(EXCLAIMS) As it is, take one. Take one. Shush now. Is your medication kicking in? (LAUGHS) I don't have my autograph pen, sorry. (LAUGHS) I've got another career if this all goes tits up. (LAUGHS) Hey, sweeties. Yeah, gidday. My name's Lynn, and I come from Tawa. - (BILLY T LAUGHS) - (CROWD LAUGHS) www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 Thank you, Jeremy. New Zealand comedy has developed from very character-based sketch-based,... Just a moment. That'll be the phone. Your Fred Daggs and your other` or The Week of It team. You had your Lynn of Tawas. And then slowly this stand-up came into it ` the realness of someone standing up and actually being themselves. John Clarke was the first New Zealander that cracked me up. The greatest example of New Zealand satire for me is John Clarke. Fred Dagg was the greatest comedy character created in New Zealand. Please don't tell the Topp Twins I said that. Fred Dagg was a moment in history. And I just thought he was hysterical. It's impossible to overstate the influence, the impression of Fred Dagg. One second he wasn't there, and one second he was everything. And it is super subtle. We've made her a... typical New Zealand dish. What's that? What is it? It's a pavlova with, uh, mashed potato on top, garnished with a chop. And we're hoping she'll tear into that with great alacrity. John Clarke had a whole level of... other stuff going on that I think marked him as the godfather, absolutely, of New Zealand comedy and, kind of, cultural icon. That to me was almost like folklore. My parents were like, 'This is New Zealand comedy.' Uh. This is not very good pasture at all because it's too damp. It was about New Zealanders looking into themselves. That idea that we are actually a particular... culture... Because he took an archetypal character,... This guy who looked like typical farmer, black T-shirt, black singlet, gumboots, and he was on a lilo. ...and, kind of, presented it back to them. ...and finding out who that is and what we like about it and what we don't like about it. Amazing! Somebody with our voice, yeah. In Dunedin, and you Dunedin people probably can't see that. You probably haven't seen the weather for a couple of weeks. I'll see what I can do about it for you. Cloudy in Dunedin tomorrow. There you go, Dunedin. Right? Bringing down the pompous and the arrogant and the,... you know, the ludicrousness in these people. Laconic. Laconic. Laconic. Laconic. Popped that bubble. The timing. And he was always was really articulate the way he answered the questions. If you're gonna play the numbers game, well, it's 4% of the 7% of the 16% of the gross national income that comes out of taxation, and then on the parabola, it becomes annuity at the age of 65 or 62 if you're a lady unmarried. And there are still people of our generation that still occasionally go,... - 'Cripes, that'd be the phone.' - (PHONE RINGS) I'm not here. I'll ask me to ring you back later. Thank you. John was just the funniest guy I knew, you know, and I met him at Victoria University. At Victoria University, he recognised his tribe, and he just couldn't believe his luck. There was a group of us. We all had a crush on John ` boys, girls, the janitor. Every year, they would have a thing called an Extrav. Dad was working backstage at one of the Extravs when somebody stood next to him in the dark and said, 'You should be up there.' And the next year, he was. And that person was Roger Hall. Now, Extravaganzas, as the name implies, is a big show. Lots of people. (CHUCKLES) It was chaos and carnage, and he did a couple little solo bits from out of nowhere. He was so funny. John Clarke had come on to the scene. And they would do things at Downstage. They would do late-night satirical bits. Hello there. I think he liked the fact that it was a combination of, sort of, low comedy and unbelievably high comedy at the same time, you know. I should like to perform for you the traditional one step. - And now... - (CROWD LAUGHS) And now I would like to perform for you the Ring Cycle by Wagner. But... - I can't. - (LAUGHTER) John, Me, Paul Holmes and John Banas formed our own late-night review called Knackers. They were called Knickers, and then they were called Knickers and Knackers. Then they were called Knickers and Knackers and Knockers. And the audience queued around the block for those late-night shows. And he was on the cusp of Fred Dagg in many levels. He did a long phone call about Trev. Gidday, Mrs Burke. Yeah, it's Bruce here. Bruce. Trev's friend Bruce. - Buh-err-uce-eh. - (LAUGHTER) The Fred Dagg voice is extraordinarily distinctive, and part of the success of the character of Fred Dagg is that voice. There was a famous race called from the Manawatu called Peter Kelly. And they're followed then by... Peter Kelly did all of the races in the lower part of the North Island, and I knew his voice before I met him. And Peter said to me, and it was an absolute revelation. He said, '(RAPIDLY) Hello, John. It's a beautiful day for this time of year. - I' do believe not a cloud in the sky.' - (LAUGHTER) And I thought, 'This is not an act. This is` Peter talks like this all the time.' Driving itself does become tiring because some of the distant meetings I do from Palmerston North. I leave soon after 7 o'clock some mornings, and it can be 7; it can be 8 o'clock by the time one gets home. Now, (STUTTERS) I don't really like the towns. I'm not very keen on the towns at all, in fact. But, I mean, a man's gotta go in there sometimes and get a few provisions, one or two things, that you can't get out of the wool shed or up the neighbour's place, and the... The things that I thought were funny were from our lives. And Peter Kelly was one of those sounds. In 1973, John Clarke did a small sketch at the end of a news programme, and it was the first time that most people saw what was to become Fred Dagg. (COUGHS) Excuse me, sir, as a farmer, can you tell me what you think of Daylight Savings, please. Oh, what the hell is Daylight Savings, mate? That era when you had one channel, everybody watching the same screen every night, it was a great unifying sense to that, that next morning we were all talking about the same thing. