australian television information archive

New Hope for Small Business

Filming starts this week in Melbourne on Very Small Business, the new six-part ABC TV comedy series, produced by Wayne Hope and Robyn Butler, the team behind The Librarians.

Don Angel (Wayne Hope) is a small businessman — the backbone of this great country's economy. But if that's true, it's no thanks to him. After numerous unsuccessful ventures, Don's Worldwide Business Group is now hurtling towards liquidation. His debts are mounting, his stomach's killing him, his wife has left him and he's just hired Ray Leonard (Kim Gyngell) as his sole employee. It's a marriage made in heaven — at least until the Tax Office gets there.

Wayne Hope says "We really saw an opening for a show like this on ABC TV. We're big fans of Alan Kohler and Inside Business; we just think it could be funnier."

ABC TV Executive producer Debbie Lee says, "Don Angel has the sort of chutzpah that will be an inspiration to small business all over the country. He's got creditors baying and his life's a mess, but he never loses the dream!"

Very Small Business will be shot on location over the next six weeks.

Production Credits: A Gristmill Pty Ltd production, written by Wayne Hope and Gary McCaffrie. Directed by Daina Reid, ABC TV Executive Producer Debbie Lee, ABC TV Head of Arts, Entertainment and Comedy Amanda Duthie.

April 14, 2008
ABC press release

Wayne Hope's new TV comedy Very Small Businessman

THE dodgy Australian small businessman is set to come undone in a new TV comedy.

Very Small Business, which premieres on the ABC next month, is centred around a scamming salesman Don Angel who runs five magazines under different aliases.

His company Don's Worldwide Wide Business Group has one employee - a journalist suffering from depression.

Producer, writer and star Wayne Hope says the idea of the classic, battling Aussie small businessman was great to make fun of.

"We thought it was kind of a good idea to kind of expose the little bloke," Hope said yesterday.

"Because I reckon the little bloke's a little bit overcooked these days.

"The little bloke's had a good run.

"But it might be time to take the piss out of him."

In the series, Angel, who suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, starts to come unstuck as creditors come after him, and his ex-wife tries to clean him out.

But he's always looking for the next business idea.

By his side is cynical Ray Leonard, played by Kim Gyngell - a former renowned journalist who finds himself writing for Angel's magazines including Railway Union Monthly.

The former Stupid, Stupid Man and The Librarians star, Hope says he and fellow writers Gary McCaffrie and Robyn Butler believe Australians will relate to Very Small Business.

"Many of us have known an uncle or a bloke down the road who have bought a franchise and the following year he bought a different franchise," Hope said.

"And the following year he was starting an embroidery cushion business.

"We all know someone who's trying to turn a quick buck."

When he was a teenager, Hope worked for his mum's company and he came across a lot of people like his character in business parks, he said.

Audiences are introduced to the rude and inappropriate Angel when he is wiping his backside on the toilet while on the phone.

Hope says he loves playing such characters.

"That kind of crudity and boldness I'm always kind of drawn too," Hope says.

"It's those characters that in a room speak far too loud and are comfortable with that. I just find those people fascinating."

Despite being someone who lies to advertisers about his magazines' circulation and doesn't want to spend time with his two kids, Hope insists his character is no villain.

"The best characters I think are the ones that despite yourself you end up liking," Hope says.

"They're the most complicated.

"You go 'Don's appalling but he's got a point and he's in there trying'."

Very Small Business premieres on September 3.

By Katherine Field
August 15, 2008
The Daily Telegraph

Taking care of business

Wayne Hope's comedy supergroup draws belly laughs from a very small premise.

You've probably met a man like Don Angel. "Don's a fair dinkum," actor Wayne Hope pauses, searching for the perfect word. "Tosser. Yeah, he's a fair dinkum fraud. That's how I'd describe him."

Hope plays Angel in Very Small Business, a six-part ABC sitcom produced by a veritable supergroup of local talent. That group is led by Hope, a veteran of The Micallef Program, Stupid Stupid Man and the award-winning film The Castle, among others.

He co-stars with comedy stalwart Kim Gyngell (The Comedy Company, Full Frontal and Col'n Carpenter). Hope also co-wrote the series with Gary McCaffrie (Full Frontal, The Games, Newstopia) and co-produced it with his wife, Robyn Butler (The Librarians), who also has a small part.

