There is something wonderfully Australian about Five Minute Call. It is sharp, cheeky, a little bit feral and packed with the sort of theatrical chaos that feels both completely ridiculous and instantly believable. Streaming on Stan Australia, this delicious comedy takes viewers behind the curtain of a long running musical, where professional smiles disappear, egos run wild and everyone is desperately trying to hold it together until the next performance.
At the centre of the story are Helen Dallimore and Simon Burke, playing co-stars who have spent far too many nights together in a dressing room and know exactly how to push each other’s buttons. Every evening, five minutes before curtain, Simon slips into Helen’s dressing room. What begins as a private ritual quickly becomes a pressure cooker for complaints, ambitions, insecurities, rivalries and the occasional bottle of contraband wine.
Helen is a magnificent creation. Once the undisputed queen of the stage, she is now battling vocal problems, an ambitious understudy and the creeping suspicion that the industry may be ready to move on without her. Dallimore plays her with extraordinary comic precision, giving every glare, gasp and tightly controlled eruption the force of a full blown opening night meltdown. Helen is vain, furious and deeply theatrical, but she is also vulnerable, loyal and painfully aware of what she stands to lose.
Burke’s Simon is a perfect counterpoint. He is convinced that international stardom is just around the corner, despite a series of increasingly humiliating setbacks. His desperation to escape the musical gives the show a steady supply of laughs, while his chemistry with Helen provides its emotional centre. Their relationship is prickly and competitive, yet there is genuine affection underneath the bickering. They understand the particular exhaustion of performing the same show eight times a week, for months or even years, and that shared weariness binds them together.
The supporting cast adds even more sparkle. The dressing room becomes a revolving door for understudies, agents (Olivier Award nominee Trevor Ashley’s performance is iconic), dressers, musical directors, hopeful young performers and stage veterans who have clearly seen everything. Each visitor brings a new crisis, a new piece of gossip or a fresh opportunity for someone’s dignity to collapse. The comedy is fast, profane and gloriously specific, with plenty of jokes that will land especially well for anyone who has ever worked in theatre, live events or any workplace where everyone is pretending that the chaos is under control.
What makes Five Minute Call such a pleasure is the warmth beneath its sharp edges. This is not simply a series about egotistical performers behaving badly. It understands the strange family formed by people who work together under pressure. Behind the bitchiness, panic and professional jealousy is real care. When one of the company is struggling, the others rally around them, even if they complain loudly while doing it.
The format is clever too. By confining much of the action to Helen’s dressing room and using the countdown to curtain as its framework, the series creates an intimate, energetic rhythm. It feels like a backstage farce, a workplace comedy and a character study all at once.
Funny, camp, wonderfully acted and packed with insider detail, Five Minute Call is a terrific showcase for Australian comic talent. It is a love letter to theatre people in all their messy, ambitious, exhausting glory. If you enjoy sharp dialogue, big personalities and comedy with a genuinely tender heart, this is an absolute treat. Highly recommended.
Watch on Stan Australia: stan.com.au/watch/five-minute-call-2026
Rob is the founder of GTG. Launching the GTG-Sydney brand in 1995, it has gone from a VHS tourist guide for Sydney to a global phenomenon, partnering with Pride events and special events and charities all over the world, raising millions of dollars for the LGBTQIA+ communities and showcasing our big gay world to anyone who wants to join in the fun.
Rob is a trained marketer and journalist. An Emmy award winner, a NIDA-trained TV Presenter who has been on digital channels, cable and terrestrial broadcast television globally as a presenter, producer and creative.
He is currently editor-in-chief and producer of GTG and the co-host of The Unfashionably Late Podcast.