Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker are hauling On Cinema Live: The Certified Five Bags of Popcorn Tour to the National Theatre and three other cities this December.
On Cinema Live: The Certified Five Bags of Popcorn Tour lands at St Kilda’s National Theatre on 15 December.
Turkington and Heidecker have been reviewing films, feuding and quietly imploding on camera since 2011, and On Cinema Live: The Certified Five Bags of Popcorn Tour wrestles that whole saga onto a stage. What began as a shambolic movie-review show has mutated into a sprawling comedy universe with its own lore, grudges and running gags. The live format crams the lot into a single night, half variety show and half review panel, with the usual on-stage dysfunction baked in.
On Cinema Live: The Certified Five Bags of Popcorn Tour
- Sydney, Enmore Theatre – 8 December
- Perth, Octagon Theatre – 11 December
- Brisbane, The Tivoli – 14 December
- Melbourne, National Theatre – 15 December
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The format hands Turkington the role of self-appointed movie buff, rating everything out of five bags of popcorn with the certainty of a bloke who might not have seen the film. Heidecker arrives as wellness guru Dr Newman, spruiking his own takes on health and body improvement whenever the bickering pauses. Expect movie trivia and dubious life advice, plus the award-winning music the billing keeps dangling.
This run is the duo’s first Australian visit since 2019, and the On Cinema world has only grown stranger since. Spin-offs have piled up over the years: the action spoof Decker, the marathon Oscar-night specials, a five-part courtroom trial and the 2019 feature Mister America. The tour name nods to the show’s popcorn-rating gag, where films get scored out of five bags, and even a perfect score tends to come with chaos attached. Newcomers and diehards alike get plenty to chew on.
Melbourne closes out the Australian leg, so the National Theatre crowd inherits whatever grudges have festered across the country by then. The St Kilda room holds a snug 783, which puts this closer to intimate than arena-sized. Tickets are on sale now for all four dates.
For more information, head here.