"I play the therapist Don is sent to see by his GP," Butler says. "It's for irritable bowel syndrome and the GP says that he thinks it may all be more in Don's head than in his bum - which Don doesn't understand at all."

Don Angel is a marvellous comic creation. A publisher of niche magazines including Footy Inquest and Railway Union Monthly, Angel is an entrepreneur who's entirely self-made. The problem is, he hasn't made it yet and most likely never will. Aspirational, constipated and thrillingly unaware of his own shortcomings, he is a distant cousin of The Office's David Brent.

Very Small Business charts Angel's efforts to keep his business afloat, pay child support, appease his ex-wife, bond with his kids and unblock his internal plumbing.

He rents an office in a soulless space previously occupied by an IT company. The tea station is a picnic table boasting tea bags and instant coffee. On Angel's desk - beside the information sheet on "reflex points of the colon" - are half-a-dozen phones that substitute for a Commander system. In the corner are piles of undistributed magazines.

"Cats and Doggies at it again," trumpets Footy Inquest. "Boom gates to come down quicker," screams the cover of Railway Union Monthly. "When is a tribute plagiarism?" asks Music, Music, Music, Music (there were meant to be only three "Musics" but there was a stuff-up at the printer).

Unlike Angel, Australian comedy is on a roll and Very Small Business is another winner, largely thanks to its nuanced protagonist, who is in virtually every scene. It's also thanks to Gyngell's character, Ray Leonard, with whom Don forges a prickly partnership in a nondescript outer Melbourne business park.

"I'm sure comparisons will be drawn with The Office," Butler says, "just because of the setting. But what's different is the pendulum of that relationship. Leonard was a features writer for The Australian, a distinguished journalist whose life stopped six years ago."

When Leonard comes to work for Angel, it's akin to Phar Lap taking on a gig as a draught horse. Leonard is bemused to find himself writing an advertorial for a furniture showroom titled, "The bonfire sale of the vanity units".

"Vanity is defined as the act of taking excessive pride in one's appearance," Leonard writes. "Quite how a laminated cabinet contributes to an excess in this regard is unclear. Furthermore, no other room in the house adopts this style of nomenclature. A bed, for example, is not a lust unit."

And Very Small Business is not a vanity project. Hope and Gyngell play characters struggling to surmount serious flaws; as such, they're sometimes unlikeable - especially Angel.

"This is all the stuff we love writing about," Hope says. "The fronts we all have. Then it's prodding away at that."

As with Angel's bowel troubles, Very Small Business was a long time in the making. "We made a pilot in late 2004," McCaffrie explains. "That was the bare bones, simply two people in one space, partly to see how the stuff worked and whether it would sustain a show. We realised that we would have to open it out a lot to make the series work and on and off we've been writing it since then, but it's been stop-start, because we've all had other projects."

Indeed they have. Hope and Butler created and appeared in the subtle ABC sitcom The Librarians, which also featured Gyngell and was recently given the green light for a second series.

"In years gone by we were all competing to make the one sketch show," Hope says. "For years there were only sketch shows and there was only one at a time. But I've always thought the more the merrier. It's good there are all these shows of different types up and running."

Says Butler: "I think it's a sign of sophistication and maturity in the country that all these things can be embraced. I think there's a real momentum and a real sense of excitement that other people are working and all doing these things. There's a real crossover of people and they're all championing each other's work."

Hope adds: "We were talking about influences this morning. And Kim said, 'What were your influences?' I said, 'You! And Norman Gunston before that.' The industry is small."

Gyngell says: "There has been that through-line of comedy. I was a huge fan of [The] Aunty Jack [Show] but there is a whole generation of kids who have never heard of it. That's a shame because it was really interesting humour and very Australian."

One of the benefits of the recent boom in comedy is that the networks are more open to ideas and less fearful about approving new shows. The ABC promptly approved Very Small Business, in part because Hope and Butler had already delivered The Librarians.

For Butler and Hope, part of the joy of making Very Small Business is that it's a family affair. Making her debut is Molly Daniels, Butler's 12-year-old daughter, who plays Angel's daughter, Sam. Ten-year-old newcomer Lenny Lyon plays Angel's son, Alex.

"Molly has grown up with our dry sense of humour," Butler says. "This is the first thing she's ever done; she's not a TV kid at all. And Lenny we know from her school. That's one of Molly's best friend's little brothers."

