Kylie Minogue kills it in White House whodunit comedy The Residence

The Residence
Netflix
★★★

If an algorithm could leave fingerprints, they’d be all over The Residence.

Cue spooky robot voice: “Our viewers love crime shows. They love comedies. They love political-insider stories. Let’s give them a bit of (d) all the above.”

Kylie Minogue can’t get Can’t Get You Out of My Head out of her head.Credit: Erin Simkin/Netflix

But there’s one thing this comedy-whodunit almost certainly didn’t get from the Netflix dataset: Kylie Minogue. That is purely down to the show’s creators, writer Paul William Davies and uber-producer Shonda Rhimes.

For my money, Kylie has the best moment in the whole eight-part series (I’ve seen the first seven, so couldn’t tell you whodunit even if I were inclined to, which I wouldn’t be). “I have sung Can’t Get You Out Of My Head seven times,” she says, a look of sheer exasperation clouding her face and even threatening to dim the sparkles on her glittery purple evening dress. “Seven f---ing times.”

Minogue, playing herself, is a guest at a state dinner thrown at the White House in honour of the Australian prime minister Stephen Roos (Julian McMahon), during which a man is found dead in one of the building’s 132 rooms.

(Incidentally, McMahon is the son of a real-life Australian PM, Sir William McMahon. His character’s name is but one reference in the show to our beloved and, to the Americans, endlessly bizarre native fauna.)

Now all the guests and staff are being held there while detective Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) investigates, using her own oddball approach to sleuthing, which leans heavily on the world of bird watching.

With its colour-coded rooms, array of potential murder weapons (poison, kitchen knife, oversized candle stick), and unwieldy list of suspects (157, to be precise), The Residence is Cluedo on steroids. With its quirky detective and rather hammy supporting performances, it echoes (and overtly references) the Knives Out movies. And with Davies and Rhimes drawing inspiration from the 2015 non-fiction book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, it’s a lot like Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey, with a dollop of The West Wing or The Diplomat thrown in for good measure.

The dead man is AB Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito), head usher of the White House. He’s in charge of the massive operation that is the official home of the president of the United States. Or he was, until he is found dead in an upstairs room while the shindig – improbably, staged to lure Australia back to the fold because the US needs us so much (if only) – is unfolding below.

Uzo Aduba (front), as detective Cordelia Cupp, with other cast members in The Residence. Credit: Netflix

Kylie wasn’t even meant to be playing. She was attending as a guest, until the musical act failed to arrive. Ever a trouper, she stepped in at the last moment to help out.

Hugh Jackman is there too, leading impromptu tap-dance classes in the ballroom in the wee hours (we never see his face because the real Hugh Jackman is not actually in the show, sadly).

Sensing a bit of rivalry between the celebs, the fawning security agent Colin Trask (Dan Perrault) says, “the last thing I want to do is get between you and Hugh Jackman”. Of course, it’s actually the first thing he wants to do.

The whole thing plays like Agatha Christie crossed with Benny Hill. It’s ridiculous, the writing is hit or miss, and the framing device of a congressional hearing barely makes sense (even as it strains to make sense of the plot for viewers who might be struggling to keep up by recapitulating the plot, repeatedly).

Still, The Residence is mostly good fun. And if it’s a hit with viewers, you can bet the algorithm will dial M for more.

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