A few months ago, an Instagram account called ‘theundercoverrecruiter’ started following me and I was intrigued by the username so decided to check it out.
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From poking around on it, the account seemed to belong to a woman named Tash who had just landed herself a job in recruitment and had decided to chronicle her first steps into the business via her Instagram story. Things got a bit weird when a guy I played football with called Tom Goble showed up in the recruitment office as a colleague – especially as I knew he wasn’t a recruiter and was actually a comedy writer.
It turns out that Goble along with fellow comedian Ant Craven had decided to create the world’s first Instagram sitcom, where the stories would be told via the medium of Instagram stories every day. The funny thing was that nobody had a clue that it was actually a sitcom and full on believed that this was actually going on – indeed one of my friends even mentioned it to me at the pub as he’d stumbled on the account the same way I had and couldn’t believe he had been fooled when I told him what was actually going on.
That’s the thing about The Undercover Recruiter though: it’s actually so sharply written and acted and nothing ever really happens in it (like Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld) that if you didn’t know it wasn’t real then there would be reason to suspect it. Goble and Craven have really opened up a whole new medium of storytelling and comedy with the idea of the Instagram sitcom. People in the comments are already comparing it to BBC Three comedies and The Office before they even knew it was an actual comedy show, which only goes to prove just how good these guys are at what they’re doing.
I’m not sure if there’s actually going to be an overarching plot to it or if it’s just gonna be stupid anecdotes from the world of recruitment – where both comedians have previously spent time – but it does seem to be leaning that way with Tashrecently deciding that she might want to leave the business because she’s so rubbish at it. Maybe it’s destined to make the transition to TV?!Guess the only way to find out is to follow The Undercover Recruiter, but even if she doesn’t I guarantee that you’ll be entertained on the way.
