Amy Sedaris’ new show “At Home With Amy Sedaris” received a warm welcome at its premiere this past Diwali Thursday in NYC, as cast and crew walked a multi-colored carpet, quite appropriate for the occasion.
Sedaris entered The Bowery Hotel in a puffy blue dress, complete with blue frills and sparkles. Though Sedaris is a huge fan of comedy, she appreciates the mundane too, and thinks that the “boring” has redeeming qualities, often looked over in American television. Her new show “At Home With Amy Sedaris” centers around crafts and cooking, two of Amy’s favorite hobbies. Though she had originally intended for the show to be dry and focused, she realized that laughs were necessary to break the ice for a home-show such as this.
This led to the creation of a show that mixes the slow with the fast, the witty with the humorless. A perfect example of what I mean by this juxtaposition is the way Amy describes fish in the beginning of her first episode. “Fish a strange cold-blooded and limbless creature that thrives in the stuff we drown in…but when battered and pan-fried, scrumptious!” Amy goes into a historical, nature-documentary sort of drawl, but then makes sure not to bore the audience for too long as she jumps into delicious and oily possibilities.
The show is corny and awkward, but employs both traits to strengthen its niche. It bathes in idiosyncracy in an endearing way rather than an annoying one. The sexual tension between Amy and her guest chef is the perfect energy for a home-cooking show, and it gives the episode a laid back, homey feel. “You handle those so well,” Amy says seductively to her guest as he straddles raw fish with his gloved hands. The mundane is funny, and the funny is mundane with Amy’s style. Her characters tell the audience unnecessary information about their lives, sort of like when one of your relatives drones on and on about pointless occurrences.
I had the pleasure of speaking briefly with Amy about her show:
Q: So what kind of comedy can we expect to see on the show, is it going to be more physical, more verbal?
A: There’ a lot of physical comedy, a lot of verbal comedy, a lot of visual comedy, so yeah!
Q: From what I’ve read the show wasn’t originally intended to be a comedy, so if you take away the comedy from the show – how does it function?
A: It’s “bring a book”… that’s why you need comedy you realize “oh this is just killing us, so boring.” But I mean I like boring shows, but we just naturally like to laugh, so we tried not to be so serious.
Q: You like boring shows?
A: Like PBS type shows, how-to shows, shows you can zone out too.
Q: Are there any elements of that kind of mundane-ness in the show?
A: Yeah, not for too long, because then you want to laugh.
The show also screened at the inaugural Tribeca TV Festival last month. Below are two clips from the post – screening panel courtesy of the festival:
The show premieres October 24th on TruTV at 8pm, perfect to relax to after a long day.