Nathan Fielder

Barbara Ellen hails the edgy, enigmatic Canadian comedian behind absurdist hit series The Rehearsal

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Who or what is Nathan Fielder? Genius or sociopath? The counterculture “king of cringe”? His acclaimed HBO US show The Rehearsal - returning this week for a second Sky Comedy series in the UK - delivered a potent visual image of Fielder as a brooding obsessive figure, standing with a laptop in a harness. Other than that, it maybe says something that the 42-year-old Canadian comedian remains impenetrable, unknowable. It’s notable that Elon Musk is reported to have tried - and seemingly failed - to befriend him.

The first series of The Rehearsal, which won the 2022 Independent Spirit award for best comedy, was a surreal improv supernova of simulations and role-playing taken to elaborate, deranged extremes.

Fielder built a full-size replica of a bar and enlisted actors just so a man could rehearse a confession to a fellow quiz team member about lying about having a master's degree. In another rehearsal, a woman unsure about having children is given an accelerated mock-up of motherhood, with different-aged child actors - and child robots - playing roles from babies to teenagers.

The new series of The Rehearsal, just concluded in the US, takes Fielder's signature brand of docureality vérité even further. It focuses on aviation safety and his conviction that plane crashes are caused by miscommunication between captains and co-pilots. This is by no means a new idea and is widely discussed within the industry and beyond, but Fielder takes a unique and dramatic approach to the issue.

One scenario morphs into fullscale replicas of airport terminals, the launch of a singing competition called Wings of Voice based on