NZ COMEDY FESTIVAL: LAST LAUGH
| |
A winning show of sucker-punch quips
I’d been at Uni with Nick for two years before I found out that he’d once considered comedy as a profession, to the extent that he’d even taken the mic at The Classic a few times. It was a short lived dream however and probably for the best. Nick now works in marketing.
|
|
It’s true that comedy might not rank highly on the list of ‘professions to make a parent proud’. But if you’ve witnessed any of the incredible acts from the festival over the past three weeks and walked away basking in a warm, endorphin-y glow, you can hardly argue that you hadn’t been served something of value. Laughter is beautiful thing. And lucky for us kiwis, there are some outrageously talented comedians pacing the local stages.
|
In recognition of this, the comedy fest ended yesterday’s wrap-up gig, ‘Last Laughs’, with the local industry’s award ceremony – the Billy T ‘yellow towel’ and the ‘Fred’ gumboot. Guy Williams took the towel and a surprisingly buff Rhys Darby got the boot. From start to finish it was a winning show of sucker-punch quips and I’m-stealing-that-one gags with not a dud joke to be heard.
|
MC Te Radar kicked things off with a question – is it better to be funny, or normal? Had it not been a rhetorical question I’ve little doubt about what the general consensus would have been. Because how wonderful would it be to experience the world through the eyes of last night’s comedians? To see singing whales where others see oven mitts (like The Boy with Tape on his Face), or to find joy in listing your favourite stupid New Zealand celebrity twitter updates (like Rose Matafeo), or even to see eyeballs peering from ladies’ lady parts where others would see a cigarette label warning (like Brendhan Lovegrove – bless his soul)?
|
And you can hardly accuse comedy of being low brow. The show was downright educational. Guy Williams’ experiments put an end to an age old debate: do cats prefer Chef? Tevita Manukia had passive-aggressive tips on how to kill your mother with algebra. Tom Furniss suggested new uses for bringing joy to the world with glitter. Gordon Southern summed up 800 years of history in a 90 second rap. And Marcel Luçont taught us the French verb for throwing meat across a national border.
|
It was easy to spot plenty of the ‘deadpan-and-dry’ delivery style that New Zealanders have come to claim as vehemently as pavlova. Beyond that though, there was every shade on wit’s spectrum. Whimsical absurdity, skewering cynicism, droll observations, and exuberant impersonations made for a show that you should be sorry you missed.
|
Both Rhys and Guy thanked their parents for being supportive in their acceptance speeches. And thank God some parents are. We all need a little help to be shown the lighter side of life. And that’s the true gift of a good comedian. I don’t know the Darby or the Williams families, but I’m sure they were proud. They have every right to be.
|
