After a nationwide tour, British comedian Bill Bailey is now fronting a new show for TVNZ. Stewart Sowman-Lund tunes in.

It’s been hard to avoid British comic Bill Bailey over the last few weeks. He’s been on tour seemingly everywhere seemingly forever, wrapping up a 17-date series of shows in Auckland on Monday. Since leaving managed isolation back in February, he’s been on The Project, traded dance moves with Jeremy Wells on Seven Sharp, yarned to John Campbell on Breakfast, and had his stand-up specials shown weekly on Duke. 

Basically, it’s been impossible to ignore the fact that – after so many months with our borders shut – a big name comedian has been relishing the chance to visit our shores (he was allowed in under the same rules that permitted celebs like RuPaul and The Wiggles to enter the country).

Now, as posters in every bus stop will tell you, the long-haired Brit is staying on our screens for even longer as host of the new TVNZ comedy panel show Patriot Brains, which premieres tonight.

And it’s… absolutely fine. 

There’s not a lot to be said about the format of the show itself: it’s pitched as a way of resolving the trans-Tasman rivalry, with comedians from New Zealand and Australia battling it out each week answering questions about their home countries, which should be familiar enough to fans of shows like 7 Days. The launch of the programme this week is so perfect it has me questioning whether the newly announced travel bubble is some sort of TVNZ sponsored content. 

Appearing on the first episode are locals Mel Bracewell, Guy Montgomery and Madeleine Sami versus Aussies Rhys Nicholson, Mel Buttle and Tom Ballard. Everyone gets their time to shine and the panels are well balanced. Montgomery is the highlight from team New Zealand while Nicholson is, as always, on top form. We’ll be seeing a lot of him on our screens this year as he’s set to join the judging panel on TVNZ’s RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under.

While the (meaningless) point system fell in favour of one team at the end, I found both sides equally matched for punchlines.

The main problem I have with the show is that it fails to make the most of having Bill Bailey as host. Getting Bailey, one of the biggest names in comedy, onboard could only have happened in this bizarre post-Covid world and yet in the role of host he is under-utilised.

I’m a massive fan of Bailey’s stand-up and he’s always a memorable performer on British panel shows like 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown or Qi. But on Patriot Brains, his quirky humour gets somewhat drowned out by the fact he’s simply hosting the show rather than appearing on the panel. Reading a teleprompter and sitting behind an oversized desk feels too restrictive for the often energetic comic. His inability to bound around the stage or grab a guitar at whim is to the show’s detriment.

Much of Bailey’s comedy relies on observations, and he does come alive during the moments where he can comment on elements of New Zealand like landmarks or foods. His description of Colby cheese is a stand-out (“it tasted like the inside of a Tupperware box that cheese had been in at some point”), as is his anecdote about witnessing Skytower bungy jumpers. A running gag about Bailey looking like a “camp Satan” is also a brief reprieve from the confines of the script. But for most of the 45-minute runtime, Bailey is forced to stick to material presumably written by someone else. 

Bailey’s comedy is also, usually, musical. On Patriot Brains, there are limited chances for him to display his incredible talents. There is a piano tucked into the desk but it gets used only twice in the first episode and it felt forced. At least Bailey kept his trademark pipe, which was a nice touch. He’s previously said that the prop makes him “look intelligent”. 

It may sound like I’m being overly critical, but Bailey and the panel of local comics are still funny. The show rips through its runtime and the fast pace means there are a lot of jokes packed in. 

But when you’ve somehow managed to snag a massive star to headline your local panel show, what’s the point of forcing him to stick to the script?

John Campbell was missing from the Breakfast studio this morning, but there was no need to panic. John Campbell was fine. John Campbell was about to catch a train.

This morning at 6.01am, a thrilled John Campbell stood on a Hamilton train platform. It was the inaugural day of Te Huia, the new passenger train service between Hamilton and South Auckland, and train-lover John was ready to capture every glorious moment of this ground-breaking journey. “It’s a big old morning!” the Breakfast presenter told us. “We’re live from the train! Stay with us!” 

It was indeed a big morning, especially if you’ve never seen or heard of a train before. John was one of the first passengers on the twice-daily, 90-minute service from Hamilton to Papakura, heralded as an important moment in New Zealand’s rail renaissance. “This is the birth of something,” John said, even though he knows Te Huia isn’t the perfect solution to our public transport woes. It’s slow, fuelled by diesel and doesn’t go directly to Auckland’s CBD, but heck. It’s still a train, live on breakfast television.

By 6.26am, John was aboard Te Huia and living his best life. “You’re in your happy place, aren’t you?” fellow Breakfast presenter Jenny-May Clarkson asked, and even though John was masked, you could tell he was beaming. He was an intrepid explorer, a brave soul about to go where millions of people had been before. “There’s people outside waving the train off,” he told us, as the camera panned across to an empty platform. 

The train horn sounded, and John’s eyes lit up. “Oh, here we go,” he said. “We’re off!”. “That’s what happens,” Jenny-May replied, but she wasn’t there, she didn’t understand. Te Huia slowly inched forward towards Auckland, and John waved emphatically to strangers standing outside in the dark. He wouldn’t get off that train again until it reached Papakura. It was Auckland or bust, live on national television. 

Back in the studio, Jenny-May discussed the trans-Tasman travel bubble, but John Campbell was in a travel bubble of his own. A trubble, if you will. “We’re passing through really lovely Waikato rural countryside,” he said at 6.50am, pointing out “a lovely farmhouse” and “rural roads”. Officially, he was having a lovely time. The train announced its arrival in Huntly, and John was momentarily speechless. “We’re pulling into Huntly! We’re here!” JC said, his face radiating with the purity of a man tasked with sitting on a train and simply enjoying the ride. 

Indira read the news and Matty forecast the weather, but back in the real world John Campbell was riding the rails all the way to paradise. He was surrounded by passengers almost as enthusiastic as he was, like Waikato District mayor Allan Sanson and 10-year-old Abdullah, who had never been on a train before. “How cool is that?” John asked Abdullah, but we already knew the answer. It was cool, all right. John asked another child if he was enjoying his first time on a train. “It’s weird,” the child replied.  

John also chatted to KiwiRail CEO Greg Miller, and asked if a slow diesel commuter train was a win or not. Miller reckoned it was. “It’s the first step of many,” he said, but tell that to the seven-year-old who just told the entire country that trains are weird. After decades of underfunding of rail infrastructure, billions of dollars are now being chucked at trains, and look at the results. Express tracks! Government support for rolling stock! Increasing capacity exponentially! The carriage they were sitting in might have been first built in the 1970s, but this was 2021 levels of joy and jargon, and John Campbell couldn’t get enough.

“There’s goats! Goats in South Auckland!” he cried as he neared his final destination, and Jenny-May told him he needed to get out more. Could Jenny-May see goats out her window? Unlikely. All she could see was Matty McLean’s weather broom, and by the time the eight o’clock news had finished, John’s feet were on back on solid Auckland ground. He’d seen incredible things in the past 90 minutes, like a train with three-quarters occupancy, an unimpressed child and random New Zealanders waving at him in hope of a better tomorrow. “This is it,” he said, and then wondered how the heck he was going to get home from Papakura.