Summer Heights High » Reviews

Episode One
The Age

We Can Be Heroes was grand but this time Chris Lilley goes one better.

When Chris Lilley came up with We Can Be Heroes, in which he played five aspirants for the title of Australian of the Year, it proved a splendid exercise in mocking the flag-waving artificiality of that annual shindig. The series went on to great success, winning the Golden Rose Award for best male comedy performance at the international television festival in Lucerne, Switzerland. It also picked up the NSW Premier's Award for best scriptwriting and Logies for outstanding new talent and best comedy series.

That was grand but Lilley goes one better with Summer Heights High, which in eight episodes of rather more solid storytelling provides his take on a single term at an average Australian high school, though the staff and students of Brighton Secondary College in Victoria, who play an admirably straight-faced role in all this, are clearly anything but average.

This time, Lilley's central character is Greg Gregson - Mr G to his students - the ego-driven senior drama teacher at Summer Heights. Mr G prides himself on flashy productions, one of the best of which, so he tells us, was a musical he wrote based on the tsunami disaster and set to the music of Bananarama. Just now he's suffering one of his "off years", for the head of drama wants the lioness's share of the production roster. When she takes sudden leave, Mr G appoints himself director of performing arts, causing considerable friction with the staff.

Then there's Jonah, the surly Tongan bully and champion breakdancer from year 8, and the return of Ja'mie, the private school girl from We Can Be Heroes who arrives at Summer Heights as an exchange student. Ja'mie finds herself out of her comfort zone but she is determined to succeed. Lilley plays her with considerable relish.

- Robin Oliver