Hamish Blake’s new series, Unskilled Adult, sees the comedian and his famous friends tackle trades with zero prior experience, leading to chaotic yet hilarious results. In a recent interview, Blake revealed a standout anecdote involving a drunk, late-night cake-building session for his child’s birthday, where a possum nearly ruined the elaborate creation.
The show’s premise is simple: take personalities accustomed to green rooms and cameras and place them in situations requiring actual expertise. Blake explained that this creates a stark contrast to typical television production. “Normally, you have a green room and some lollies and you’re on camera for an hour,” he said. But on Unskilled Adult, guests face real challenges with real consequences, as shown by the grueling physical and mental demands placed on them.
The Bottom Line
- Unskilled Adult pairs Hamish Blake with celebrities to attempt skilled trades, showcasing genuine incompetence and humor.
- The series’ most chaotic moment involved Blake building a cake while drunk at 4am, narrowly avoiding a possum’s urine.
- Blake cites catering for 80 people as the most stressful job, revealing a newfound respect for professional chefs.
The Best and Worst Employees on the Job
When asked to name the best and worst employees on the show, Blake found himself tempted to give both titles to the same person: Ryan Shelton. According to Blake, Shelton was “wildly, head-scratchingly, perplexingly frozen and inefficient,” particularly during a high-stakes catering job for a wedding. However, his inefficiency was a constant source of laughter, ultimately earning him the “best” employee title from Blake, who admitted, “Which is not what you need as a boss but I enjoyed it.”
In terms of sheer tenacity, Blake praised Bret McKenzie and Lu Dal Din. The trio was tasked with pouring a concrete slab, a job they naively believed would take an hour. It ended up taking about six, completed at night in pouring rain, illuminated only by car headlights. “In that moment I was like, this isn’t a normal TV show – [our guests] would be so within their rights to turn around and say, ‘Mate, this sucks,'” Blake recounted. He credited their hardy Kiwi attitude, saying, “They just get on with shit.”
Catering a Wedding Without Backup
While pouring concrete in the rain was physically grueling, Blake identified catering for a wedding as the most stressful job on the show. “It doesn’t get much higher stakes than cooking for a wedding,” he stated. “And there really was no backup! And cooking for 80 people is a lot!” The experience gave Blake immense respect for chefs, revealing the immense pressure they operate under. “The more you research it, the more you understand there’s a head chef for a reason,” he said.
The role of head chef became an unwanted crown, with Blake and his guests deflecting responsibility off-camera. “I think you should be the head chef!” “Well I think you should be the head chef!” Blake ultimately found himself in the role, facing the chaos head-on. The tension peaked when a waiter relayed a specific, demanding request from the groom: he wanted his own butter in a little bowl.
Creating a Rubik's Cube Cake While Drinking
A signature part of Blake’s personal life is his tradition of creating elaborate, often over-the-top birthday cakes for his children while drinking whisky. He documented the entire painful process on social media, and one cake stands out as his most emotionally taxing: the Rubik’s Cube. “It was, by far, the biggest overreach,” he admitted. The cake required a complex 3D-printed core with 27 interlocking pieces, a task that pushed him to his limit.
The pressure mounted as he procrastinated, finally starting the project at 3pm with no one to rescue him. He assembled the pieces, filled them with marshmallow and rice bubble mixture, and froze them. But the kitchen warmth caused the pieces to melt and the icing to slide. Desperate, he moved the cake outside, where the temperature was colder. “That’s when I was like, this is tough. I was drunk. I was outside at 4am. A possum nearly pissed on it. I was like, this is a real low,” Blake shared, a story that perfectly encapsulates the chaotic spirit of both his cake-making and his new TV show.
Unskilled Adult in the Broader Streaming Landscape
| Reality TV Trend | Traditional Approach | Unskilled Adult’s Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Conflict & Drama | Scripted rivalries, manufactured tension | Genuine struggle, incompetence, and shared failure |
| Celebrity Treatment | Pampered in green rooms, treated as “gods” | No special treatment; fame is irrelevant |
| Core Appeal | Watching people succeed under pressure | Laughing at people spectacularly failing at basic tasks |
Blake's stories, from the wedding catering chaos to the 4am possum encounter, are not just funny anecdotes—they prove the show can find humor in the most human, and often most humiliating, moments.
