The Anthony Albanese Beach House gets the Grand Designs treatment

OPENING: PLAN OF THE VIEW OF THE COSTA SCOMBRADA

KEVIN McCLOUD’S POT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL HE GOT THERE

KEVIN (every bored married woman’s dreamboat voice): Anthony, Richard, Jim, Penny and Tanya are middle-aged professionals who run a marketing consultancy for the corporation known as the current Labor government. They are also in a polity of five, and have been building their dream home for a while at the top of a voting block. But the project has run into problems.

ANTHONY (looking at the unfinished ceiling, as they always do 35 minutes into an episode): We were hoping to build something on top of the voting tap, where it could be seen for miles around.

KEVIN (married woman what happens at sales conference stays in sales conference voice): To enjoy the sights of this magnificent country?

ANTHONY: No, so you could see all the bastards coming up to stab you in the back.

KEVIN: Construction on the command post began in 2022, but problems quickly began to pile up.

JIM: We soon realized that we were building a bogie, self-indulgent vision of frothy blue water in a smooth dip, not a modest rise in polls.

KEVIN: What caused that?

JIM: Probably my guess is to build a bogie, self-indulgent vision of bright blue water with a modest survey boost.

KEVIN: There have also been issues with suppliers and contractors…

MONTAGE OF CFMEU BLOKES BRUSHING ANTONIO, PUSHING HIM THROUGH MUDDY FOUNDATIONS, IN THE MIDDLE, PASSING HIM, STEALING THE SIGNATURE, ETC.

KEVIN (CONT’D): … with an already substantial bill of $20,000 for bathroom tiles flying a little to half a billion dollars for an undersea system that will draw the country into America’s wars of projective aggression with no possibility of withdrawal … and some design differences.

CAN ALL FIVE TO ONE OUT OF THE ROOM IN THE MIDDLE.

ANTHONY: I don’t quite understand why we need a pit full of spikes in the middle of the living room.

JIM, RICHARD, TANYA: Yes, we really need a pit full of spikes in the living room/must have a pit full of spikes/a pit full of spikes is the best.

ANTHONY: But someone could be pushed and killed, and it would look like an accident?

JIM, RICHARD, TANYA: Yes, we really need a pit full of spikes in the living room/must have a pit full of spikes/a pit full of spikes is the best.

JIM: In February. It should be in place by February.

KEVIN: By November, the dive they were building had gotten so deep that the entire building had to be sealed off from the outside world.

ANTHONY: We just can’t understand why building a “dream home for the next chapter of our lives” is pushing the envelope even further.

KEVIN: The danger of collapse was only accompanied by the fear that the author had overextended the satirical allegory and could not easily find a way out…

ANTHONY: Look, we forgot to put an exit!

JIM (sizing an open window over a cliff): Well, when you think about it Anthony, anything’s a way out

KEVIN: We’ll be back in six months to check on Jim, Richard and Tanya’s dream house. Tune in next week for an engineering marvel as Max Chandler-Mather builds a commanding position on a giant cliff. And of course, ladies, we’ll see you in your dreams of owning a tea shop with me in the sweeping Scottish Highlands. Until then…

ABC VOICE Next, Exhibition of antiquesin which a Mr. Lachlan M asks experts about the value of some ancient relics he found in the opinion section of a newspaper passed down to him by his father. And two episodes of EReven better than anything else.