Watch TV with Paul Flynn
‘BEING A COMEDIAN,’ says droll Australian 20-something stand-up Becky Lucas, ‘all your shittiest behaviour is rewarded. It’s the best.’ Becky is one of 10 faces beamed worldwide from down under in Last One Laughing (lol, geddit?), a strangely compelling new knockout reality talent show. In what can only be described as an improv dungeon, our erstwhile comics are prescribed a starvation diet from laughter. The first one to crack gets chucked out. And so it goes, over six odd episodes that get close to exhuming the answer to one simple and very complicated question: what is funny?
Last One Laughing feels like a format dreamed up in the last breaths of an extended therapy session. Shoving 10 comedians in a confined space and asking them not to laugh at one another’s primary skillset is a tough call. Asking them not to laugh at their own is a kind of slow release torture, impinged on their collective self-esteem. ‘Comedians get into comedy because we need validation,’ says Nazeem Hussain, another humourist putting his wit on the chopping block. He tells it like it is.
The rules, which include Joker cards, yellow and red penalty warnings and some booming buttons to stop and start the experiment, takes a bit of settling into. The end prize is $100,000 in used Australian dollars, packed into a suitcase like a ransom. Rebel Wilson is the marvellous maître d’ watching over the room, lending the project her unique star wattage. The Aussie comedy circuit begat her. She saw her first 100k long ago. Given she’s the only person allowed to laugh in the show, she plays it remarkably straight and feels incredibly, brilliantly famous. She has the keys to the global red carpet all these chaps are bound to dream of.
The reverse psychology of not being allowed to laugh lends proceedings a patina of genuine tension. It’s like asking a room of opera divas to sing tone deaf. But there are lessons to be learned. Saying the c-word will always shock a crowd into submission and promote a nervous giggle, especially if delivered deadpan. And stripping yourself professionally bare in front of nine of your peers and one Hollywood star is a profoundly destabilising act of personal masochism. Lol? I nearly died.
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