You know, the ones where the victim of Italian heritage stepped out after eating his meatballs and pasta, and bang. Often bang, bang, bang.

Except this time in Canberra, it was a self-inflicted hit job.

Barnaby said he was under the influence of a combination of drink and some sort of prescription medication. With this unfortunate cocktail inside him, he somehow blasted himself.

It is a great story, underlining the fact that he and politics are now beyond satire. No script-writer would make it up. The comedians must fear for their jobs when politics does it so well.

There he was, the former deputy prime minister of this great country, on his back swearing enough to make even a foul-mouthed trooper blush, apparently unaware that many of the citizenry have cameras on their phones.

The scene is a fitting follow-up to the parade of macho eccentrics who have graced our screens in the ABC's magnificent Nemesis series.

The fall of Tony Abbott (Episode 1) and Malcolm Turnbull (Episode 2) with Scott Morrison yet to come plays like a Shakespearean drama - you fully expect someone to say they had a rival drowned in a butt of malmsey wine (Richard III, Act I, Scene 4).

It may come in Episode 3. Or maybe eye-gouging (King Lear, Act III, Scene 7).

They lined up in grand offices (the pollies that is, and not the Mafia hitmen) to stab each other - "shirtfront" as Tony Abbott would put it.

Last week, Mr Turnbull related how Mr Abbott had told him where to get off (spoiler alert: it wasn't the tram interchange).

Mr T played the drama brilliantly, holding back on the words until they were apparently teased out of him. Drama is all about timing and Mr T has it, well, to a tee.

Asked about the aftermath of the spill that saw his predecessor deposed, the smiling assassin said: "I did reach out to Abbott to see how he was going. He didn't welcome my inquiries."

Brilliant stuff this. Ever so polite, that concern for his rival's welfare.

But Mr Turnbull was pressed out of his shy reluctance.

"He generally told me to f--- off. He had quite a few variations on that," Mr T said.

Now, I'm not saying the Brits can't do brutal. It's just that it is usually kept private. The ship sails on while the officers are brawling on the bridge. It's the outward show that matters.

But Australian politicians seem to believe that a bit of in-your-shirtfront machismo does them a power of good in the public's eyes.

They may be right.

Barnaby has, after all, had his brushes with controversy before (citizenship, an affair) and it has not dented his popularity in New England.

And shots (from a camera not a 38 special or shotgun) of him lying on his back near the gutter, demonstrating his command of Anglo-Saxon to the camera-wielding public, may just be what voters expect.

It's what rough, tough men do.

And so are public, on-camera hit jobs by our macho political class.

To a British observer, Nemesis is a parade mostly of sheer maleness (and, by the way, whiteness).

It's true that Julie Bishop doesn't appear but the cast in this revenge tragedy is largely male, much more so in the first episode about Tony Abbott's defenestration than in the second about Malcolm Turnbull's.

It is a reminder of the old adage that your enemies in politics are those behind you on your own benches. Across the aisles, they are merely the opposition.

It is gripping television. Much better than any concocted drama.

And there's always Barnaby to spice up a dull day if TV can't do the job.