Skit Happens

Question: when was the last time you watched an Aussie sketch series and had a chuckle?

***crickets***

Yep, it’s very hard to get right, but the cast of Skit Happens give it a red hot go in their new pilot airing this Sunday on TEN.

Chockful of TV take-downs, social and domestic comedy, this CJZ show has something for everyone.

The versatile cast assume all manner of celebrity, Aussie larrikins and multicultural characters.

Whether in the office, the dinner party, karaoke bar or cafe there are recognisable situations -and more than a few nonsensical ones- to keep things buoyant. If one sketch doesn’t tickle your funny bone you don’t have to wait too long before another arrives.

TV parodies are an easy option but the writers haven’t gone for straight clones, thinking more laterally.

Readers should especially enjoy the production meeting sketches for Married at First Sight and My Kitchen Rules (the latter trying to cast this year’s “arseholes”), but there’s also a Waleed Aly double, Cat Island without Sophie Monk, and the real reason Matt Preston wears a cravat. The Voice blind auditions in animation form was merciless. And let’s face it, there are piles of new shows ready to be taken down, should this proceed to series.

Some of the domestic sketches also work well, notably with a bizarre refrigerator fix-it man, and a dinner party talking dating techniques. One or two are in search of a scene ending, but not to the point of being an ongoing problem.

And while this may be a pilot, the good news is visually it doesn’t look like it’s been filmed on the cheap either. Aside from Heath Franklin (The Ronnie Johns Half Hour) and Street Smart‘s Neel Kolhatkar I confess to little awareness of the cast. But I look forward to learning and laughing at more.

Skit Happens airs 8pm Sunday on TEN.