Hot Department

Hot Department’s new show pulsates with self-aware rage. These are sketches so high in energy, so drenched in horniness that it's possible to enjoy them without digging into their subtext. But for every riff on man flu, every bit about manic pixie dream girls and every jab at Liberal voters, there is an undercurrent of political and social commentary.

Sometimes, it's more subtle, like at the show’s opening when Hot Department force the audience to sing along to the slow-motion marching band sounds of the Hot Department national anthem. But at other times, like when an alien morphs into a sex-crazed step-mother having learnt through Pornhub that this is one of the most revered human archetypes, their harsh critique of the state of the world smacks you in the face.

Yes, there are plenty of stabs at lower hanging fruit. For example, their impressions of people named “Sarah” and “Tristan”, whose respective predilections for ketamine and “being chill”, can only have been based on subjective superficial experience. But the way Hot Department brings the language of memes, nudity and slapstick into conversations with the malaise of the modern world will one day be written about in university theses.