I know that sometimes it is hard to tell the spoof reality TV shows from the real ones but wasn't there a show a while back in which a group of young good looking people were locked in a house and you got evicted if you had sex with another housemate? Well, Last One Laughing feels like it has a vaguely similar premise of stopping people doing what they normally do. Except that here you get booted off the show for gagging not shagging. One giggle, one smirk and you are out. Last one left wins $100,000.
It's an oddly perverse concept with the viewer expected to be laughing at the comedians' increasingly outrageous antics while the comedians try to remains tombstone-faced. Rebel Wilson is the host-slash-referee, interrupting whenever there is a breach in the protocol or rules, whatever they are, and handing our red or yellow cards.
The idea is fun, but the problem for the UK viewer is that the programme features comedians from down under who few will know. There are some familiar faces to hardcore comedy fans – self-mocking Sam "I used to be relevant" Simmons won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2015 and Frank Woodley was part of the double act Lano and Woodley who won it way back in 1994 – and is clearly now something of a comedy legend back in Oz.
Many of the comics presumably know each other and are able to riff off of each other or happily insult each other, but for the UK viewer it is a little hard to invest in it emotionally without knowing more about the performers. The others taking part are Dilruk Jayasinha, Nazeem Hussain, Anne Edmonds, Ed Kavalee, Becky Lucas, Joel Creasey, Nick Cody and Susie Youssef.
Many, if not all of the cast, are pretty big names in Australia and this show should be a big hit there. Audiences elsewhere may not know what to make of comedians screaming, collapsing on the floor or, in the case of Sam Simmons, dancing around wearing a coat with countless rubber cocks stuck onto it. This latter incident is clearly the highlight of the first episode.
Amazon Prime has made this series, which is based on a Japanese format, available to UK viewers but what would have been much more fun would have been to make a British version. Perhaps that will happen when social distancing is over. In the meantime we will just have to make do with enjoying Sam Simmons and his coat of many cocks.
Watch LOL – Last One Laughing on Amazon Prime.
Picture: Amazon Prime
