How many comedians does it take to make The Block?

Hamish Blake has a problem. He’s reached his 40s and has realised that – aside from talking – he has no useful skills. Sure, even if AI does destroy all media jobs he’ll probably be okay, but it’s not going to hurt to learn a few things. Especially if he can get a TV series out of it.

Each episode of the new Stan series Unskilled Adult sees Blake team up with two different comedians to tackle an outdoorsy, physical task in an attempt to learn how to do that task. The jobs come in via a website where the opportunity to get random jobs done for cheap is too much for people to resist; will they get what they paid for, or are three comedians maybe not the best people to weld a trailer, repair a campervan, or build a bunch of irrigated planter boxes?

DIY carnage

The guest comedians prove to be of variable use. Episode one features Becky Lucas (whose main skill is manipulating others) and Hugh Van Cuylenburg (whose brother is both more skilled and better looking) helping to build the aforementioned planter boxes. Episode two stars the married duo of Anne Edmonds and Lloyd Langford, whose relationship comes under strain as they flail around, mostly failing, to figure out how metal works.

If you’ve ever watched even a single episode of Grand Designs, you know the thrill of seeing people leap head first into a complicated task with loads of unearned confidence and no idea of just how difficult things are going to be. But here, by keeping the tasks small scale, it actually does seem plausible that the jobs they’re taking on just might be easy to do. (Spoiler alert: they are not.)

As you’d expect with this particular premise, a lot of this show is about people figuring stuff out. Talking to tradies, talking to clients, talking to random people at the hardware store; it all goes into the mix. And where shows like The Block are also about people figuring stuff out, there it’s mostly home decoration and design, which – let’s be honest – you’re probably not going to do very often.

But making a big box out of wood? Seeing Hamish and his team fumble their way through that experience is both entertaining and somewhat informative. (For example, don’t use treated pine for a planter box you’re going to grow food in.)

Though much of the information is of the ‘what not to do’ variety. How do you even make a planter box where the sides don’t match? Do you really need to visit Bunnings to buy ‘heaps of dirt’?

Watch the trailer

Endearing, goofball comedy

Early collaborator Andy Lee turns up in a later episode (as do Sophie Monk, Ryan Shelton, Susie Youssef, Bret McKenzie, Melanie Bracewell, Alexei Toliopoulos, Guy Montgomery and more). Right from the start of their careers, Hamish & Andy were big on the kind of physical comedy that wasn’t quite a prank, but did involve them looking foolish.

This is pretty familiar ground for Blake then, though things do get increasingly frantic as the depths of his ignorance – and his desire to simply throw money at problems – becomes clear.

Unskilled Adult is funny, warm-hearted, informative and has people getting themselves in over their heads. So why is this on Stan and not on Nine? It’s not a comedy version of The Block, but it’s not a thousand miles away from it either; aside from the lack of obvious product placement, you’d think this would fill a pretty similar niche on the free-to-air broadcaster.

But why isn’t it on free-to-air?

Obviously, commercial television in Australia is increasingly moving to a two-tier model, where audiences are expected to pay extra for anything that’s not game shows, reality TV, news or sport. But even so, there’s nobody more mainstream than Hamish Blake. You’d think if anyone could get Australian comedy back on Nine, it’d be him.

One reason might be the format itself. Each episode is just under an hour (without ads), which is probably too long for a show on free-to-air television without high stakes or dramatic reveals. But any shorter and it wouldn’t work; the leisurely pace as Hamish and company flail around failing to succeed is where a lot of the comedy comes from.

Likewise, the low stakes are what makes it so agreeable. If this was about people wasting tens of thousands of other people’s dollars failing to make something actually important, it would be unsufferable. But without high stakes, how do you lure viewers in?

Ironically, the ingredients that make this series good television are what make it bad free-to-air television. Maybe that’s a problem Blake and his friends could get to work on next season.

Unskilled Adult premieres on 1 November on Stan.

Discover more screen, games & arts news and reviews on ScreenHub and ArtsHub. Sign up for our free ArtsHub and ScreenHub newsletters.