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me. How are you. If you're a New Zealander and you start making comedy about, you know, things that we relate to, everyone is just gonna love you. I'd like you to tell me truthfully how many sheep you, in fact, have. Around two million. Uh,... Around about two million. My wife put them through the race the other day while I was knocking off my porridge in the morning, and she reckoned there was about two million. Have you ever had time to count them? Have you done that? I've had time, yeah, but I've never done it. Why not? Too busy, mate. Thank you. When I was a kid, I was greatly amused by adults who would say funny things that weren't jokes. They would just exaggerate and... And not a lot would happen in New Zealand, so that people would often be talking about essentially the same thing. They'd say` They'd meet each other and they'd say stuff like, 'It's overcast again.' And the other person would say, 'Yes, there's no question about that.' Absolutely no question about that at all. There is no doubt in my mind that that cast there is over. (LAUGHTER) Initially when I saw Fred Dagg ` I wouldn't even know what age I was ` like, I was enjoying the humour so much, which was so accessible and beautifully New Zealand, that I didn't perhaps pick up on the political undertones of what he was doing. Why this campaign, anyway? What's wrong with our present leaders ` Mr Muldoon, for instance? Oh, too divisive. Mr Rowling. Not divisive enough, I don't think. What about Mr Betham. Never heard of him. Mr Cluff. Wouldn't know her if I saw her, mate. People love seeing powerful people reduced a little bit. Mr Dagg, reports are claiming that you've invented some form of nuclear device. Now, are you able to confirm those reports? Ah, yeah, I am. I've invented a bomb of catastrophic proportions. Where is the test area? Well` Have you found one yet? Well, yeah, the wife and I struggled over the atlas last night trying to find a test area. We don't want it to be too near to New Zealand so that the ghastly fallout and fire storms and such like don't affect the good people of New Zealand, so we've got an area a long way away from New Zealand where we won't be affected at all. And not to put too fine a point on it... France. He's just gonna throw it out over France? Yeah, just toss it out the window. That'd be the story. He wasn't buying into the myth of our importance in the world, that we weren't these fabulous people from the most beautiful country in the world, who could punch above our weight and make anything out of number-eight wire. But he had a fondness for New Zealanders. (ROOSTER CROWS) I think his appearance on Country Calendar was the first time that New Zealand really sat up and took notice. ('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) Not only because it ran contrary to the, kind of, serious rural nature of the show, but just because it was so good. 'I run the place with my sons, of whom there are approximately half a dozen.' I think I might go into town today. So I want the number plate taken off the tractor and put on the Land Rover. You know, it's that whole show and not tell, and so when you're doing character comedy, John Clarke could joke about the way farmers talk and stuff, but wouldn't nearly be as effective as him just doing it. And so the Fred Dagg character was a caricature, but close enough that you went, 'It's actually not that much of a caricature.' You suddenly realise that it was just bigger than anyone could possibly imagine. So, in the mid '70s, he's everywhere. He's got the top album of all time in New Zealand ` not just comedy, music, everything. And that record stood for years. I mean, he did this tour of New Zealand, which was the biggest tour ever done by a comedian until the Flight of the Conchords. 1976, he'd had enough of TV, and he really did want to go to Australia and work in Australia, so we looked at each other and said, 'Well, let's do a live tour.' Cobbled together a band of Maori lads who are a wonderful band, John Rangi and his group. And the thing sold out like that. We then planned a second tour, and that sold out like that. It was like walking up the street with a film star, you know. Everybody knew him. Ticket price ` $3.80. (CHUCKLES) So we were way below the going rate, so to speak. But that was deliberate. It was a tour of great contrast, where he'd be playing, what, 300 people in the Twizel town hall and it's snowing outside, and the next you're in the Christchurch town hall with 2300 people. Actually, I saw him the other day, the prime minister, Mr Robert Muldoon ` the well-known gross national product. (LAUGHTER) From go to whoa, Fred Dagg happened, started and finished in a four-year period. He could have done more, but he chose to go to Australia. And we had, you know, dinner with him in Melbourne. Out of the blue, he said, you know, 'Ah, I've been watching your Ken character,' and he said,... 