The comedian Hannah Gadsby discussed the pathetic contrarianism of Barry Humphries in a 2018 tweet, commenting that the veteran joke-maker and professional buffoon “has completely lost the ability to read the room”.

If Humphries can no longer read the room, what do we make of Chris Lilley? Perhaps the only way of rationalising the controversial comedian’s shtick is to assume that he cannot read full stop. Can’t read a room, can’t read a book, can’t read a giant billboard spelling out that people no longer consider the comedy he trades in to be funny anymore: a relic from an older, more primitive time.

And when I say “older” and “more primitive” – cripes, it’s strange to think how recent much of this stuff is. A lot has been written about S.mouse, the African American rapper Lilley played in blackface in 2011’s Angry Boys, and Jonah from Tonga, the potty-mouthed miscreant he played in brownface, most recently in ABC TV’s 2014 series.

But not many people seem to remember what went down at the 2006 Logies: the kind of cringe-inducing incident that feels like it could only have transpired centuries ago. Lilley unveiled a matryoshka doll of racist stunts. He performed a musical number called “Indigeridoo” in character as the Chinese-Australian Ricky Wong (yellowface), who was impersonating an Indigenous Australian in traditional garb (full body blackface). The lyrics included “Aborigine me / Aborigine you / We’re not just the people who eat kangaroo.”

Just when it appeared no TV network in Australia would work with him again, along came Netflix (talk about not reading the room) with a new 10 part series created, written, starring, co-produced and entirely directed by Lilley. There are no brown, black or yellow faces in Lunatics, despite a trailer appearing to show the comedian in brownface (this character, the “pet psychic” Jana Melhoopen-Jonks, as it turns out, is a white South African with a tan).

That is, as they say, progress of a kind. But one of the underlying problems in Lilley’s humour still remains: he continues to punch down, making fun of people who have not been afforded the same privileges as he. There’s also the fact that his now very familiar shtick hasn’t matured since his breakthrough in 2005’s We Could Be Heroes. In fact it’s more juvenile than ever.

One the characters Chris Lilley plays in Lunatics is Keith Dick, a fashionista working in a cut-rate clothes store. Photograph: Vince Valitutti/Netflix

One the characters Lilley plays in Lunatics is Keith Dick, a fashionista working in a cut-rate clothes store in Canberra who, like the drama teacher Mr G in Summer Heights High, has delusions of grandeur. His big moment arrives in episode four, when he renames the store “My Dick,” so Lilley can deliver dialogue such as “today is the grand opening of My Dick”.

Gavin McGregor is an obese 12-year-old bully who Lilley plays in a fat suit. In the first episode he pelts fruit at a school girl, telling her to “come here if you want a berry up your vagina”. Then there’s Quentin Cook, a vain realtor with a huge bottom. He is over the moon when he manages to urinate in his own mouth in episode three, and late in the series (this review encompasses all 10 godforsaken episodes) launches a musical career as “DJ Cunt”.

Continuing the horror show, Becky Douglas is a dorky, 7 foot 3 inches tall (Lilley must have been on stilts) college student teased by her freshman peers. Joyce Jefferies (are we done yet?) is an ageing former porn star. Then there’s Jana the pet psychic, who Lilley uses to ridicule the transgender community (she is convinced that her female dog wants to be male and sends her off to have a sex change operation).

A fat suit? Stilts? A fake butt? Lilley seems more desperate than ever. His approach has never felt as laboured, or as formulaic, or as devoid of ideas. The thoughtless faux documentary / faux reality TV structure of the show means nothing in Lunatics is remotely interesting on a visual level. The dialogue feels improvised in the worst possible way – with no wit, no flair, no pulse. As for the story: there is none, really, just a series of vaguely connected vignettes with no beginning, no end, and very little sense of progress.

One might like to think that, through characters such as Ja’mie King, Lilley is lampooning society – in the case of his famous bitchy private school student, sending up a world that rewards ignorance, grotesque narcissism and the shameless pursuit of self-interest. His point-and-laugh body of work makes it clear however that he has no point; no ideological purpose; no motivation beyond the crudest of pantomime. He ridicules everybody, including (sometimes especially) the downtrodden.

Lunatics is a disaster: not just unfunny and problematic, but boring and utterly unrelenting: a parade of annoying characters doing meaningless and gratuitous things. Lilley’s career lives to die another day – but if he continues to exhibit no desire to evolve his shtick, his days, surely, are numbered.