“We recognised that there was a serious lack of female driven comedy content on the web, and we wanted to change that,” says Adele Vuko, one prong of the three-woman Australian sketch comedy onslaught that is Skit Box.
Vuko’s right.
There’s not a lot of good female-driven comedy on the web, or on TV. Girls is fantastic but it’s not sketch and beyond that, 2 Broke Girls exemplifies the kind of “comedy” that’s getting enough popular attention to inspire network renewals. Horrifying as that is. Vuko has hit upon a dearth in the market, but she and her cohorts have done more than recognize a hole. They’ve begun to fill it.
Created, written by, and starring Vuko, Sarah Bishop and Greta Lee Jackson, the 5-episode preview into what I believe has the potential to grow into a 22-minute series cable series was conceived, written, and filmed in just three months, impressive even by crunched web video production standards. Videos have garnered a collective 50,000 views in just over a month. Not a bad count, but one that should grow much higher once the word’s out.
Skit Box is accessible: smart and subtle, without being self-indulgent or alienating. It feels organic in much the same way that Lena Dunhams’s Delusional Downtown Divas does, a complex delivery in sketch comedy, where the ground is often tread by performers afraid to experiment with winding, muted punch lines, and a testament to the overall quality of this series.
Here are three reasons to watch.
Episode 1: Pam’s Romance Variety Hour
While billed as “sketch,” episodes play more like excerpts from a larger arc, chock-full of subtle character traits that draw viewers in while flying in the face of the comedic form’s neuroses about jokes and targets being instantly and indisputably clear.
Episode 4: Desperate Girls Roll Up on Construction Workers
Just because it’s a show made by and starring females doesn’t mean humor should be female-specific, and it’s not. But Skit Box jokes are often born out of the female perspective, making everything feel more authentic and original.
One thing sketch comedy cannot do without is strong characters and there are no shortage of those here.
