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Win The Week is a new game show that combines satire and current affairs to take a swipe at what’s been making the news. Host Alex Lee tells Danielle McGrane about the show, which has an unusual twist.
Alex Lee discovered she had a knack for combining news and comedy when she was at university.
She studied media and communications by day, and would then go and perform stand-up and sketch comedy by night. When she left university, she found a way to combine the two in her professional life.
“The first job I had where I got to do both of those things was on The Roast which was a daily 10-minute satirical news show that was on ABC2. It was the first time I thought ‘I love this, I love being in a comedy writers’ room,’ and I loved picking apart the news, so I realised this was what I wanted to do,” Lee said.
It also makes her the perfect host for new ABC quiz show Win The Week which takes a satirical look at events from the recent news cycle.
It’s the brainchild of Scott Abbot and Craig Reucassel, who Lee worked with on popular show The Checkout.
“This show sounded like so much fun and to be the host is so exciting because I thought it would just be great to be one of the people on the panel.
But to get to run the show has been a lot of fun,” Lee said.
As Lee points out, this is a quiz show about the news and there’s nothing really groundbreaking about that, but on this show there is a twist.
Host Alex Lee and Craig Reucassel bring the laughs in the satirical Win The Week, which sees regular people team up with celebrities as they’re quizzed on the news.
“We team up regular “One of our guests said ‘It’s them to each other and guess Aussies, who are the team really fun to watch celebrities the clue, and they’re a little bit captains, with celebrities. beg for their job’. They have cryptic,” she said.
There are three teams of two to plead their case and say It sounds easier than it is, and if a team is losing at the why they should be kept. and it’s a whole different ball end of each round, the team Giving the team captain all game when you’re watching captain has a chance to stay the power is what makes the at home compared with with their celebrity or they can dynamic of the show work when you’re playing the betray them and pick another because they’re calling the game on TV, which is celebrity who they think they shots,” Lee said. something Lee knows might have a better chance of There’s new celebrities all about from firsthand winning with,” Lee said. on the show every week experience.
“And we make it as including veteran broadcaster “I did an episode of humiliating as possible: once Andrew Denton, journalist Celebrity Mastermind last you get betrayed by your team Annabel Crabb, and comedian year and I completely blanked captain you have to light up Mark Humphries. War On on such an obvious answer, a ‘fail trail’, which is a line of Waste’s Craig Reucassel is which was asking the name lights that’s built into the floor on the show every week. of a legendary Australian rock to show you where to go.” The games themselves are band. I think the answer was
“There are so many quiz also quite unusual, it’s not just AC/DC but I just could not shows and shows about the a straight question and answer think of one, I couldn’t think of news but something like this game, and they’re also fun to any band at that point in time. we haven’t seen before and play at home according to Lee. So I’ve got some empathy for it’s really the most fun part of “We’ve got a game called them,” she said. the game.” Picture This where the team
It also gives people the has got two pictures and they chance to see another side can’t show them to each other to the celebrities. but they have to describe
Win the Week, Wednesday, 8pm, ABC TV and ABC iview