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Jonah back at school

Chris Lilley will return as Summer Heights High schoolboy Jonah Takalua next year. Picture: ABC

SUE YEAP

SYDNEY

Recent rumours of the return to TV screens of infamous Tongan schoolboy Jonah Takalua were proved well-founded when the ABC announced Chris Lilley would resurrect the popular Summer Heights High character next year.

Lilley will star in a new series that sees Jonah in the midst of island life but still experiencing the familiar frustrations of a bored teenage delinquent.

Having dispensed with a national program launch for its 2013 slate, the ABC went all out with a star-studded 2014 launch bash at Simmer on the Bay on the water at Dawes Point.

Guests included William McInnes, Stephen Curry and Shane Jacobson, who return in a new season of the adult relationship drama The Time of Our Lives, Josh Thomas who has a second season of Please Like Me and Peter Helliar who has a second season of It’s a Date. He joked to AAA he would love his pal Rove McManus to star in an episode.

The resurrection of hit Wednesday night music quiz Spicks and Specks, announced last year, was confirmed with the new line-up of Josh Earl as host and singer-songwriter Ella Hooper and comedian Adam Richard as team captains.

Hooper admitted it was a big task to fill the shoes of Adam Hills, Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough as the trio introduced the crowd to some fun and games.

Hills appears to have no local shows on the ABC but it will air continue to air his UK show The Last Leg. His off-sider on Adam Hills Tonight, Hannah Gadsby, gets her own show debunking the myths of Australian identity as defined by our art.

The Working Dog team returns to ABC TV with Utopia, a satirical comedy about the absurdity of government-sponsored schemes while The Chaser team will present We’ll Have to Leave it There.

Judith Lucy and Lawrence Leung have new shows, Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell was renewed, Adam Zwar and team examine The Agony of Modern Manners while returning comedies include Upper Middle Bogan and The Moodys.

ABC director of television Richard Finlayson said 2013 had been another great year for ABC TV with the greatest increase in share across all networks, with growth in all five city markets.

“ABC TV continues to be highly valued and trusted by the Australian public,” he said.

“We tell stories other broadcasters can’t; we innovate, take risks and nurture new talent. We serve broad and niche audiences by providing high quality content across a range of genres.”

The ABC will literally start 2014 with a bang, broadcasting Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks presented by Stephanie Brantz and Lawrence Mooney, and will feature much-loved ABC stars and characters including The Chaser, Shaun Micallef, Cleaver Greene (Richard Roxburgh), The Moodys and Doctor Blake (Craig McLachlan)

Drama highlights will include Marta Dusseldorp in Crownies spin-off Janet King, The Code, a tale stretching from Australia’s outback to the cool corridors of power in Canberra, indigenous family drama The Gods of Wheat Street and Old School, starring Bryan Brown and Sam Neill. There will be more Rake, Dr Blake and Guy Pearce returns as Jack Irish.

Flamboyant transgender pioneer Carlotta, who will be portrayed on screen next year in a telemovie about her life by Perth's Jessica Marais, made a surprise appearance on stage to sing The Lady Is a Tramp. She raised Marais as a "fantastic actress".

Online comedians Bondi Hipsters get their own show on ABC2 called Soul Mates and took to the stage to joke that having the likes of “young talent” such as Pearce, Brown and Neill on the ABC was the Australian version of The Expendables.

FIFO life in WA and Queensland will be under the spotlight in documentary series The Fling Miners while Save Your Life Tonight will feature patients having surgical and diagnostic procedures on stage in front of a studio audience.

The anniversary of World War I will be marked with programming including the six-part drama Anzac Girls and the four-part The War That Changed Us, currently being shot in WA by Electric Pictures.

iView, Australia’s most popular catch up TV service, had 154 million program views this year and will next year be available to Android users.

It will get a new look and more past series will be available within the app for a fee instead of users having to switch to ITunes. Finalyson said the aim was to eventually make all of the ABC archive available.

Two shows made specifically for iView, sketch show Fresh Blood and science fiction series Wastelander Panda, will debut on iView.

SUE YEAP TRAVELLED TO SYDNEY COURTESY OF THE ABC