'When you look at Ken, he's got a cigarette in-between these two fingers.' Like that. And he holds that cigarette like that, but you'll notice that his thumb is out like that. And when I think about it, that's how I do. I hold my cigarette like that. And he said, 'Do you know what that is, Linda?' I said, 'Well, I hadn't really thought about it.' He said it means that if a nine-ounce glass of beer fell out of the sky, it would fit perfectly into Ken's hand. (LAUGHS) Cos, like, that is the holding of a beer glass. With a cigarette in the same hand. The nine-ounce, the little ones, you know, at 6 o'clock swill. (CHUCKLES) Closing time. And that's how incredibly... tuned in to comedy he was, you know, and I was just so... I had a moment, you know. And I felt so proud. I did. It made me feel so proud, and I just` You know, I wanted to hug him. I did hug him. When he moved to Australia, he was able to broaden out. He reinvented himself. He was able to write. He wrote for newspaper, for radio. He did 'Stiff' and 'The Brushoff', which were adaptations of Shane Maloney novels. He directed his own short film. Poetry. All their Christmases rolled into one. Satirical takes on famous poetry. He was in the Gillies Report. Death in Brunswich with Sam Neill. Give us the money, Dave. Oh, Carl. I think John Clarke for me was at his best in those` like, The Games. So the 200-metres track is exactly 200 metres long? Yes, of course. But what you're telling me is that the 100-metres track is about 100 metres long? Slightly different arrangement in the 100-metres track. Is a metre a slightly different concept, is it, in 100 metres as against 200? Well, I don't understand, Mr Wilson, quite why in the construction of a 100-metres track you would want to depart too radically from the constraints laid down for us by the conventional calibration of distance. The Olympic Games, that was absolutely brilliant. He was. He was very political. In fact, he was probably more political in Australia than he was in New Zealand. Senator Collins, thanks for coming in. It's a great pleasure. Thank you. The Clarke and Dawe interviews, to me, are the pinnacle of political humour. This ship that was involved in the incident off Western Australia this week` Yeah, the one where the front fell off? Yeah. Yeah, that's not very typical. I'd like to make that point. Well, how is it untypical? Well, there are a lot of these ships going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don't want people thinking that tankers aren't safe. Was this tanker safe? Well, I was thinking more about the other ones. The ones that are safe? Yeah, the ones where the front doesn't fall off. You're doing an impersonation, but you look nothing like them and you're just talking in your own voice. I don't dress up or sound like the politicians, and my theory about that is that they do that. They are` They are being` They're professional politician impressionists. Don't think anybody's filmed in here before. In here, he's kept everything, so all the press stuff, the cards from me when I was 7 ` 'Dear, Daddy.' It's all in here. Old ancient tapes. See, that's one of his, sort of, monologues. So much of the Fred Dagg stuff doesn't exist as it used to exist. There's a 13-part series called Fred Dagg on Leisure, which was in, I think, 1978 and` which is almost entirely missing apart from a few little bits that he managed to, use his word, trouser from the NZBC. Whole list of crap for tonight at 9 or whatever it is. Take one. Ready? Yeah, here is the news. Claire Payne call extension double-seven-one urgently please. Claire Payne extension double-seven-one urgently. That is the end of the news. The ventriloquist meeting will continue tomorrow. He died in 2017 ` died suddenly. He was in the bush with his wife, the love of his life, my mother. The response that we got from Australia and New Zealand all at once, it was like a` My mum described it as a tsunami of love and support, and it was surprising to me, anyway, about how important that was. It was just a lovely, lovely thing. * Ah, yeah, gidday. Fred Dagg was looking back to provincial past or fading provincial present, whereas Lynn of Tawa was the future. Lynn of Tawa was growing suburbs that were increasingly important to how most New Zealanders lived. Bruce Mason said, 'Uh, Ginette, 'you're a bit fat, but you might have a career if you get on with it. 'Now, Roger Hall and I are doing this late-night review called... 'Knickers. 'Why don't you write yourself a... 'character, and you can be in it.' And probably in my unformed 16-year-old brain, I thought, 'Well, they wouldn't know any street people,' so... maybe that's what I was going for. It's like puncturing their bubble. So I come on, 'Hello. I come from Tawa.' My name's Lynn, and I come from Tawa. I don't think there's any, sort of, science to it. You just, sort of, see a need and... Like plugging a hole, isn't it? Lynn of Tawa wasn't just Tawa. It was small-town New Zealand, really. Lynn of Tawa also had a huge influence on me. I would see these women in everyday life around my small town of Matamata. Who just had that full-on` you know, the Kiwi accent. Is that what Lynn of Tawa sounded like? Yeah, she did, eh? STRONG ACCENT: Lynn of Tawa. STRONG ACCENT: Which everyone seemed to think was over the top, but frankly, I've heard people speak worse than that. NORMALLY: Anyway, what people love are the familiar ` the place names and the rhythm of those names. Hello, Tawa, and good evening, New Zealand. Welcome to the totally all-new Lynn of Tawa show, brought to you by Dave and Derrick's Drive-in Washerama, Patel's Divine Light Superette, the Fantail Drive-in Rondon Crescent Business Person's Association, and the Fa'alele family, who wants to celebrate their new citizenship with an appropriate gesture. (LAUGHTER) Why is Spray n' Wipe,... So I had to go and have a good go with the Spray n' Wipe. ...funnier than... Jif? It's rhythm. And, so you've got a beauty in that you're mentioning urban preoccupations in a, sort of, way that everyone's familiar with. And everyone likes to think they're nothing like Lynn of Tawa, but maybe the person down the road is. I think that's