The Assembly is an Australian television documentary series on ABC TV, which premiered on 20 August 2024.
Contents
Format
Hosted and mentored by Leigh Sales, the documentary series focuses on a group of 15 autistic journalism students and lecturers at Macquarie University as they prepare for and eventually interview some of Australia's best-known personalities. The students have been given paid internship at the ABC. The series' format is based on the French series Les Rencontres du Papotin (Chatterbox Encounters), created by filmmakers Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache based on their magazine Le Papotin . The concept has been adapted in 21 countries, including Spain (100% únicos ), Canada (The Assembly) and Great Britain (The Assembly).
Production
The seven-part series is produced by Mark Fennessy's Helium Pictures for the ABC, with production beginning in May. Fennessy also executive produces the Australian version alongside director Melissa Maclean, Therese Hegarty, Vanessa Oxlad and Julie Hanna.
Episodes
Reception
The first episode of The Assembly received an overnight average audience of 577,000 viewers, alongside a national audience reach of 859,000 viewers.
David Knox of TV Tonight gave the series four out of five stars. Debi Enker of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote about the series' tone, "The tone of The Assembly, like other ABC factual productions, is warm. ... So in addition to being a worthwhile and engaging undertaking, it represents a breath of fresh air in terms of TV interviews, particularly those featuring politicians, but not confined to them. The show has also been criticised as being inspiration porn, with further criticism over the fact that the journalism students, initially, were not to be paid.