Phasmatodea: Intoxi-kates

Friday, 26 August 2016

Intoxi-kates

The funniest thing ever to come out of Australia is a cookery programme

When someone sitting next to me at work sends me a You Tube link for a video which I HAVE to watch, NOW because it’s the funniest thing EVER, I usually try to surreptitiously kick my computer cord out or remember a fictitious meeting I’m late for.

It’s not that I’m ungrateful, it’s just the pressure. Humour is, as they say, a funny thing, and being told I’m going to find something funny gives me performance anxiety. Maybe I won’t feel like being amused. I might suffer a sense of humour disfunction - leaving them disappointed and me weakly suggesting that I must be tired. Or maybe I’m just a grumpy old git after all.

But when a workmate who writes actual cuisine columns recommended The Katering Show to me, I couldn’t say no. And neither should you because it is pure, distilled genius.

The premise is simple, Kate McLennan, a self-confessed intolerable foodie, is determined to demonstrate the preparation dishes suitable for her food intolerant friend, Kate McCartney. With McCartney's reluctant participation.

Kate McCartney's dead-eyed stare is almost as unnerving...

So each episode sees their friendship teeter on the edge and possibly their sanity as well. The dishes prepared are usually inedible, McCartney’s intense disinterest inevitably reasserts itself while McLennan's desperate smile stretches to manic, then crumbles as every session inevitably spirals out of control.

... as Kate McLennan's fixed grin.

It’s the personalities and interaction between the Kates which makes it work so beautifully. Is it a masterclass in improvisation or is everything meticulously rehearsed? Or, God forbid, are they really like that?

Decide for yourself. Here are the links.

Watch it.

NOW.