what it is. After Lynn of Tawa was Neville Purvis, and it was TV looking for the next Fred Dagg, next Lynn of Tawa, but Neville didn't quite fit the mould. Neville Purvis back at your service. Neville Purvis, Jean and I sat down for a few days and designed who we thought this character was. About eight months ago, I got out of Mt Crawford finishing school in Wellington. He had been in prison. He came from the Hutt. And my mum actually got me the job. He loved his mum. She made me the suit and sent me down, and I got a job as MC at Carmen's balcony. He was really happy to get this job. And it's just a job to stay out of jail basically. It's going very well. He loved alcohol. Loved cars. There she is. The 1958 Mach two jet. John Charles and someone from TVNZ came up and said, 'How'd you like to do a TV series?' I thought, 'Oh yeah, easy.' I have great pleasure in declaring the Neville Purvis Family Show well and truly open. It was not a good decision. I mean, it wasn't anyone's fault. What say we whip down to Belamy's for a quick lager? Good idea. I'd never done TV before. The people did their best, but they had never done comedy before. Neville Purvis! The one thing that worked is that some people hated the show. There was a joke I told. I did a tour of Avalon, and I went down, there was a props, and there was a bear, and I had picked up the bear head and turned around and said... 'What's the difference between an Australian and a bucket of shit?' The bucket. And Truth picked it up. It was getting so much publicity, this terrible show, we started off with virtually nothing, and we ended up, sort of, respectable. It certainly was a cult show. Turned out I was the first person to say fuck on New Zealand television. You reckon that should do it? Yes. Yes. At least we never said fuck. The truth was it wasn't that great a show, you know. And my mum saw it. She was a really good mum, and she thought that it was good that I had a job. Where am I, Paulie? Left side, right side? Come on in, boys. I have to hug it up. Hug both of you. How are you, big boy? I'm fine, thank you. The New Zealand comedy that I first identify with was when I was a teenager, and Funny Business. # Bought a lounge suite. # He bought a lounge suite. # It's really cool. It's really neat. # Nothing could beat my lounge suite. My mum saw an ad in the paper which said 'comedy quiz'. And I was, you know, between jobs at that time. (ALL LAUGH) It was a busy period of clubbing around Auckland, and there was quite a scene. Retro put on a comedy competition. Willy was just all energy. Dean was looking for the alternative style of comedy. Why, Robert, why? 'Well, there's someone else.' I was very prop heavy in those days, fair enough. Very prop heavy. Very prop heavy. Was that the early '80s? Yes, early '80s, fulla. Thank you. I had no recollection. You... They all had their little individual tricks, and at the end of the competition, I think everyone realised they'd met some people with common interest. I actually still have the original piece of paper with all of your phone numbers on it. (ALL EXCLAIM) From` I wrote it down at the Retro. And then Willy and I chatted to the Windsor Castle. And that became... Comedy at the Castle. Gidday, Bryce! Gidday, Baz. We were there every second Wednesday night for over two years. I dunno about the rest of the guys, but I had no idea what I was doing, really, on a live performance. No, that's true. Yeah. (LAUGHS) We were making it up. What do you think about comedy in New Zealand and where do you think it's heading? My direction. I'm leading the way. Follow me. (LAUGHS) You weren't concerned about 'was this good? or even 'was this funny?' Or 'was it safe?' - Whether it's safe. - (ALL LAUGH) To the audience, the venue or your fellow performers. (LAUGHS) Good boy. Dean had this amazing routine where he had a pet toasted called Sunbeam. Good boy. Roll over. Roll over! And he would make the toaster sit up by pulling the cord, and it could sit up. 'And Sunbeam has discovered the joy of flight.' Sunbeam, don't do it. He's flying, yes! He's up here! (SMACK!) (LAUGHTER) And so he'd go flying around the room, and then he'd let go. (SMACK!) There was no health and safety in those days either. That thing could've gone anywhere. But what a way to learn. What a way to learn. Yeah. Oh, it's awesome. Every week something different. Let me through. I'm a doctor. (ALL CHATTER) Let me through. I'm a doctor. And I remember watching Funny Business on TV and being so excited. # I was down at the supermarket. It was ours. Like, that it was a` Oh, like, Kiwis are doing sketch comedy, and how exciting. # All of a sudden, the lights glow funny. # All of a sudden, the music got louder. # All of a sudden, I'd fallen in love with the girl on the checkout counter. You know, it wasn't Smith and Jones. It wasn't the Young Ones. # Oh, girl on the checkout counter, won't you check me out? # Check me out! It was up there with that kind of stuff, but they were people that we knew. Which was a very young Lucy Lawless' debut. Let's not talk about people who have gone on to much greater fame than us. Not bitter. No, nothing. Fine. No, no, no, fine. Right. Funny Business, kind of, just quietly drifted away in its sleep. Have we broken up?! You see that? I did. It's funny. Still got it. Never lost it. Well, the drift towards stand-up was because we got better at it, but also the sketch comedy ideas worked not so well when you're doing, you know, the Carpenters Arms in Timaru. The size of the stages may have limited the number of people that could be on them at some point. But also it was, sort of, the international standard for stand-up ` one person and a microphone. * As much as I was driven to do stand-up, I was terrified. It was terrifying. The most