Few things are quite as entertaining as watching people who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing enthusiastically convince themselves otherwise. It’s an art form that Hamish Blake has practically perfected throughout his career, and in Stan’s delightfully chaotic new comedy series Unskilled Adult, the Australian entertainer puts his considerable confidence, questionable practical abilities and willingness to embarrass himself to good use. Built around the rather humbling realisation that reaching your 40s doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve acquired any genuinely useful skills, the eight-part series embraces the possibility that perhaps the best way to learn something is to throw yourself into it, preferably with equally clueless friends along for the ride.
The premise is refreshingly straightforward. Each episode sees Blake appoint himself the CEO of a makeshift workforce, recruiting two comedians or entertainers to help complete a real job for a real client. From constructing garden planter boxes and welding trailers to catering weddings and creating costumes for community theatre, the assignments sound achievable enough on paper. Unfortunately, enthusiasm and ability are two very different things, and it rarely takes long for the team’s collective incompetence to reveal itself. With little training, plenty of misplaced optimism and an alarming tendency to improvise solutions to problems they barely understand, Blake and his rotating employees stumble through each challenge before presenting their handiwork to a client who ultimately decides what, if anything, their efforts are worth.
There’s a touch of early-2000s reality television nostalgia to the proceedings, with the series recalling the fish-out-of-water appeal of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie’s The Simple Life, albeit with considerably less glamour and a greater likelihood of someone requiring a trip to Bunnings. Much of the enjoyment comes from watching capable entertainers discover just how incapable they are outside their usual professions, and the revolving collection of personalities ensures the humour never rests entirely on Blake’s shoulders. Becky Lucas, Anne Edmonds, Lloyd Langford and Sophie Monk are among the familiar faces joining the madness, while Blake’s natural ability to find comedy in even the most mundane setbacks keeps proceedings moving. His willingness to be the butt of the joke, rather than position himself above the chaos, is particularly endearing, and there’s an easy camaraderie that makes even the more disastrous attempts feel like time well spent.
What ultimately works in Unskilled Adult’s favour is its complete lack of pretension. Unlike the manufactured tension and inflated stakes that dominate so much contemporary reality television, there’s no grand prize, no elaborate elimination process and no desperate attempt to turn minor inconveniences into life-altering catastrophes. The stakes are deliberately modest, allowing the comedy to emerge organically from the personalities involved and the increasingly obvious gap between their ambition and execution. There’s even something unexpectedly educational about watching their mistakes unfold, with the occasional practical lesson emerging from the confusion. More importantly, the series understands that failure doesn’t necessarily have to be humiliating. Sometimes it can simply be funny, and occasionally even rewarding.
Naturally, enjoyment of Unskilled Adult will largely depend on your affection for Blake’s particular brand of humour, but those already familiar with his playful, self-deprecating approach should find plenty to appreciate. It’s hardly reinventing the reality television format, nor does it need to. Instead, it delivers an agreeable, consistently amusing and surprisingly wholesome celebration of trying something new, making a spectacular mess of it and discovering that there’s value in the attempt itself. In an entertainment landscape increasingly obsessed with competition, perfection and manufactured conflict, there’s something rather lovely about a show whose greatest ambition is simply to have a go. Blake might not emerge from the experience as Australia’s next great tradesman, but he certainly knows how to make being hopelessly out of his depth look like a whole lot of fun.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Unskilled Adult premieres on Stan Australian on November 1st, 2026, with each subsequent episode airing weekly.
