Hamish Blake admits wife Zoe Foster-Blake ‘hates’ his new show Unskilled Adult

Exclusive: Hamish Blake has already roped plenty of his famous mates into starring on his new show, Unskilled Adult, which sees Blake team up with underqualified entertainers like Andy Lee to Sophie Monk to do handyman jobs.

Just don’t expect Blake’s equally famous wife Zoe Foster-Blake to join the lineup any time soon. She couldn’t think of anything worse.

“It’s her nightmare. She hates this idea,” Blake told nine.com.au of the new Stan Original series, which kicks off on November 1.

“You couldn’t design a worse show for my wife. She’s someone that likes to know what’s going on, likes things to be organised.”

That’s one way to describe a woman who doesn’t want to join her husband learning how to weld on the fly on a random Thursday afternoon.

Blake confessed that whenever he texted his wife updates during filming – usually between figuring out how staple guns work or buying custom hammers worth hundreds of dollars – her replies ranged from “oh my god” to “hell, hell, hell”.

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“We just have different policies on uncertainty, Zo and I. I don’t mind it, Zo would prefer to minimise it,” Blake laughed.

The whole show revolves around Blake and his mates admitting their skills outside the entertainment industry are woeful and taking on odd jobs in a desperate bid to improve them, whether it’s building garden boxes or welding lifesaving rigs.

They try to tackle everything with good humour and a can-do attitude, even while the real clients they’re doing the jobs for watch on in horror and concern.

“That kind of is the show, in a nutshell. It’s what happens when we say we can do it, and the client says OK, but in our hearts we feel like we can’t do it, but we also can’t give up,” Blake said.

But everyone has their limits, something he learned while working alongside comedian and childhood friend Ryan Shelton.

“There’s a snippet of me losing my shit a little bit in episode four,” Blake confessed.

“I’m very exasperated, is how we would write it up in our HR report. ‘Hamish was very exasperated, and that’s why he called Ryan a f--king idiot.’”

The work health and safety (WHS) department on the show also had its work cut out for it, considering the jobs Blake and his mates were taking on with no proper training.

The worst part was that, despite going into the show knowing they had no marketable skills, Blake and his co-stars kept discovering they were even worse at everything than they expected.

While filming episode one, Blake watched Hugh van Cuylenburg battle with a drill for ages before telling the author he didn’t need to play it up for the cameras.

That’s when Van Cuylenburg confessed he wasn’t acting; he really was just that hopeless with a drill.

In fact, there was only one star who came onto the show expecting they’d actually be good at whatever odd job they took on with Blake: the one and only Andy Lee.

“If he wasn’t Andy, and my best mate, and someone I love hanging out with and doing things, I probably wouldn’t have had him on the show,” Blake laughed.

“We get everyone to fill out a form before the show like, ‘What do you think you can do, how would you rate yourself,’ and Ando was ticking all the boxes like ‘I think I can do anything’.

“But as it turns out, it’s a lovely place to start from, because the job is something that does turn out to be his kryptonite.”

What could be sweeter than watching your longtime mate absolutely flop at something after talking himself up like Lee did?

The only thing better, at least in Blake’s opinion, is knowing it will make Australia’s almost 2 million tradespeople laugh.

At least, that’s his hope for Unskilled Adult.

“It’s a bit of a love letter to people that have bothered to sit down and meticulously learn how to do all the things that build our world,” Blake said.

“If this highlights actually how incredible anyone that has a trade or a skill is, great. I have so much respect for people that can do this.”

Episodes 1 and 2 of Unskilled Adult debut on November 1, only on Stan. New episodes drop weekly.