‘Maybe a clown can change the world after all…’
Nathan Fielder has established himself as a visionary and an innovator in the medium of television with shows like Nathan for You, The Curse and The Rehearsal. Season one of the latter saw Fielder take normal, real-life interactions and encourage participants to ‘rehearse’ them to either boost their confidence or help make a difficult decision by playing out the different scenarios in a controlled environment. The results were hugely entertaining (if ethically dubious), and season two takes this concept and runs with it to giddy new heights…
Fielder’s central thesis here is that most plane crashes are caused by a miscommunication between the officer and the captain. He hilariously demonstrates this using sophisticated flight simulation technology while he stands outside the plane peering in blankly. This totally reasonable and somewhat banal theory leads to Fielder creating his own singing contest for airline staff, cloning a dog, and suckling on the teat of a giant woman while dressed as a baby. Yes. You read that correctly.
While season one had its moments, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. The Rehearsal is ostensibly a comedy show, but there are few moments of obvious comedy here (although when they do arrive, such as the moment when one particularly enthusiastic pilot details why he is banned from all prominent dating apps), they are side-splittingly funny. Instead, Fielder continues to use his own awkwardness and social anxiety to explore why we all find human interaction so damn difficult. There are moments of genuine humanity and warmth here, but there are other times when it is almost impossible to accept that the actors hired by the show to take part are real people. They walk among us. They vote. Eesh.
It’s next to impossible to explain this truly bizarre season of television without either spoiling the, quite frankly, unbelievable conclusion, or resorting to empty hyperbole. Watch it for yourself and see.
