Spinoff Comedy co-editor Natasha Hoyland heads to the Basement Preview Show for a first look at the acts performing there over the course of the comedy festival.

The Flick Electric Co. Comedy Gala is happening tonight in Auckland, which means it’s officially time for the NZ International Comedy Festival! To celebrate, I went out to partaaay*, heading to The Basement theatre’s preview showcase of acts that’ll be performing at the venue over the next few weeks. Here are my thoughts!

(*Disclaimer, I was home by 11 and didn’t consume a single alcoholic beverage. Wild, baby, wild.)

The Basement is one of my favourite venues, especially during comedy festival time, so this preview show really got me on a buzz and all geared up for my most likely very regular visits in the weeks to come. The audience all funnelled into the main theatre, taking up every seat. The air was warm and drunk women were taking selfies in the front row – welcome to comedy fest!

There were way too many acts on this line up for me to write about them all, so I’ve picked a few stand out acts. Trust me, if I wrote about all of them you’d get so bored of me gushing about people that you’d throw up. I genuinely enjoyed all the acts, which is not something I can say about any other comedy line up show I’ve ever been to, so that’s a good thing. I laughed and smiled the whole way through this one. These were some of my favourite moments:

Donna Brookbanks opened the show as MC, walking on stage as an alter ego crazy cat lady character with blue hair. I was really into it, but it was really hard to tell if anyone else was. She quickly discarded the character and soon became herself which sounds like some Eleanor Catton written thing, but that is exactly what happened. She hosted as herself the rest of the night and was very good! I loved every second that Donna was on stage, and I’m not sure if it’s her warm bubbly personality and stage presence or if it’s her often self-deprecating yet relatable humour that made me enjoy her performance most.

Eli Matthewson is always a stand out act for me in any line up, and last night was no exception. His set, much like his upcoming show judging by the title, was all about sexual observations, education, and the advice that features in the sealed sections of Cosmo magazines. My favourite joke of the night was about ‘praying the gay away’. This preview show was a bit like a pecha kucha seminar (but a lot less dire) where everyone was pitching their show to audiences members to get them to come along. A lot of them succeeded in this case, and Eli has definitely sold me a ticket.

I didn’t really know what to expect from Inosi Colavanua as I’ve never seen him perform before, but he did come second in the RAW Comedy Quest last year, so I knew he’d be decent. He joked about Tinder and being single – which seemed to be a common theme in this line up. Somebody just date these people! Or don’t, because it’ll probably ruin their careers. Inosi also joked about being lazy, walking his dog whilst in an Uber and how a 101 year old woman winning a 100m race makes him feel like a terrible person. Inosi is quite new to the scene but was one of my favourite acts of the night. He’s definitely one to watch.

Now, Guy Montgomery. I never know what to say, but I still can’t get enough of him. This was a great set for Guy, making observations about the things stupid people on Facebook do, and his hatred of open letters. Guy Montgomery is one of the best storytellers around at the moment, some of these stories being real life anecdotes, and some being quite surreal and absurd where there’s no way of telling what the destination is, but you’re still keen for the ride.

Fuq Boiz were something else. I had no idea what to expect from this unlikely combination of Hamish Parkinson and Ryan Richards, but I really enjoyed it. I can’t really explain what it is they did, but there was a lot of wall kicking, screaming, and cake baking. An audience member was left with a cake at the end. James Roque summed it up best with his response to the audience member offering his act, Frickin Dangerous Bro, some cake when they went on stage “I don’t want any of that, I’m not gonna trust a cake that comes from a group called the Fuq Boiz”

I also thought each of the duo acts that performed separately were real good. In particular, Bridget Davies and Tom Sainsbury each stunned on their own with their real life anecdotes, so when they come together for their show in the festival, I expect that show to be a hit.

* Disclaimer: The author is the producer of the Fuq Boiz and Frickin Dangerous Bro shows.

Click on each of the acts names to buy tickets to their comedy festival seasons or go to comedyfestival.co.nz to view the full line up of acts on at The Basement and other venues across Auckland and Wellington.

Alice Snedden has taken off in the past few years, becoming a head writer of Jono and Ben, a regular cast member of hit improv troupe Snort and a regular columnist for The Sunday Star Times. Comedy co-editor Sam Brooks had a chat with Alice about her comedy, her column and controversial pop-star Katy Perry.

