Ten comedians in the latest version of Amazon's global format

Having already aired more than 20 international versions, LOL: Last One Laughing is an easily grasped reality format that Amazon has throw a lot of weight behind. Ten comedians are locked in a room and have to make each other laugh, without cracking up themselves.

Or, as contestant Jason Byrne puts it, it’s a competition to find ‘the most miserable shit in Ireland’.

In some ways, it’s a mystery why it’s taken so long to come to Ireland and the UK – where another version is reportedly in the works. For as host Graham Norton says, in these damp and emotionally repressed islands, ‘laughing is basically compulsory from a very young age … [and] anyone who treats life too seriously is treated with serious suspicion’.

Amazon’s money has assembled a formidable force of comedy Avengers, proper A-lister Aisling Bea, Irish comic nobles such as Byrne and Deirdre O’Kane, familiar faces like David McSavage and Catherine Bohart  and newer names including  Martin Angolo. There’s also range of comic styles, from the superior dad jokes of Paul Tylak to the more physical comedy of Tony Cantwell, who spends the show in a way-too-tight green morph suit

Their antics range from desperate mugging to get a laugh to more deadpan odd behaviour, such as McSavage putting various foodstuffs into his trousers. Some of it’s funny, much of it isn’t, but an odd atmosphere settles over the whole room as the comics have to suppress the urge to be themselves and share a laugh. 

Producers are surely hoping that there’s  nothing funnier than not being allowed to laugh – as anyone whose got the giggles at a funeral will attest. But in the first couple of episodes at least, the comics don’t seem to have to struggle all that much to suppress their giggles – which might have been amusing – to the point that even a modest grin becomes deemed a yellow-card infraction.

The format point is also the show’s fatal flaw. There’s a reason TV comedies keep the audience laughter track – even though it’s much-derided by critics – and that’s because someone trying to be funny on screen and getting no acknowledgement just feels odd. Watch the clips of Friends of Big Bang Theory with the audience reaction silenced that you can find online and it’s weirdly disconcerting.

But in  LOL: Last One Laughing there’s no acknowledgment that anything amusing is taking place, even when it is, other than a deadpanned: ‘Oh yeah, very good’ or Bea promising to laugh at a witty line later.

The show also takes a long time to get going. It takes ten minutes for the comedians to arrive one-by-one and the rules explained. It can work on shows where the names taking part are kept under wraps, but this line-up – also including Emma Doran, and Amy Huberman, who mostly has to shrug off jokes about her husband, rugby player Brian O’Driscoll – has been well-advertised in advance.

And even when it does get going, the interactions over the six hours feel bitty and stilted. The jokes don’t land, the supposedly jeopardy seems inconsequential, and  any chemistry between the comics fragile and awkward, since their main social lubricant has been taken away. Ever-dependable Norton puts up a brave battle to inject a jovial tone, but it’s a hard fight.

And while for the contestants not breaking into a smile is the challenge, the audience at home will find that outcome effortlessly easy to achieve.

• LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland is streaming on Prime Video from today.

Review date: 19 Jan 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett