As its name suggests,the show has a lifespan of five decades. This year sees its fourth instalment,complete with a cast of top-tier comedy talent returning,including Charlie Pickering and,he hopes,Celia Pacquola.
Dancers who were five in the first show – when Sammy was 25 – and are now 20 will perform,together with comedian friends,singers and even a teenager who was in utero in the original. Footage from previous shows will run behind the live acts. He describes it as a series of sketches,“and trying to give Father Time a wedgie,playing with the idea oflinear time”.
“When I first started it,I was bumbling along trying to make a career out of comedy. I’d had a few wins and losses but I was still figuring out what I do,” says the comedian turned ABC broadcaster. “It’s always been looking forward and now it’s the fourth one,15 years worth of shows,for the first time properly reckoning with looking back,watching hours of footage. I’ve been watching myself as this young,nervous,ambitious 25-year-old and that’s way more confronting than I expected it to be.”
His sense of humour has always been based around commitment to an idea and drilling down as far as you can in that world,he says. “This was such a stupid concept that made me laugh at the time,what if I genuinely started this and I figured out I’d be 75 by the time it finished.”
“You basically use a different piece of canvas for every work,so in comedy if I’m writing a song,music is the canvas or doing a sketch then the character is the canvas and with this one,time is the canvas and time is the punchline as well,it’s a totally different way of engaging because I’m setting up jokes and themes and ideas and the whole point is you have to come back in five years or 15 years for that to pay off. Which is not a financially viable move but deeply rewarding.”