Sam Brooks: The first thing I really want to ask you about is what you think of Katy Perry’s breakdown moment in her documentary-concert film Part of Me, because I think we share a similar controversial opinion about it.

Alice Snedden: That it’s staged?

Yes!

100%. She shot underneath the stadium on a different day. I have no evidence to back this up, but I strongly believe that shouldn’t get in the way of me making this claim.

I completely agree with you. If you look at the rest of the film, and the rest of her bloody career, everything is so controlled and staged. I refuse to believe that this is the one moment that she just got too real.

It’s crazy. There’s no way she JUST got it together before going on stage. No way. Huge fan though!

I didn’t use to be, but I’ve been going back to some of her older stuff and it’s just good pop music. Now, you’ve got lots of qualifications and stuff. Why on earth would you go into stand-up?

First of all, thanks for bringing my qualifications up. That means a lot. Secondly, I didn’t mean to get into stand up. It happened by accident. I was working at The Basement and became friends with some of the guys from Snort, they corrupted me and now I’ll never be a real lawyer.

Did you want to be like Ally McBeal?

Yes! I still have a photo of her in a frame on my wall. My friends gave it to me when I got admitted. I think it says “best of luck with all your future endeavor’s” on the back, or maybe it says “nice knowing you.” I can never remember. Both are good messages.

They’re auspicious. How did you transition from improv to stand-up? I remember seeing your first RAW gig, I think!

Oh brother, it just kind of happened. Someone suggested I do it and so I did. I practiced material on my friends Eli, Leon and Zinnie. I did like 30mins to them alone in The Basement studio

The biggest note was I needed to edit. And be funnier. But they were great and from there I just kind of kept going.

And now you’re head writer of Jono and Ben! Is it like being Liz Lemon? All my references are apparently women TV characters.

There are some similarities. I also would lose my shit if people ate my sandwiches. Some of it is true, we do sit around a big table chatting and coming up with ideas. But I’d say the scale is much different.

And the writers on our show are all friends. Except for one. But I won’t say who. But you know who you are. I’ll never tell. I think on 30 Rock they hung out for convenience.

I also feel like Liz hated all of them pretty deeply? But I might be rewriting it in my head.

Oh, she did for sure. That’s a big difference.

What does a head writer do, exactly? Like what does a week in the life of Alice Snedden, head writer look like?

It’s a bit different at the moment because I’m in Melbourne.

Generally, the job is allocating tasks for the writers, working with Bronwynn, our producer, to see what gaps we have, in terms of what needs to be written. Sometimes giving notes on things. Then on the day of the show, trying to be there to make changes to the script if necessary.

There’s a lot of admin in and amongst the creative side of it.

Do you enjoy the admin side of it?

Yeah, I do actually. I can be a bit of a control freak, so I think that lends itself to those types of tasks.

Also, you write for the Sunday Star Times! What’s that experience like? Do they let you write whatever you want to, or is it a bit more curated than that?

They let me write whatever I like really. I’m writing one now that’s proving a bit tough. It’s kind of scary because I don’t get feedback on it, so it’s just in the world and you can’t take it back.

It’s kind of the same in this job. The few opinion pieces I’ve done have had good feedback in the office, but you have no idea how people at large are going to react or what their take on it, and therefore you, is going to be.

I send them to my sister just to check I haven’t said anything too outrageous. But other than that, they’re just out there. It does help build up a thick skin though.

The columns are never perfect, so it’s good getting used to things that aren’t perfect being out there with your name attached. Otherwise, I think I’d get too precious about stuff and never do it.

Absolutely. And when it comes to people’s comments, if you don’t build up a thick skin it’ll just run you over completely. I remember replying to all the negative comments thoughtfully on my first piece, but then I realised it actually wasn’t worth the energy to engage with them.

Yea, I think that’s true. I’d love to engage with people who were commenting thoughtfully. But unfortunately, you just have to wade through so much shit to get to those comments.

It’s just not worth it.

Absolutely not. And now for the requisite last question show-plug: What’s your show! Why should people see it!

Thanks for very reluctantly giving me this opportunity.

‘Self Titled’ is a stand-up show filled with jokes about me and my family. I think it’s about never actually learning anything, always staying the same. People should come because it’s going to be funny. It’ll even be very funny in some parts. And then at other times there’ll be some listening. And then all of a sudden we’ll be laughing again.

You can book tickets to Alice Snedden: Self-Titled here.