terrifying experience that I've ever had. Terrifying. Oh God, it was terrifying. I used to be so terrified. When you were standing in front of a microphone and the light is on you and there are people sitting there going, 'I've paid money,' you have to work. You're saying, 'This is what I'm like. What do you reckon?' And the answer might be, 'Oh, get fucked.' It was too crowded and too hot. It didn't meet the basic criterion for comedy, which is to be funny. Should I be honest? You've built` five minutes building up to a punchline, and then you forget what the punchline is. Like, 'There's no one to ask.' It's your fault. In the late '80s, audiences didn't know what stand-up was. I mean, simple stuff like learning that they had to laugh on the outside, cos they're used to being at home watching TV and didn't realise that you have to make a noise with your voice. So, we actually set up this, kind of, deliberately corny warm-up routine. Hi. I'm Peter Murphy. And I'm Willy De Wit, and we're from... BOTH: Funny Business. Which encouraged people to laugh out loud. Seen comedy before? Ah, no, I haven't actually. Not stand-up live. It should be good. 1998, they had the first Comedy Store Quest at the Powerstation. I'm freezing up here. You know that, don't you? Watch people in this grungy pub doing stand-up and having things thrown at them. Pete referred to it as just being like a comedy abattoir. (CHUCKLES) With the comedians coming on and just the audience getting stuck into them. - (CROWD JEERS) - I was shouting to the bloody` Oh, the only one who didn't struggle was Andrew Kavacevich. Thank you. Thank you. AK never struggled. Why didn't AK struggle? Cos AK told joke jokes. A friend of mine's had problems with both his marriages. His first wife left him, and his second one won't. (LAUGHTER) He likes to play his wedding video backwards so he can see himself walk out of church a free man. (LAUGHTER) The person I really felt for was Vicky Walker. As the only woman in it, oh... (CROWD JEERS) My first proper stand-up gig would have been the Auckland Comedy Store finals. When I first went out on stage, they wouldn't let me speak. The heckling was so loud, it couldn't be heard over a microphone. And one guy yelled out, 'Hey, chicky babe, are you on the pill?' And I said, 'No. It's a fucking shame your mother wasn't.' And the audience laughed, and then I said, 'I know this is odd and strange that you have a woman on stage, 'but I do think I have a right to do my piece ` if you would allow me to be heard. 'I'm going off. I'm coming back on. You will allow me to do my piece.' I won, and it was the first time that the audience really allowed me to speak too. And it was a fantastic feeling. It was a feeling of being able to fly. One thing that was good was when Seinfeld came on television. The general public could see what stand-up was all about. It was always a bit tenuous in terms of the comedians at the time. You never knew if you were gonna do another gig, so the sense of permanence at Kitty O'Brien's was really good. Check out Auckland's regular comedy night at Kitty O'Brien's. Kitty O'Brien's was the very first real stand-up comedy venue in New Zealand. The first performance of Comedy Fest was the 23rd of March 1992. We had to pay for the bloody pub to start with. Yeah. Then we bring our own chairs and our own roster and our own door people. The stage was those planks of wood that would sit in the back in beer crates. Yeah, chipboard. Yeah, that's right. Chipboard in the fire exit. (LAUGHS) You couldn't get out. Yeah. But that was when we knew we were on to something. We were on to something when people started turning up that we didn't know. There were no comics who you could look at see styles or techniques or things that you could` that you would hone yourself. You just had to do it. I, um... haven't had a job... ever. (ALL LAUGH) You would sit around, you know, sugar and spice, the same, Brendon and various others, and you sit around and you went, 'Oh my God, we're on stage tonight. What are we gonna do? 'What are we gonna do tonight?' Do anything you want, and the funniest person wins. Sugar and Spice were so alternative and fresh and interesting. And we were literally creating characters. We were doing that in real life. We were actually dressing up and doing crazy shit and having fun. There wasn't this expectation that anyone is to understand what we're doing. You speak, sir, like a man who has never spread his loins,... (LAUGHTER) ...therefore they swell quite painfully. Ah, Jason and Johnny pouring baked beans down their tights while they wore massive foam ruffs quoting pieces of Shakespeare, which I thought was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. When I arrived back from Australia about May last year, I moved in with my grandmother. It was the return of someone like Andrew Clay. He came back from doing pro gigs in Australia. He'd been performing at the Comedy Store in Sydney. Like, 'Whoa!' It was tough. I'd been drowned out with, 'Baa,' you know, 'Sheep fucker.' I was drowned out, because Sydney was brutal. He went straight on to a pro night, and we saw real stand-up craft. He was the first person in New Zealand that I went, 'That's a stand-up comedian.' American style, call-backs, obviously his own material. She wants to know where I am in case I'm being, you know, attacked. I'm thinking, 'Fuck, Gran, what would you do if I was, you know?' We started to have some real stand-up. I intended to get on that stage. I rock up. I'm looking sharp. And he said,... '...I think all your comedians are shit. 'I don't wanna do the rookies' night. 'I think I'm funnier than them. 'Put me on the pro night. 'I've got 400 bucks here. 