In his twisted and often horrifying reality show, Fielder piles ethical grey areas on top of each other … like problematic pancakes. Get stuck in!
Schopenhauer defined genius as someone who aims at a target the rest of us can’t see. Which raises a philosophical paradox – how do we know they’ve hit it? I was moved to such musings while watching this week’s pick, a singular piece of art that functions unlike anything else on TV, and calls the medium itself into question. No, it’s not Police& Interceptors.
In The Rehearsal (Monday, 10pm, Sky Comedy), comedian Nathan Fielder blends documentary, social experiment, performance art and absurdist satire in a devised method all his own. He has ordinary people tackle emotionally fraught situations from their lives, by role-playing them with hired actors in meticulously recreated sets that mirror significant personal locations. It’s arch, but the stakes are real. The first series opened with a man who wanted to apologise to his pub quiz teammates for cheating, before pivoting to a woman who wasn’t sure whether she wanted to become a mother. Mamma mia!
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