
They retell some of our most defining stories by turning
them into a musical Stephen Bradbury, Chappelle Corby, We're going
to see it all in musical form. Andrew Hanson high

(00:26):
here he.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Is, Hello, Jennvy and Amanda. Are you ready for some
toe tapping to historical retelling this evening?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, I just love what you do. You know when
I see you on the piano just playing a word
scale look at him out.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
You're right excellent satire. How much fun has it been
to take the piece out of Australian folklore?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Oh it's great, Amanda, because we like doing that. You know.
We wanted to know we all laugh at ourselves in
Australia a bit, do we? So you know, Chris and
I thought, let's tell up what's an old story of
some of these big Australian moments. Do it in a fun,
silly way by singing you know, sort of make fun

(01:05):
of things about ourselves, like our relationship with Hollywood celebrities.
For example, in the story about Johnny Depp's dogs gets quarantine,
you know we turned them into a musical. Excellent. Yeah,
We've got the story of Chappelle Corby as you as
you mentioned, and you know that that's partly a story
about our attitude to what we do when we go

(01:27):
on a massive Bogan holiday to Barley.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Actually something else we like to do, so and Andrew,
not that I'm going into your wheelhouse, but almost the
Chappelle Corby story could be sung to the theme of
Gilligan's Island. It's got that same sort of cadence.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
We are thinking alike here Jones, Yes, we should have
had you in on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, I just like, sit right back, You're not to you,
you know, it just works out.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
And you're also having to go with Mary Donaldson. I
love this about how you know she met a prince,
you know Sydney pub.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
He isn't an extraordinary ordinary woman from Hobart just runs
into a Danish princess. Was like Hambler meeting Hamblet at
the brewery or something. An incredible story. So you know,
we turned that's our love story of course in the series,
the Princess Mary story.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
That was funny someone was telling me on the weekend.
We were just talking about the whole slip in thing
and it wasn't as accidental as everyone would believe. That
Mary actually knew that he was there and it was
like a real yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
But having said that, you can't kill the story. That's
where she met him, though it's not quite a million
girls could have taken us.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Like she just walked in there and met a prince,
is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Where she had to beat the other girls, a bunch
of them. She was out with her mates, we discovered
the big night. I think, you know, I think maybe
lots of them were hoping to hook up with.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Princey and that this was before the Bachelor, so really.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
She was ahead of her time. Yeah, so we got
a look. That was a great opportunity to have. The
Danish Queen was very suss about Mary. She didn't trust her.
So you know that we wrote a musical song for
the Queen of Denmark and that's called you didn't say
she was Tasmanian. That's the Queen's main main issue. Well

(03:09):
at least in our version of the.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Story, have you rhymes Tasmanian?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
We wouldn't believe in rhymes with aliens, rhymes with all
sorts of things, and just you wait and see.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
And that is the genius of you.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Will you be able to wend in succulent Chinese meal?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Now that should be a music, shouldn't he that? That
man with the We thought of a lot of story
we wondered. We were originally thinking of turning the invention
of the dual flush toilet, and I still regret that
we didn't have room or budget for that one.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I didn't even know that was Australian Australia.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
It was an ass the invention, you know. Although the
problem is we wanted to interview a lot of these
people too, and the dual flush toilet man no longer
with it. But we did talk to the real Stephen Bradbury,
so you know, it was a great chance to hear
him tell his amazing, jaw dropping, blood soak story of
even getting onto that Olympic ice in the first place,
and then I get to pretend to be Stephen Bradbury

(04:08):
bursting into song as well. It was a joyous show.
To make. Really did you wear the lycra? I did
for every scene? Well, we thought it would be funny
that Bradbury's wearing his lycra for his whole life story.
So even when he's cool, I'm dressed up in his
Olympic and I've got his blondeard.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
This is going to be great. Australian Epics starts tonight
at nine o'clock on ABC TV and ABC I View.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Andrew Hanson, thank you, Thank you, Jonesy and Amanda. I
hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh, it sounds great. Thanks Andrew,