'If I suck,... '...I'll give you the whole 400 bucks, you can buy... '...everyone in the bar a drink... '...and you'll never see me... '...again.' Which was quite a big call. Quite... combative, almost, Mike, wasn't he, when he came in. Yeah. Kinda like, 'Get out of the way. I'm gonna do this.' 'Get out of my way.' So my line was, 'So, what's this ` pick on the hori night?' Bam, instant laugh. And on the second-to-last joke, there was just this huge roar. And I went, 'That last joke's not gonna top that.' I walked off the stage. People were going, 'More! More! More!' And I went out the back, and I remember walking out by myself. I was like, 'Fuck yeah!' He was hilarious, and I remember Ben Elton watching. So I was geeking out on the fact that I was standing next to Ben Elton, and going, 'Oh, this bloke's gonna go far, isn't he?' And Ben Elton came out the back, and he went, 'Well, if that's your first time on stage, 'you're gonna be famous.' I floated. I went downstairs that night, and my car had been stolen, and I didn't give a fuck. I went home. Rose, my wife at the time, was lying in bed. She said, 'How did it go?' I went, 'I killed.' And she goes, 'Oh, OK, so what does that mean?' I said, 'I'm gonna quit my job, and I'm gonna be a comedian.' She just rolled over and said, 'Don't fuck it up.' And Mike King was on the scene, and he got invited by other pubs around the city to come and host open mics, and Ewen turned up. Is there any Westies in the audience tonight? Yeah! Oh, can one of you guys give me a lift home? (LAUGHTER) Mike and Ewen, their difference was they had worked. We had never worked. Ewen had been a stonemason. I think he'd had like 100 jobs, and Mike had been in the maritime union and had been on the ferries and the merchant navies. These guys knew a whole... facet of New Zealand about which we did not comprehend ` basically working people. For them, it was a business. It was a career as much as it was that artistic success. For us, it was just an artistic lark. And they would say, 'Just practice on stage. Just practice on stage.' And I'd go` In my head I'm going, 'This is why I'm gonna be streets ahead of you.' I studied. I studied harder than everyone else. 1995, we hired the Powerstation to put on Pulp Comedy. They were the first really, really big shows ` 500, 700 people. Then Pulp Comedy moved to TV. That was huge. New Zealand audiences had been able to see on television a line-up of New Zealand comedians. Ladies and gentlemen, will you please... It was big time, baby. Big time. ...Mr Mike King. This was now the big league, and we were the new rock and roll. We've got a great night of comedy lined up for you tonight, ladies and gentlemen. This was your opportunity to be that dude on the stage. Mr Brendhan Lovegrove. Mr Ben Hurley, ladies and gentlemen. Rhys Darby! Ladies and gentlemen, Radar. You know` You know what, what happened to that dream? I know it should have felt wrong. I was in Cleo. I did a shoot for Brass magazine with a dominatrix. When you're in a glamour model photo with a dominatrix on page three of the Truth, is comedy the new Rock and Roll? It certainly seems that way. It felt like that to us. I mean, I don't think I ever wore a colour that wasn't black for about five years. I'm in my late 20s ` you know, 30. I just thought I was so cool. I feel like there were T-shirts with 'comedy is the new rock and roll'. Comedy was also making a shift nationally, so we had Mike King and Ewen Gilmore, sort of, touring. When I was touring, we had a saying. 'Cash is king, 'and King is cash.' Have you ever had too much money? (LAUGHS) I guess the rock and roll part of it comes into, you know, the booze side of it and your weird ego about yourself. People went off the rails. Oh, cos you always got a rider. It free beers. You know, I was on tour with Mike. I don't know if I paid for a beer in a month. The problem with the tours was we were young men, and we'd been sponsored by Elephant beer. Oh. And Jose Cuervo. I don't remember the entire South Island. Wow. We were just a microcosm of what was happening in the bars and the parties and the clubs all throughout New Zealand. Good evening. You know, people quite often say to me, 'Justine, drugs are not the answer,' and I say, 'No, they're not.' 'Drugs are the question, and the answer is yes.' (LAUGHS) Oh yeah. Like, we did it all, man. But I kept that away from performing. I've never done it` Oh, I've made a couple of mistakes, you know, as you do, but, you know, you have a hash cookie in the morning. You think you'll be fine. You're not. Your in bars all the time, and you're... You perform when people are getting drunk. You're going to work with your friends, in a bar and your job involves telling a story about something and people laugh. Yeah, there were tolls, I think. People fell away. Probably quite fortunate there weren't a lot of harder drugs. No one could afford them. But when certain people did become a little fancier, better connected... See this jacket. I bought this jacket in London. ...uh, there was, you know... (LAUGHTER) �10,000 I spent in London, and this was the only thing I bought. Well, it was the only thing I bought I couldn't get up my nose, you know. I was doing a satellite in a bar in Manukau, and a guy came up to me, and said, 'Man, that was awesome,' and he cupped and shook my hand. So I, you know` I look in my hand, and it's a little bag. You know, I'm not naive. I've seen a lot of toilet seats since then. The world became crystal clear. Now I had access to parts of my brain that I didn't even know existed. Anything was possible. I go over to England. I'm foul. I'm way over the top, and the England crowd love it. Some geezer... A bag of coke... Six weeks... Smashed my nose. Smashed... Bleeding... Las Vegas... Snorting... Glass pipe... Coke... Speed... Aggressive... Full steam ahead. For