The experience of seeing I Love Green Guide Letters live is like watching a TED talk in real life. The same way that you can view the talk once it’s up on YouTube, you can listen to the show when it’s released as a podcast, and it’ll be the same people, telling same jokes, but being there in the room, it’s just funnier. This is one of those times where, you just had to be there.
As a concept, I Love Green Guide Letters podcast has a winning formula: put some smart, funny people in a room together, hand them a mic, and get them to respond to letters in The Age’s Green Guide liftout, which isn’t so much a review but more, your neighbour’s two cents about a TV show or radio program that’s got their jimmies up in a rustle. The show, like the one on Saturday at The Den in Chippendale, is at its best when it’s a little bit meta, with guests responding to petty complaints about their show, which is cruel but with hilarious results.
The best guests are the ones who aren’t afraid to mock themselves, and are ready to roll with the punches – this edition, featuring Tom Ballard (wearing his Reality Check hat), comedian Bart Freebairn (an I Love Green Guide Letters regular), and an unlikely guest in Sarah Harris (Studio 10), certainly gave the crowd their money’s worth. There was an easy rapport, and hardly a dull moment, with Freebairn providing many quips, though most were inappropriately funny (you can hear the audience laugh… there’s a one-second pause, followed by tentative, suppressed giggles). Ballard was quick to riff on the same things (e.g. “nurses on heat”, as one discontented viewer describes ABC’s Anzac Girls), while Saunders balanced the role of host well, offering his comedic take but always bringing the conversation back in. Harris, although the odd woman out, soon warmed up, and definitely held her own, with moments like being “Andew Daddo-ed” (when Saunders read out letters about Studio 10 that completely ignored the existence of Harris, which everyone concluded was worse than being insulted), and “teeth or titties” (when Harris, known for her white teeth, revealed that growing up, her mother told her she might as well look after her teeth, if she wasn’t going to grow some big tits).
Listening to I Love Green Guide Letters is like listening in on a conversation between friends – where nothing is off-limits, the humour can be crass, and there are so many in-jokes, it’s sometimes hard to get in on the joke at first. But the more you listen, there’s a rhythm that develops, the in-jokes persist, and you begin to feel like you’re a part of it.
To check out I Love Green Guide Letters live shows, listen or subscribe to the podcast, visit ilovegreenguideletters.com
