Imagine spending your career working with people you met at university. Then imagine that together, over more than three decades, you created some of the most successful TV shows in the country. As well, you produced films, books, podcasts, stage shows, radio programs and an animation series. Throughout, you remained close friends and enthusiastic colleagues.
Reflecting on just that kind of history, Tom Gleisner says, “I fell in with the right crowd”, neatly displaying the wit and facility with words his workmates – Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Jane Kennedy and Michael Hirsh – justifiably admire.
In the Working Dog ecosystem, ideas can percolate for years: maybe they’ll grow into something tangible, maybe not. Gleisner and Sitch came up with the concept for The Cheap Seats years ago, but couldn’t decide on a title. When they finally did, they thought they were too old to front it. They found the ideal hosts in Tim McDonald, who was employed by the company as a social media producer and who, Sitch reckons, “was clearly a prodigy”, and Kiwi comedian Melanie Bracewell, who’d been a contestant on HYBPA.
“We’ve never done an announcement that ‘this is the final season.’ TGYH is a good example: we just stopped. And a decade or so later, picked up where we left off.” Given that approach, fans of Frontline , The Hollowmen and Utopia might still have reason to hope.