Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story makes its Australian television premieres later this month on Seven.
This feature documentary celebrates the music, humour and enduring legacy of one of Australia’s most beloved bands.
Emerging from Sydney’s inner-city art and new wave scene in the late 70s, ‘The Mentals’ quickly rose from local pubs to national fame, becoming masters at capturing Australian suburban life with warmth, wit and playfulness. While success came fast, they never treated it with reverence.
The songs of Mental As Anything were part of the soundscape of Australian life in the 1980s. The band enjoyed one of the most successful runs on the Australian charts during the decade, producing a string of Top 40 singles that resonated with audiences nationwide.
Their enduring hits, including The Nips Are Getting Bigger, If You Leave Me Can I Come Too?, Too Many Times, and Berserk Warriors, were radio staples throughout Australia while their most famous song, Live It Up, climbed to the top of the charts in the UK and Europe.
In December 2020, Live It Up (originally released in 1985), suddenly soared to #1 on the UK iTunes charts. It happened within days of the first anniversary of the death of the band’s much loved songwriter Greedy Smith. At the time, guitarist Reg Mombassa described the event as ‘pretty weird’, an apt description for many of the events in the unlikely story of one of Australia’s most distinctive cultural forces.
Funny, warm and unexpectedly moving, Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story explores how the band navigated fame, longevity and the pressures of the music industry, while holding fast to their humour and creative spirit – revealing why their music continues to resonate today.
Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story is a Beyond Entertainment production in association with People Productions. Principal production funding from Screen Australia, in association with the Seven Network. Financed with support from Screen NSW. International sales by Banijay Rights.
Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story is written and directed by Matthew Walker, produced by Carolina Sorensen and Susanne Morrison with Paul Clarke as supervising writer and post producer and executive producers Mikael Borglund, Frank Chidiac and Martin Fabinyi.
Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story Premieres 9.10pm Tuesday, 24 November on Seven and 7plus
