Rake

I was overjoyed to hear this show is back, and stunned to realise I'd forgotten about it (although it's been a year without a season).

Being reminded of its existence, let alone the prospect of another season, was enough to cause uncontrollable grinning.

I love everything about it. The production values, the writing, the casting, the acting, it's all superb. But what I love most about it is the show's timbre; its aim and stance; its beautifully human angle. Many bonus points also for the regular moments of absolute hilarity.

After watching the first episode of the second season, I can't wait for next week... this will get the long months waiting for the final instalment of Breaking Bad off to a good start.

Not being Australian and completely unfamiliar with Australian TV, I came to Rake without any expectations or preconceived notions. I find the show is hilarious and mesmerizing at the same time, in no small part due to Roxburgh's performance. He's terrific as a cad with a heart of 14K gold plated brass.

In some ways, Rake is reminiscent of, but doesn't imitate, the great Robbie Coltrane series, Cracker, with both lead characters brilliant in their professional lives, yet exasperatingly self-destructive train wrecks once they're off the clock.

The show's been Americanized by Fox, starring Greg Kinnear (an actor of whom I'm a big fan), but I'm avoiding the Fox series because I've been told the edge of the Australian original was sanded down for American audiences. But, it's the sharp edge that I enjoy. If you can get your hands on the OZ version of Rake, you ought to watch it. It's really good TV.

The news that Series 4 of "Rake" is to begin on Australian free-to-air TV on 19th May this year has brought me out of the cupboard to comment on this series as a whole (so far.)

Brilliant doesn't even begin to describe it. The names Peter Duncan and Andrew Knight as co-writers of much of the first 3 series' is generally a recipe for classy, tight writing. The concept, the delivery, the moral ambiguities, the lines nudged and then stepped over - it is all very, very Australian, and so typically modern Australia is it that perhaps it should not have been re-made with a US cast. The cast of this is universally brilliant, with Richard Roxburgh receiving a special mention from me, because any other actor may not have been able to walk that fine line between (almost) law-abiding citizen and absolute rogue, coming out after all his scrapes and gaol terms as someone we are prepared to forgive (almost) anything. The writing and acting of Cleaver Greene's relationship with his son is worth a special mention, in particular the odd turn this relationship takes in S.3 - just classic.

I'll make mention also of the subject matter in Ep 5 of S.1, where Sam Neill guest stars with Heather Mitchell. It's the "family dog" episode, and on first viewing I thought, 'did I just see that, or did I imagine it?'. According to Charles Waterstreet, whose experiences as a Barrister in Sydney provided the inspiration for the character of Cleaver Greene, the case of the stolen DVD made by the good doctor and his wife was based upon a real life case. This is an instance of real life being far more outrageous than fiction.

I can give this series - so far, at least - no less that 10/10.

Just two eps into season three, "Rake" was looking like one of the best TV series from anywhere, ever. I was dimly aware of Richard Roxburgh as a veteran Aussie actor who's done a lot of action flicks; he's a revelation here as Cleaver Greene, a Sydney trial lawyer with a gambling habit, multiple substance-abuse issues and a private life that can only be described as a f---in trinewrick.

The scripts are inventive and very funny, Cleaver's drunken harangues in inappropriate venues especially so; the cases are sometimes based on real-world causes célèbres (like the cannibal who advertised online for a dinner partner), the ongoing dramedy of Cleaver's personal life is involving (and very funny), and the ep where Cleaver gets out of a slump by defending an Assange-like activist who's charged with treason is positively uplifting.

The supporting cast is amazing; Australian TV seems to have a very deep bench of beautiful actresses who can really act, starting with Adrienne Pickering as Cleaver's love interest and onetime Xena sidekick Danielle Cormack as a cougar prosecutor. Guest spots by Aussie notables like Rachel Griffiths as a race-baiting shock jock, Toni Collette as a randy politician and Hugo Weaving as the cannibal--and those crispy accents with the foot-long vowel sounds--make this fabulous show even more delightful.

2018 update: All five seasons are now available for streaming on Netflix. Some of the later eps are a bit loosely plotted, to put it mildly, but the kangaroo court scene from season three (Rake makes the best jailhouse lawyer ever) is truly one of the funniest things I've ever seen!

I tripped over this show on my way to the US remake, which caught my attention because of the presence of the always-likable Greg Kinnear. I'm very glad I tried the Australian original first. The US version is derivative and downright dreary; the original sparkles, with both razor-sharp satire and equally sharp-edged drama.

Rake manages to fuse comedy, courtroom trickery, human drama and even some odd moral allegory. All these facets are apparent in the first show, when Greene must defend a cannibal (brilliantly played by Hugo Weaving) - who just happens to be a free-market economist, and who (like most free-market economists) sees nothing wrong with what he has done. In the next show, Greene tries to get an innocent woman convicted, then is forced to switch and get a guilty one acquitted. Then he defends a bigamist, who just happens to be a model husband - more than once.

Greene's approach to the defence in each case is both clever and believable, in a way that most courtroom fiction is not. It reminds me of the best of Rumpole, with that series' ability to feel sympathy even for the guilty, and its reliance on astute legal trickery to make things come out 'right' in the end. Not to mention its ability to make us question just what 'right' means, in each case.

Rake has immediately leaped onto my list of top ten TV shows *ever*. It's as funny, vulgar and painfully real as the brilliant British sitcom Still Game. Yet it's equally compelling dramatically. It definitely has things to say, but it slips these points in subtly, slyly, when you're not looking.

Jack Lemon (speaking about The Apartment) said his ideal role was one that was both comedy and drama. That describes Rake perfectly. Richard Roxburgh may not be the equal of Lemon (who is?), but he comes through superbly as Cleaver Greene. The other roles are similarly well-handled, many of them by actors who will be very familiar to fans of Australian cinema.

The US version of Rake seems like a quality production, and I may give it another try, though I admit I was unable to get through the first episode. The show seems predictably gutless, unable to embrace the moral ambiguity of the Greene character. Kinnear ends up playing a dysfunctional loser, where Roxburgh scintillates as exactly what he should be: a rake - an utterly likable rogue, a womanizer, a vagabond. A man who has no choice but to live by his own rules, and who adheres to no moral code but his own.

I don't register a 10/10 rating very often, but in this case I felt like it was barely high enough. My advice: track down this show by whatever means necessary, and see it immediately.

UPDATE: Rake is back for a 4th season. There's no question that the original brilliance has dimmed just a bit. The first season focused on legal shenanigans. Successive seasons have become more of an improbably Rake-ish soap opera. They're still a load of fun, but maybe in the 8-9/10 range. Still, the approach remains unique, and it's always a pleasure to see Roxburgh chewing up the scenery as the quintessentially Australian anti-hero, Cleaver Greene.