Money can't buy you love, but it can get you a family.

Director: Catherine Fitzgerald

Writer: Tony McNamara

Composer: Ian Moorhead

Designer: Mary Moore

Cast: Chris Asimos, Rhiannon Owen

Ever had a sneaking suspicion that Australian society is built on corruption, greed and self-serving narcissism? Then Tony McNamara’s your man.

In The Give and Take, McNamara turns this misanthropic misgiving into a wisecracking, side-splitting, laugh-a-minute sitcom. From the first moment to the last, The Give and Take unabashedly goes for the laugh and gets it.

There are, if you need that sort of thing, take-home messages about the emptiness of materialism and the corruption of family life, but basically this is a broad, smart-alecky satire about parenting, the younger generation and love that is strictly conditional and convertible to cash.

Don is an executive. His mind should be on his firm’s latest line of garden sprinklers. But his wife just told him she’s leaving to have tantric sex in Tuscany. When he tells his three children, they aren’t surprised: they’re a self-absorbed trio only interested in Dad’s money. Neil is a leftist layabout. Julie is a corporate cowgirl. And Damien is a steroid-stuffed gym-bunny.

There’s no reason why their cushy lifestyles shouldn’t continue into the foreseeable future as long as Don doesn’t do anything crazy...