TL;DR – This might be the most joyous, charming, and a little bit absurd series I have seen in a very long time.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Review –

Comedy is one of those genres that is so difficult to get right. Sure it is not hard to make people laugh uncomfortably at gross-out jokes and the like. But for something to be truly funny you have to care about the characters involved. This is how shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, Parks and Rec, and Futurama (to name but a few) work. Today I get to look at a show that did all of that and more, but it did it in only 8 minutes.

So to set the scene, we open in Western Sydney in a carpark of the local doughnut stand Double Dee’s. Bonita (Monica Kumar) and her friends are getting ready to go out to the city when a mixup at the shop leaves her doughnuts with Sokhey (Sophea Op). Hoping on over to her car to sort it all out she gets left behind by her friends and decides to wait there while her Uber is coming. Which is the point when Nashrah (Tasnim Hossain) gets kicked out of her learner driver lesson and then there was three.

One of Carpark Clubbing’s incredible strengths is the way in which they create three fully formed characters in such a short amount of time. In almost one exchange of dialogue you get to understand who the character is, what drives them, and parts of their personality. For example, Nashrah goes from being kicked out of her learner lesson to talking to Mr Roadside Assist (Tysan Towney) in about one minute and in about that same time you go from wondering who this girl is to going ‘you go girl, get your flirt on, your awkward but charming flirt on’. Some of this comes from the writing but also a lot of it is the sheer joy that is the cast and how they work together.

What steps good comedies up for just okay ones is that there is some substance to them other than just moving from one joke set up to the next. Here we get that in the underlying issues that drive each of the women. The pressure to succeed, the pressure of not conforming to your friends, and the stress of failure. As someone who has taught in a university and met students that have gone through the exact same thing, it feels so real. All of this is happening while we are giving Tim Winton shade, going on dates, and having a staredown with the Donut Shop Manager (Kate Coates) while a shopping cart subs in for a tumbleweed. Getting that balance right is so hard and they make it look effortless and I think it works as well as it does because the creators/writers/stars have completely invested themselves into this project and it shows.

In the end, do we recommend Carpark Clubbing? Yes we do and if you are interested you can watch all of it now on YouTube. It is so great to see me local broadcaster champion new talent like this and if it can help in any way, I would very much like to see more of this show in the future.            

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Carpark Clubbing yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Carpark Clubbing
Directed by – Sarah Bassiuoni
Written by – Sophea Op, Tasnim Hossain & Monica Kumar
Created by – Monica Kumar, Tasnim Hossain & Sophea Op
Production/Distribution Companies – Information & Cultural Exchange, Create NSW & Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)
Starring – Monica Kumar, Tasnim Hossain & Sophea Op with Tysan Towney, Carlo Ritchie, Kate Coates, Kathryn Yuen, Melody Ha, Rizcel Gagawanan, Zufi Emerson
Episodes Covered – The Doughnuts, The Date, The (Bolshevik) Doughnut & The Deadline