Summer Heights High comic weathers racism storm

Summer Heights High creator Chris Lilley is to make a new comedy for Netflix.

The new, as-yet untitled, show comes despite a storm over racism both in his work and online that threatened to derail his career.

Australian comic Lilley has faced a backlash over his creation, the surly teenage Jonah from Tonga, for its negative stereotypes and because of its use of blackface makeup.

And last year he shared a video for his song Squashed Nigga – again performed in blackface, as character S.Mouse – only hours after protests over a lenient sentence handed down to a white driver who ran over and killed 14-year-old Indigenous boy Elijah Doughty. Lilley’s video, originally from 2012, shows a person lying on a road after being hit by a truck.

Details of his new series are scant, but it will last ten episodes and will be filmed on Queensland’s Gold Coast, known for its 'sun, sand, surf and sex’ tourism, between now and June.

State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk welcomed the $6.35 million  (£3.8million) boost that production would bring to the local economy.

She said: ‘I am delighted to have enticed Chris Lilley and producer Laura Waters to Queensland. The series will employ up to 250 Queensland cast and extras, plus around 100 Queensland crew.’

Lilley and Waters worked together on Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, Angry Boys, Ja’mie: Private School Girl and Jonah From Tonga.

At the time of last year’s storm, Indigenous rapper  Briggs said of Lilley: ‘What he did was racist and fucking whack. It shows his disconnection from black culture, black politics and black people in general.’

Published: 5 Mar 2018