“We let the comedians loose in the dark” | Television tonight

It was five years ago when Josh Martin, then SBS Commissioning Editor of Entertainment and Food, left the broadcaster to set up a production company with foodie presenter Adam Liaw.

i8 Studio is responsible for Shane Delia’s Malta, Adam & Poh’s Great Australian Bites And Luxury escapesand unveils a new entertainment format on ABC next week.

Tonight at the Museum is described as comedians being let loose in a working museum, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Think of a panel show with a live audience and comedians expressing their best knowledge about historical artifacts.

“It’s a quiz plus in some ways,” explains Adam Liaw. “On quiz shows you’re used to questions being asked. But in this we take it one step further. We’re in a real museum. We let the comedians loose in the dark. They run around, they do things, they interact with real objects – none that they are allowed to touch because they are just as valuable and so precious.”

“There’s just something fascinating when you hear a real story about an object and it walks into the room. It’s a real wow moment.”

Alex Lee hosts the series that Josh Martin says has the smarts and humor QI – even bringing Alan Davies to the very first episode.

“One of the North Stars in terms of tone and feel was this QI I think,” he acknowledges. “It’s that mix of smart and stupid, where you have fun, learn something and tell someone about it the next day.

“We’re thrilled that ABC has backed a small Australian production company with a new format. It’s not a purchased format. It’s great that they’re supporting people like us.

“We really wanted to do a classic ABC comedy show on Wednesday nights. This is our first, but we hope the first of many. We’ve already had a few format requests internationally. So it’s a format that can travel.”

Tasmanian Museum has been involved from the beginning, when Martin, Liaw and Lee developed board games from the ground up. The gameplay was determined by the collection and the staff was even present during the show to handle the heritage items.

As Liaw explains, “You talk to them, and they’re so excited to tell you the stories behind all these objects that we explore in the series. Essentially it’s a show about curiosity in my head. I’ve obviously been on a lot of panel shows before, worked a lot on Tomorrow Tonightalso with the ABC.

“This show, whether you’re the host, whether you’re on the panel, collection staff, experts or listening in, it’s all about pursuing that core idea of ​​curiosity.”

“You would never be able to bring millions and millions of dollars worth of artefacts to a TV studio in Ultimo or Melbourne,” says Martin. “The Tasmanian Museum has an incredible collection, everything from First Nations objects to 1,000-year-old Syrian tablets to more contemporary things.”

“There is a dress that is very famous that we probably shouldn’t reveal in the interview because it is part of a key play in the show,” Liaw teases.

“There’s a shopping cart that I saw in the storage. I thought, ‘Why is there just a regular shopping cart in the museum store?’ Then you walked around it and on the inside was a “Anyway, Get a Winfield” ad. And you say, ‘Well, that has some cultural value in terms of the story of Australia,'” Martin adds.

The season will feature guests Adam Briggs, Alexei Toliopoulos, Becky Lucas, Brett Blake, Bjorn Stewart, Claire Hooper, Colin Lane, Danielle Walker, Emma Holland, Lizzy Hoo, Luke McGregor, Mark Humphries, Merrick Watts, Nazeem Hussain, Peter Helliar, Sashi Perera, Steph Tisdell, Susie Youssef, Takashi Wakasugi and Zoë Coombs Marr.

Each episode, the guests are also playfully released into the museum with a torch. What they encounter is only a fraction of the broader collection.

“Museums are a bit like icebergs,” Liaw explains. “What you actually see when you walk through a museum is the iceberg above the water, about 1% to 3% of what’s on display in the collection at any given time. So there’s a tremendous depth of stories that we can discover as we delve into so much of what’s in the collection.”

“One game is called Doctor Doctor,” Martin continues. “We’re releasing a variety of creepy medical instruments from the 18th and 19th centuries, and apparently people have to guess which part of the body it was used on.”

It’s not just bragging rights the players are competing for: the winner will have their own item on display at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for all to see.

Producers also praise Alex Lee for her development input and hosting skills.

“It’s easy to forget how rare it is for a woman to present this kind of program herself. She switched effortlessly from writer to presenter and some of the funniest lines in the series came out in that moment,” says Martin.

If it performs on ABC, the hope is to include other museums and sell the format internationally.

“We did this first season in Hobart, but there is no shortage of other museums in Australia that we could go to in the future.”

Tonight at the Museum screens Wednesday at 8 p.m. on ABC.