those of you that haven't seen me before, I'm not very politically correct, so if you're a politically correct person, could you fuck off. (LAUGHTER) Political correctness, oh man. That was a dream come true. We weren't from that world. Fuck that world. Confidence to call it like it was, and, you know what, middle New Zealand were ready for it hard. I think for a long time, comedians got away with just being offensive for the sake of it. Back then I believed it. I believed it. The irony is I hate that person now. You know, I seriously do. Some of the` Some of the stuff that I was doing and saying,... it's just some of the most hurtful... (SIGHS) (EXHALES DEEPLY) It was wrong, man. homophobic, misogynistic, sexist ` just... (EXHALES) You know... It's... It's not who I am. It's who I thought people wanted me to be. You know, I wanted their respect. You know, I wanted their love. I wanted their... (SIGHS) Fuck. Sorry. (BREATHES HEAVILY) Society is changing, and not necessarily in a bad way. Audiences, they're more... aware of... That` Do you know what I'm trying to avoid is the term political correctness, cos I don't think it's right. You know, the minute someone goes, 'Oh, this is PC gone mad,' you better strap in for some racist shit coming your way, cos that's usually what follows that comment. If you think it's killing comedy, adjust your shit. And audiences let you know whether or not you're going well or not. I don't need to tell that guy that was inappropriate. The audience did. You include that in your comedy because that's what's happening in society. I'm just scooping up all of this, 'Oh, there's jobs going for the minorities, are there? 'I'll take that. I'll take all of that.' I'll take all of your cash. (LAUGHS) I'm the ambassador for New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation, and, yeah, I realise this is not New Zealand, but you know what, a tit is a tit. Am I right? (LAUGHTER) And what they've realised is only 5% of women are comfortable and confident enough to feel their own boobs for lumps. And I just want you to know, ladies, that if you're not comfortable or confident enough to feel your own boobs, I want you to approach your local lesbian, and we're gonna help you with that. (LAUGHTER) We're here for you. In the early 2000s, you suddenly had a whole raft of hardened pros. Before you looked round, they'd been doing it five years, seven years, and I was thinking of them, 'Oh, they're the new guy.' 'Oh, it's this young fulla.' 'He's been doing it 15 years.' What 7 Days did was it captured the mainstream. Massive moment for New Zealand comedians, I think. New Zealand comedy struggled for such a long time. All the people that started 7 Days had many failed TV things behind them. No, there were a few. So, we had the panel. I had visions of the live show The Week That Was. The many thousands of attempts to get a panel show. It's called a laugh-o-meter. The Mike Hosking-led thing. Snatch Our Booty. Porkies. Sing Like a Superstar. The reason they all failed is cos they didn't want a comedian to front it. They all wanted a personality. You know, the late Paul Holmes was fronting one of them. You gotta put a comedian in charge of a comedy show, man. When we filmed this pilot,... Welcome to 7 Days, our light-hearted look at the week. In this room called the Transmission Room, which is like a dungeon. New Zealand-made Russian subs ` that could be a sandwich. Oh, thieves plunge Branson. Yeah, yeah. Looking back, it was... ropey. We're gonna play you three video clips. See if you can work out which story from the week it represents. It felt good. Josh Kromfeld usurped Mike King as king of pork. (ALL LAUGH) And I don't know what made it different that time, but it happened. The following programme could contain bad language and is for adults only, so for kids, time to go to bed. Away you go. Go! Don't`! Oh. (LAUGHTER) I think the biggest thing for me was... the vindication. A man who looks a little bit like an offcast from Dawson's Creek ` Mr Jeremy Elwood. Killed the cultural cringe about New Zealand comedy. People going, 'Oh, you comedians are actually quite good.' I' know. We've been doing this for 10 years.' Every night of our goddamn lives. And it was also a great way of people to ingest their news. Talking about the news was just a structure to get New Zealand's best comedians together. You know, we don't have a great deal of news. John Bridges called me and said, 'We'd like you to be head writer for the show,' and all I thought at the time, which is all I've ever really thought is, 'Thank God I can pay my rent.' That has stabilised a few people's careers, given them a foundation to grow. I am the first female head writer ` first woman, I think. I am only head writing when one of the boys is sick. Or away doing something really well paid. Just a fun meeting in the morning, honestly. It's ludicrous the filth that gets spoken. If they ever put a microphone in there, we're all going to prison. (ROARS) 300! 