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TELEVISION: Kath & Kim

Many of the usual suspects from Melbourne's comedy clique are present in a new series that sees comedy as mangling the language and mocking the masses. Example: one character is told she is "effluent" because she owns a Hyundai, half a home unit, a DVD player and a mobile.

Kath & Kim is good in parts but the parts, at this early stage, don't include the stars-fit-crazy Kath (Jane Turner), who's into "me time," or Kim (Gina Riley), her plump daughter who has left her husband of two months, because the marriage is over. "O-v-a-haitch." If only they'd stop screeching. And for an excruciating moment try this exchange when Kim tries to reclaim her Care-Bear-emptied bedroom, made into an exercise haven for Kath: "I like to keep myself trim, Kim. Does it make me a crim to keep myself trim?"

A saving is the truly funny Glenn Robbins as Kel, a "purveyor of fine meats" (or a butcher), who is wooing Kath and alienates Kim by spotting her tubby tum over the baby-zip hipsters and asking when the baby's due.

Magda Szubanski, who is usually genuinely funny, is a guest, playing Kim's one-eyed sports-mad friend, Sharon.

Kath & Kim has its few moments, though Kel Knight's marriage proposal to Kath Day that they turn "day into night" is not one of them.

By Gerri Sutton
www.who.com