Urzila review: sketch comedy for the cheerfully unhinged

It’s been a long time since Australia was a world leader in sketch comedy. For over 20 years, from the mid 80s through to the start of this century, we generated an astonishing amount of shortform humour; if there was one thing we knew how to do, it was sketch comedy. Now there’s Urzila, the ABC’s first new attempt at a sketch show in close to a decade – and that’s a decade longer than the commercial networks kept making it.

Based around the extremely popular and very funny Urzila Carlson – possibly best known here for her appearances on Have You Been Paying Attention?, though she’s been popping up everywhere in recent years – it’s a showcase for her particular sense of humour, which turns out to be a great fit for sketch comedy.

She’s pretty good on the stand-up side of things too, with a thriving career here and overseas, and there’s a taste of that with her stage-based introduction to each episode.

Calling in a few friends

The opening installment sees Carlson receiving the grim news that she’s been diagnosed with ‘early onset Karenism’. Other sketches see her receiving ever-increasing praise at the gynaecologist for having the smallest vagina anyone’s ever seen, and gradually going berserk at a wedding cake tasing when it becomes increasingly clear that the chef is not-so-subtly hitting on her fiancée through the medium of cake toppers.

There’s a solid ensemble cast – with Carlo Ritchie, Andy Saunders, Bron Lewis and Anisa Nandaula backing her up – along with a string of guest appearances from established comedy names. The first episode also features Julia Morris and Sam Pang. (Carlson returned the favour by phoning in a message on Pang’s episode of Glenn and Mick’s Celebrity Intervention this week.)

Future instalments feature guests including Nash Edgerton, Anastasia, Melanie Bracewell and Tom Gleisner (plus more Sam Pang and Julia Morris).

From stand-up to sketch and back again

Between many the sketches are brief stand-up inserts that largely serve to establish the premise of the following bit. The idea of mixing stand-up and sketch comedy has worked well with multiple series across the decades. Some of the bits here work well – in the second episode, there’s an extended riff on menopause that’s funny on its own but also feeds into the following sketch – while others are basically just there to introduce an idea.

There are some memorable short skits here, such as the opening of the second episode where another driver’s failure to give her ‘the wave’ instantly leads to a near-psychotic rage outburst. But something that becomes clear across the series is that one of Carlson’s big strengths is the way she gets funnier the longer a sketch goes on.

As sketch comedy fans know, this is not usually the case. Many sketches have one idea, a lot of blundering about to fill in time, and maybe if you’re lucky a punchline. Not so on Urzila.

She’s constantly able to build on concepts, whether it’s by finding new angles or by desperately failing to find new angles. The longer she’s on screen, the funnier she gets.

Many of the longer sketches here manage to build on the original concept just by having Carlson act increasingly unhinged or upset, which is where she really stands out. Her ability to go from practically deranged to cheerful normalcy in an instant doesn’t hurt either – having her swing from one to the other is pretty much a guaranteed laugh-getter.

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Reviving Australian sketch comedy

A big part of why sketch comedy went off the boil here is that a lot of sketch series were based around repetition. First week there’d be plenty of laughs. The second week you’d realise that you were watching the same sketches as last week with one minor change because the program was trying to create cult characters rather than funny situations – and the way you do that is by bring the same characters back week after week.

Urzila is not above this kind of thing, as the victim of early onset Karenism turns out to be a regular. Is a constantly complaining middle-aged white woman who finds fault with everyone and everything the kind of character who can sustain multiple sketches? Let’s be honest: yes she is.

Episode two sees her shipped off to a clinic where she’s taught to suppress her natural tendencies with a chant: ‘In with the breath, out with needing to see the manager’. And the Hire-A-Lez business in the same episode? You can expect to see that back later on as well.

A few themes remain constant. Being angry, being middle-aged, being a woman, being an angry middle-aged woman; Carlson finds comedy gold wherever she looks. You wouldn’t want to say sketch comedy is back on the basis of one six-episode series, but as a venue for Urzila Carlson’s humour you couldn’t ask for more.

Urzila premieres on 29 April on ABC TV, with all episodes available on ABC iview.

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