Making Australian audiences giggle for more than a decade, much-loved duo Hamish Blake and Andy Lee are back with a brand new concept to shake up reality-heavy commercial TV.

Like many brilliant ideas, True Story with Hamish and Andy was born in a pub. The boys reckoned that if they kept losing it at their mates’ ridiculous tales of outrageous mishap, then Australian viewers would too.

“True Story comes from a place of loving the realness of situations,” Blake tells The New Daily after a screening of two madcap instalments of the five-episode first series.

“Our whole hunch was, ‘look, we love this s**t when it comes up with our mates and everyone’s friendship group is just like ours’.”

Set to debut on Channel Nine on June 5, the refreshing format of True Story, from Blake and Lee’s production company Radio Karate, is deceptively straightforward.

Each half-hour episode features an everyday Australian telling their own incredible story while unprepped Blake and Lee listen in disbelief.

A unique twist then sees that story intercut with a comically dramatised recreation starring a who’s who of Australian TV stars.

Emily Taheny (Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell) appears in the first episode as a risk management lecturer whose family take her own advice when they run into strife in a fancy Hong Kong restaurant.

Later in the series, co-writer and producer Ryan Shelton (The Wrong Girl) plays a new teacher who uncovers a Machiavellian money-laundering scheme run by one of his primary school kids.

Craig McLachlan stars as a demanding dad in an excruciating recounting of a teenage boy’s inadvertent erection at a surf lifesaving carnival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgV-yMI0Qlc

“It’s all about spontaneity and surprise,” Lee laughs. “Hopefully the enjoyment and the shock that Hamish and I are feeling adds to the excitement of hearing honest true stories.”

Passing the pub test, the half-hour bites are zippily presented with just enough cliffhanger breaks to keep the gasps as frequent as the laughs.

Blake and Lee’s charismatic rapport really shines through, as does the genuine hilarity that ensues as they interact with the guests.

“Once you get into the story, nothing beats that thrill when you realise that there’s this kid genius scamming people or that this guy does this almost impossible eating challenge just so he’ll get to have adventurous sex,” Blake chuckles.

The teenage mortification of the would-be surf lifesaver was his clear highlight, almost derailing filming.

[It] had me crying and squeaking and I had to take a little break to recalibrate.
Hamish Blake

“That had me crying and squeaking and I had to take a little break to recalibrate,” Blake says. “Maybe it’s because I’m a guy and I’m a dad now, but it’s just too real when you’re in public in your speedos and there’s nowhere to go.”

Lee’s favourite was a heavily pregnant woman whose needle-phobic husband faints during her hospital check-up, leading to a brutal injury.

“She’s so loving to him but also just doesn’t put up with any of his s**t, she’s very dry. I think that probably extends back to my family and my dad’s ‘you’ll get over it’ vibe.”