Season 2 • Episode 13
LatestThe games team cope with the hype as the opening ceremony draws near, but there is a problem with the closing ceremony.
The Games was an Australian mockumentary television series about the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The series was originally broadcast on the ABC and had two seasons of 13 episodes each, the first in 1998 and the second in 2000. 'The Games' starred satirists John Clarke and Bryan Dawe along with Australian comedian Gina Riley and actor Nicholas Bell. It was written by John Clarke and Ross Stevenson. The series centred on the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and satirised corruption and cronyism in the Olympic movement, bureaucratic ineptness in the New South Wales public service, and unethical behaviour within politics and the media. An unusual feature of the show was that the characters shared the same name as the actors who played them, to enhance the illusion of a documentary on the Sydney Games.
Writing
Clarke/Stevenson dialogue is surgical.
Acting
Real names, fake documentary, absolute commitment.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Aired before the actual 2000 Sydney Olympics, making its predictions of logistical disaster eerily prescient.
John Clarke and Bryan Dawe's weekly satirical interviews on TV preceded this — their chemistry spans decades.
AU
