Created by Nick Boshier and Jazz Twemlow The Moth Effect is a 6-part sketch comedy series filmed in Sydney for Amazon Prime Video. The series will release weekly from Friday, July 30, in Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, plus select additional territories launching later this year.
Mediaweek spoke to Boshier and Twemlow ahead of the release of what has been described as a new kind of satirical comedy.
When asked how the pairing came about, Boshier said that it came about over a mutual interest in the same type of comedy.
Boshier: “I kind of first met Jazz as a fan of Jazz actually. I saw some of his previous work and thought it was excellent. That is how it manifested because I respected the dickens out of what he created.
“Then we met and had a mind meld, and kind of bonded on what we liked more than we thought what was missing. There is a lot of political satire in the world, but we more bonded on things above the news cycle and things more universal in a sense.”
Lucinda Price, Nick Boshier, and Dave Woodhead
With shows such as The Naked Vicar Show, Big Girl’s Blouse, The D-Generation, The Wedge, Black Comedy, and Skithouse, Australia has a long history with sketch comedy. When asked what they will be adding, they said this new show will bring an esoteric or philosophical point of view that is borderline activistic to sketch comedy.
Twemlow: “I have certainly had my fair share of satirical comedy. Just sort of aiming at Scott Morrison is a bad guy or whatever, which is a good thing, but I have done that a lot and I think we both wanted to tap into what problems are facing humanity as a whole.
“The sketch show as a whole is a bit philosophical, there is some spiritual stuff in there and there is also some really daft stuff as well. Just trying to comment on stuff without being the usual satirical approach.”
Zoe Coombs Marr, Nick Boshier, Jazz Twemlow, Zoe Terakes, and Kate Box
The Moth Effect, features over 30 sketches, music videos, and interstitials starring noteable actors such as Bryan Brown, Vincent D’Onofrio, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, Miranda Otto, Ben Lawson, Peter O’Brien, Kate Box, Zoe Terakes, Miranda Tapsell and Jake Ryan, alongside some of the best and freshest Aussie and Kiwi comedic talent and personalities including Mark Humphries, Nazeem Hussain, Zoe Coombs Marr, Jonny Brugh, Lucinda Price, Dave Woodhead, Louis Hanson, Steen Raskopoulos, Tim Franklin, Sam Cotton, Christiaan van Vuuren, Sarah Bishop, Sam Campbell, Megan Wilding and Brooke Boney.
When asked how they were able to compile such a comprehensive roster of talent, the duo credited the goodwill of their production company Bunya Productions.
Boshier: “The guardians at that company have got so much goodwill that we were beneficiaries of.
“Also I think there was a positive reception to the writing that they received, like Jazz said the stuff that we aim for has a little bit of depth and in some cases none at all, but maybe there was an observation that this writing is not bad.”
Bryan Brown and Nick Boshier
When asked if they followed any rules when creating this sketch comedy world, Twemlow pointed to a simple phrase from Boshier.
Twemlow: “Nick had a nice little phrase that we are anti coal mining but not anti coal miners.
“There is a habit now on social media to attack the person but not necessarily the system that produced that person. I think that is because it is easier or faster to do that because you have 200 characters to criticise a massive abstract system that has been going for 200 years.
“We didn’t want to be mean or do a rant about how crap this person is but wanted to be more sympathetic in our approach. Any one of us could be a fuckwit if placed in the wrong circumstances so don’t be so high and mighty about it.”
Boshier: “We didn’t want to dunk on politicians. There is a lot of dunking going on. That is not to say dunking shouldn’t happen but there is a lot of people doing it brilliantly in this world and it’s not our space. We are hopefully going to add a nice atom to the human project if we can.”
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Top Photo: Jazz Twemlow and Nick Boshier