300! It's this way. That's it. This way. This way. 7 Days just proved to New Zealand that we could make funny TV week in, week out. Into your chair. (ROARS) (CROWD CHEERS) The following show is for adults only and contains bad language that may offend some people, and we've been offending people for 300 episodes! (ALL CHEER) Yes! People are recognising us now when we do gigs. It's like people are excited. * OK, are we ready? Character comedy kinda hasn't been around for a little while now. And I'm glad it's kind of coming back, because it's true to who I am. From the mid '90s, stand-up has dominated. And now, weirdly, what I detect is that there's a young group of comedians that are coming through that are gravitating back. And, you know, that's a completely, you know, different kind of comedy, where you take on somebody's persona. You know, you've got Tom Sainsbury now doing... You know, and now it's all incorporated in the, you know, face change through, you know, modern technology. So, I was late to the piece with Snapchat, so lots of my friends had it on their phones, and they were sending each other videos. I was like, 'This is dumb.' Meanwhile, I'd always wanted to do, kind of, satire of politicians. And then they had this amazing face swap filter. I was like, 'This is absolute heaven. This is incredible.' The one that kinda struck a chord was Paula Bennett. Hi, sweeties. It's me, Paul Bennett. Later, Paula did a response video of her driving with Nikki Kaye, Maggie Barry and Amy Adams in the back. Hi, sweeties. It's me, Paula Bennett. I'm out with my best girlfriends. And that hit the mark comedically. You're forcing the video of me driving along with my very good girlfriends, Amy Adams, Nikki Kate, and Maggie Barry. But shortly after, that next day, Paddles, Jacinda's cat was hit on the road, and I had a big moral dilemma for about an hour. And then disaster struck. We ran over Cindy's cat. I chose the joke over... empathy. I mean, I really like Jacinda. I really like cats. But I decided to put it out there because there was a higher calling telling me, 'Make the joke.' He observes the minutiae of life and people and the little details so well. There's an honesty in that character fullness, and then I think there's this remove that happens through art, through any kind of mask, and they can then reveal their vulnerabilities, which is something that I think people are so scared of doing in this world where we're judged so much. I didn't have any confidence to do straight stand-up. P Funk Chainsaw. So, I loved professional wrestling and black American comedy. So, out of that came this character P Funk Chainsaw, which was sort of professional wrestling without the wrestling, just all the talk. I'm here to open a can of whoop-ass, cos that's what I do. I whoop ass. So, I loved being able to approach ideas through seemingly dumb characters. How you doing, folks? My name's Wilson Dixon. I'm a country and western musician. Wilson, I knew right at the beginning that if he was, like, a two-dimensional kind of character that it would last for about 10 minutes. And I just drew upon my, sort of, upbringing of listening to, like, a lot of Bob Dylan, and the Big Lebowski was slightly stoned, kind of articulate but stupid. Play a song for you. That's what I'm here for. Play a country song. This song is... We can thank the Greeks for this song. About 3000 years ago, they invented thinking. They call it philosophy, which is thinking about thinking. Pretty weird when you think about it. And it's interesting this thing of seeing us as inarticulate, but you could also see it as a different kind of articulation. It's like it's in your blood. I think you're born with it. There's not a moment in your life where, 'Man, I'm gonna start just slowing putting some ums and ahs in how 'I talk and having a few awkward glances and losing my place.' That's just` It's just part of us as Kiwis. And I think that's actually a big strain within New Zealand comedy, to be honest. Like, and I think it comes, originally from John Clarke, that kind of very straight. Yeah, gidday, and welcome to this instructional video on how to hold a baby. I don't know if How To Dad is a... character or a persona or what you'd call it. First, you're gonna need a baby. Baby. Standard shoulder hold. It's very much me just with that 20% tweak of... I've probably just taken a bit of energy out of myself. Box of beers, the telephone, dance partner, dance partner, bird on a wire. Characters can have worlds. Characters can go on forever. Character like How To Dad is ostensibly, you know, a whole world behind him. Poor man's front pack, hide your beer belly,... The opportunities have definitely changed for people coming into comedy now. There are way more different platforms to express who they want to be or whatever they wanna be. In this day and age, where information comes so thick and fast, that was the best way to do satire. Fans are sending me, going, 'Read this article now.' And you can` The latest things happened, and you can quickly put up a video. I'm on me, on Paula Bennett, Benefit` Paula Bennett. Let's start that again. And with Paula,... I could probably rattle one off in 20 minutes. Yes, so we had a great week this week, didn't we? We all had a great laugh, didn't we? Big laugh. We all had a big, big laugh when Simon Bridges accidentally called me Paula Benefit. God, it was funny, wasn't it? I wonder who's gonna be laughing when I'm prime minister and I get rid of benefits completely? I got into it because I did want to fight against him and I wanted to draw attention to it all, but ultimately when you play a character, you end up loving them. And so like, when people watch my video, I feel like I'm saying, 'It's all right. 'It's not that important. All these people in power have foibles and are idiots. 'We're all idiots. Everything's fine.' So, I feel like stand-up's kinda won` (LAUGHS) if you like, won the battle of comedy, but it's not over yet. The war is still raging. I hope you have a good Christmas and a cracker New Year. That'll do. Fuck 'em. Do you think my answers were OK? So, all this, I'll start each episode. My alt. So, as well as this stuff about Funny Business, I'm in the live one and the music one? Cos I can be. I'm not doing much. Is this one of those things where you've talked to me for an hour and I'm only gonna get, like, five second? So, like, the waiting, is it more me than Chris? My kids have been in the car for, like, an hour. Thanks for nothing, mate. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019