Don Angel has the potential to become a classic Australian comedy creation, as embedded in popular consciousness as Chris Lilley's Ja'mie King, Mr G or Jonah.

"Don is a true believer," Hope says. "Not in the Labor Party sense but in himself. He's a lover of the fair go. He thinks anyone can make it here. He thinks free enterprise is fantastic. But underneath all that is a man who's a baby, really. He's a baby in chambray, with a haircut dating back to John Farnham."

Butler quips: "We were delighted with the hairdo. It's a bit flicky on the side with a middle part. It's 1973. It's John Farnham. It's Eddy Groves."

Hope says: "I think Don would like a man like Eddy. Don would probably think Eddy is a bit hard done by at the moment because Don enjoys winning in business - by any means at all."

Very Small Business begins on ABC1 on Wednesday, September 3, at 9.30pm.

By Sacha Molitorisz
August 25, 2008
Sydney Morning Herald

Kim Gyngell finds fun in Very Small Business

"HI MR KIM, I'm Carlos, Colin Hay's friend, we once met into our vacation in LA, in September 2001. We went together for the Disneyland, and you took a lot of picture of us, and I still don't have them…

"I really would appreciate if you, or someone close to you could see this message, because those pictures are really important to me. Hope to hear from anyone. Thanks. Carlos Pompeu from Brazil."

There aren't a lot of messages about Kim Gyngell on the International Movie Data Base website but the three that are there are all good. I wonder if he ever caught up with his old mate Carlos? Or do you think Carlos could be located in Nigeria, and hasn't technically met Mr Kim, and spends a large part of his day telling strangers they've won money and to send their bank account details immediately?

The second message on IMDB sounded more likely: "Hey everyone my dad went to the same high school as Kim Gyngell. My dad told me he always stuffed around in class and he was in a high school play and he was so funny."

And the third delivers praise to Col'n Carpenter, Gyngell's famous dill. When he dies, that's the name the newspaper headlines will mention, Col'n Carpenter. Assuming of course newspapers don't die first.

True, nobody needs a 12-year-old on the internet to tell us that Kim Gyngell is an hilariously funny genius, but what a marvellous example his own callow youth is to the youngsters of today — you too can bum around at school and you won't necessarily end up in the gutter. Although, as one of the women in Very Small Business points out in tonight's opening episode, he does look like he just got out of jail.

The last time we saw Kim Gyngell on screen he took Marcus Graham's head off with a double barrel shotgun. Or it would've come off in real life. It stayed where it was in Underbelly because, well, Marcus Graham has such a pretty face. Plus that's a whole other level of budget, heads coming off. Gyngell looked as low rent as the rest of those Melbourne grubs, even with that lovely speaking voice of his. He used the word blandishments in a sentence and made it sound like a sex move.

I can't decide who the star of Very Small Business is yet, Wayne Hope or Gyngell. Hope plays Don Angel, a small-time publisher of five trade magazines — Feelin' Great, Footy Inquest, Railway Union Monthly and Music Music Music Music. "Should that just be Music Music Music?" Ray tentatively asks his boss Don on his first day at work. "It's a printer's error, first issue so we're stuck with it."

Along with his five publications, Don has five different identities. Evocative names with an international flavour. Pete Mandela. Kerry Akermanis. ("Yep, cousin," Don says.) Don is also the type of bloke who takes phone calls in the toilet: "No, no, no no, I'm in kitchen… well it's a galley kitchen, that's why it's a bit echo-y… well, I'm cooking corn, and I've just dropped a big ear into the pan so that's what that was… "

Gyngell plays Don's only employee, Ray Leonard Leonard, a depressed journalist who is finding his way back into fulltime employment after a period of lying down. Ray has a very nice turn of phrase, honed by 12 years writing features at The Australian, which he puts to immediate use in the Railway Union Monthly. ("My first thought was to draw some sort of analogy with John Coltrane's quest… " he tells a bemused woman at Wilson Woodwind and Brass.)

I loved Very Small Business. Bloody loved it. Hope also wrote it, with his wife, Robyn Butler, who was the crazy woman in The Librarians, a bit of an overlooked series. They also wrote that. They seem like a nutty old pair. More power to them. Very Small Business deserves to do very big business.

By Dianne Butler
September 03, 2008
The Courier-Mail