At Home With Julia

At Home With Julia
Genre	Sitcom
Starring	Amanda Bishop Phil Lloyd
Country of origin	Australia
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	4
Production
Executive producer(s)	Rick Kalowski Debbie Lee Greg Quail
Producer(s)	Carol Hughes
Production company(s)	Quail Television
Release
Original network	ABC1
Original release	7 September (2011-09-07) – 28 September 2011 (2011-09-28)
External links
Website

At Home With Julia is a four-part Australian sitcom television series, created and written by Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski and Phil Lloyd, which debuted on 7 September 2011 on ABC1. A re-run of the series aired on ABC2 in April 2012. Currently, the series is in syndication in the United States on Vibrant TV Network. The series depicts a fictional representation of the relationship between Julia Gillard, the actual Prime Minister of Australia (played by Amanda Bishop), and Gillard's real-life partner, Tim Mathieson (played by Phil Lloyd). Fictionalised versions of actual Australian politicians and media personalities are portrayed throughout the series. Much of the action takes place at The Lodge, the Prime Minister's official residence in the national capital of Canberra.

The series was a 2012 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards nominee for Best Television Comedy Series. Criticised by several social commentators as inappropriately disrespectful to the office of Prime Minister, the show nevertheless proved very popular both with television audiences — becoming the most watched Australian scripted comedy series of 2011 — and with television critics. According to media reports, international versions of the series are being developed in the United Kingdom and Europe. None of these shows however have been commissioned as of September 2013.

The series was sold to the United States for broadcast in 2012 and can there be viewed on Hulu.

In February 2013, the notorious "flag sex-scene" from Episode 3 ("The Leaker") - in which the Prime Minister and partner Tim Mathieson were depicted apparently naked and post-coital under the Australian flag - was featured in the ABC1 series Shock Horror Aunty!, a compilation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's most controversial broadcast comedy incidents.

No second series was produced due to the uncertainty of how long the real Gillard would remain Prime Minister. Amanda Bishop did reprise the role of Gillard for Wednesday Night Fever, however the real Gillard was ousted as Labor Party leader and thus Prime Minister just prior to the show's debut on ABC1.

In an atmosphere of budgetary cuts to the ABC and severe criticism of the use of political satire on it, no follow-up series has been produced about Tony Abbott, the former Coalition Prime Minister.

Cast

• Amanda Bishop as Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard
• Phil Lloyd as Tim Mathieson
• Georgina Naidu as Georgina
• Michael Denkha as Jesus the Cleaner
• Craig McLachlan as Steve the Gardener
• Stephen Leeder as Special Agent 'Mervyn Fairmeadow'
• Martin Thomas as Agent Thompson
• David Callan as Agent Smith
• Joel Barker as Naughty Kid 1
• Jack Dawes as Naughty Kid 2
• Jack Versace as Naughty Kid 3
• Wildenfox Pavarotti as "Bill Shorten", the dog

Guest stars

• Paul McCarthy as Minister for Foreign Affairs and previous (2007–10) Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd
• Alan Dukes as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Wayne Swan
• Jonathan Biggins as former (1991–96) Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating
• Drew Forsythe as independent Member of Parliament Bob Katter
• Jim Russell as independent Member of Parliament Rob Oakeshott
• Nicholas Cassim as Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott
• Geoff Moxham as radio journalist Alan Jones
• Jonathan Biggins as television journalist Tony Jones
• Chris Taylor as Jase the Canberra Local
• Amanda Bishop as Deputy Leader of the Opposition Julie Bishop
• Meaghan Davies as Brianna, the Canberra local.

Episodes and ratings

Series overview

Series		Episodes	Originally aired		DVD release date
			Season premiere	Season finale	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
	1	4	7 September 2011 (2011-09-07)	28 September 2011 (2011-09-28)	N/A	N/A	17 November 2011 (2011-11-17)

Series 1 (2011)

Series #	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original Air Date
1	"Date Night"	Erin White	Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski & Phil Lloyd	7 September 2011 (2011-09-07)
Australian Prime Minister (PM) Julia Gillard's life is hectic, although much of her time is taken up trying to politely hang up on Paul Keating, a former PM from her Australian Labor Party, who keeps phoning her with unsolicited advice. The life of Julia's non-celebrity partner, Tim Mathieson, is anything but hectic; he fills in time by running household errands for the PMs official residence - The Lodge - since staff cover all the gardening and house-cleaning. Julia and Tim try to reserve space on the calendar to be alone together, but their "date night" keeps getting rescheduled, this time because Julia has to invite three independent members of the Australian House of Representatives (Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott) to the Lodge for dinner, to discuss their demand to prohibit imported food. Problem is, the Lodge's beer fridge is filled with imported beer, and the local butcher only stocks (very expensive) imported meat. Meanwhile some neighborhood kids get hold of a gun which a member of the PM's security team, parked in the street, had placed on the car dashboard so he could sleep more comfortably.
2	"Code Ranga"	Erin White	Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski & Phil Lloyd	14 September 2011 (2011-09-14)
Tim is to cut Julia's hair at a local school to promote an apprenticeships program for Muslim youths. When Tim borrows Julia's car to drive to the school, her security team follows it thinking she is driving. Meanwhile Julia is trapped in the bathroom when the handle breaks, although she manages to climb out a window and hail a cab driven by Afghan refugee Aarif who gets lost amongst Canberra's numerous roundabouts. When it is realised that the Prime Minister is missing, Tim is grilled by a hard-nosed federal police agent who is still wracked with guilt regarding his failures in the 1967 disappearance of then Prime Minister Harold Holt.
3	"The Leaker"	Erin White	Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski & Phil Lloyd	21 September 2011 (2011-09-21)
Julia and Tim plan a big announcement at Tim's birthday but have a catastrophic misunderstanding over what it is. Julia is also convinced her Minister for Foreign Affairs, and previous PM, Kevin Rudd has been leaking information.
4	"Citizens' Assembly"	Erin White	Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski & Phil Lloyd	28 September 2011 (2011-09-28)
Tim and Julia have split up, but are trying to keep it from the media. Julia tries to sound more refined on Alan Jones' radio show, but later loses her voice due to the stress of losing Tim. Julia's predecessor as PM, Kevin Rudd, kindly offers to take her place on the TV Talk Show Q&A.

Ratings

#	Title	Airdate	Timeslot	Timeslot Ranking	Ratings
Series 1 (2011)
1	"Date Night"	7 September 2011	Wednesday 9:30pm – 10:00pm	1st	1,179,687 (6th)
2	"Code Ranga"	14 September 2011		1st	1,044,108 (11th)
3	"The Leaker"	21 September 2011		1st	903,731 (11th)
4	"Citizens' Assembly"	28 September 2011		1st	751,000 (18th)
Average series ratings					969,631

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result	Ref
2012	AACTA Awards	Best Television Comedy Series	Rick Kalowski, Greg Quail & Carol Hughes	Nominated
	Equity Awards	Most Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series	Cast	Won
	AWGIE Awards	Outstanding Comedy Writing - Situation or Narrative: Episode 1 ("Date Night")	Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski & Phil Lloyd	Nominated
	AWGIE Awards	Outstanding Comedy Writing - Situation or Narrative: Episode 3 ("The Leaker")	Amanda Bishop, Rick Kalowski & Phil Lloyd	Nominated

External links

• At Home With Julia at IMDb