If comedy hypnosis has any place in the world at all, then it's on a Tuesday night during university orientation week. Like the Toga party or a Shapeshifter / Fat Freddy's double bill, the hypnotism show is an enduring O-Week tradition, its popularity mysterious and inexplicable.
Out of sight, out
of mind, for years comedy hypnotism has existed as a marginal form of entertainment in this country. That is about to change. This year TVNZ announced it had bought the rights to make a local version of the British show You're Back in the Room. Two weeks ago TV2 began screening the original UK version on Sunday nights.
A throwback to the halcyon TV days of Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game and Whose Line Is It Anyway, though lacking any of the humble charms of either of those two shows, You're Back in the Room is a game show where contestants must team up to complete a series of simple tasks for a cash prize. The catch, of course, it that they have all been hypnotised by an Irish hypnotist called Keith.
"We'll be hacking into their brains," host Phillip Schofield forecasts sinisterly at the top of the show. His job is primarily to conduct the contestants in their hypnotised stupor, to create grand symphonies out of their senseless actions. But with great power comes great responsibility. "Keith has already hypnotised our contestants backstage before the show," he assures everyone, "in case you get hypnotised as well."
Keith performs a dire monologue - "I can make the easy seem difficult and the bizarre seem normal," he brags - before receiving his order from Phillip: "Keith, hack 'em!"
