The Kath and Kim reunion we’ve been asking for since the show went off air two decades ago is finally set to arrive. Break open the Cardonnay, because the two-part series will see Gina Riley, Jane Turner, Magda Szubanski, Glenn Robbins and Peter Rowsthrown — plus a few celebrity guests — reunite at Chateau Kath for memories, tears (ours and theirs), and new content.
This calls for BBQ Shapes and a bottle of Baileys!
When is the Kath & Kim reunion airing?
Soon! Part one, called Kath & Kim: Our Effluent Life, will be airing on November 20, while part two, called Kath and Kim: 20 Presposterous Years, will be airing the following night on November 21.
What can we expect?
The specials will include both new and retrospective footage; it’s not quite a look-back à la the Friends renunion, but it’s not a reboot either.
We’ll be catching up with Kath Day-Knight (Turner), her daughter Kim Day (Riley), their husbands Kel (Robbins) and Brett (Rowsthorn), and Kim’s second best friend, netball icon and Kim Kardashian pal Sharon Strzelecki (Szubanski), finding out what they’ve been up to these past twenty years.
And it appears that Kim is still living at home.
“Well, Kim never actually moved out for more than a week, so it’s not much of a reunion, as a here we go ahain, peoples!” Turner told the Herald Sun.
The cast reportedly reuninted in South Melbourne earlier this year to shoot “10 minutes of new footage for the show, which will run as a 20-to-One style format of hits, memories and unseen clips from the vault”, a source told the paper.
And if you had any doubt we’d be getting new footage, Turner and Riley appeared on Sunrise this week in character to spruik the renion.
When host Sonia Kruger asked if she was still happily married to Brett, Kim replied: “Yep! I’ve got main character energy and Brett’s a doomart.”
When Kruger admitted she didn’t think the couple would last (and nor would any Kath and Kim fan, to be honest), Kath replied: “How dare you! I’ve always mistrusted you!”
She added that Kruger was “totally jealous”, before quipping: “I’ll let you in on a little secret… Brett has affairs! He’s got a wandering eye – a bit like Epponnee-Rae, but she’s had hers corrected. But I don’t care! That’s why it works, you see.”
Who else will appear in the Kath and Kim reunion?
Break out the tissues for this one, because there’s apparently unseen footage of cricketer and one-time Kath and Kim star Shane Warne coming.
“The behind-the-scenes stuff with Shane is just going to break people’s hearts but it is also going to confirm what a dead-set legend he was,” Szubanskitold Sunrise.
“There is a lot of funny stuff.”
Warne, who passed away this year age 52, appeared in the Kath and Kim finale as a Shane Warne impersonator who falls in love with Sharon. The couple wed at Melbourne’s Luna Park, giving Sharon the happy ending she absolutely deserved and Ausralian audiences perhaps the greatest cameo in television history.
“In between takes we chatted and I totally fell under the spell of the famed Warnie charm: he was thoughtful and very sweet,” Szubanski said on Twitter after his passing. “God we had fun.”
Other famous names who have been tapped to appear in the runion include Sonia Kruger, Celia Pacquola and Collingwood footballer Mason Cox — but no word if Sharon’s one-time makeout buddy Chris Hemsworth will make an appearance. We can only hope.
“It’s fascinating and delightful to see audiences around the world still loving Kath & Kim after 20 years,” executive producer Rick McKenna told 7News.
“It was great fun getting the team back together, plenty of laughs all around, which we look forward to sharing very soon.”
Where to watch the Kath and Kim reunion
Kath & Kim: Our Effluent Life will be airing on Channel 7 on November 20 and November 21.
It’s expected to be a ratings hit for the network, with Riley and Turner — who also co-created the original show — expected to earn a not-too-shabby number for the reunion.
“It’s fair to say that Gina and Jane are going to be laughing all the way to the bank,” a TV insider told New Idea.
You can watch the entire original series on Netflix now.
