Image: Archi Banal

Pop CultureMay 13, 2023

All the New Zealand stand-up comedy specials you can watch right now

Senior writer

Image: Archi Banal

Can’t make it to the comedy festival? Here’s how to watch some of our best stand-up comedians without having to get off the couch.

It’s New Zealand International Comedy Festival season, which is really great news for stand-up comedy fans who live in Auckland and Wellington. For the rest of Aotearoa, there’s a smattering of good options, or, if you’re lucky enough to live in Whanganui, they’ve gone completely rogue with a whole comedy gala of their own. But if you can’t make it to any of these shows across the country, thankfully there’s a plethora of local stand-up comedy specials available online – and most of them don’t cost a thing to watch.

TVNZ+

Chris Parker: Back to School

Comedian Chris Parker returns to his old stomping ground, Christchurch Boys’ High School, to crack some jokes and shine a spotlight on all-male education in today’s society. It’s part stand-up special, part documentary and even has a sprinkling of tears among all the laughs.

Laughs Unleashed

A great snappy line-up show where local comedians try out some of their newest material in front of a live audience. Features the likes of Courtney Dawson, Josh Thomson, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer and Brynley Stent – Dawson’s dating yarn in episode one is particularly good.

Snort: Live

If you can get over the fact that recording improv seems like an antithetical curse that may invert the whole universe, Snort: Live is a great opportunity to watch some of our best improvisers at work – especially after Snort announced they would be taking their final bow this year.

Stand Up Aotearoa

Settle in for an all-star stand-up comedy show, put together to celebrate the front-line workers who supported us during the Covid-19 lockdown. Features Justine Smith, Pax Assadi, Mel Bracewell and MC Urzila Carlson dressed up in a cat costume.

ThreeNow

BestFoods Comedy Gala 2022

The comedy gala has something in common with its mayonnaise sponsor – gorge for too long and you might start feeling bad. Luckily, watching from home gives you the option to hit pause, hit the bog, stretch your legs, and not fret about the crowd camera filming you looking daft.

Guy Montgomery by Name, Guy Montgomery by Nature

From the man who simply can’t resist putting his name twice in the title of all his productions comes this: “a new stand-up special about being Guy Montgomery in a world full of people who are not Guy Montgomery.” Features Guy Montgomery!

James Roque: Boy Mestizo

First read the backstory here, and then enjoy this synopsis from Roque himself. “Boy Mestizo is about my first trip back to the Philippines since moving to Aotearoa 20 years ago. It unpacks how I feel about myself as a Filipino person who grew up here, and my relationship with my Filipino-ness. Basically, it’s a show I wish my younger self could have seen.”

Rhys Darby: Mystic Time Bird

Filmed live in Galway, comedy stalwart and Our Flag Means Death star Rhys Darby “combines silly wonder, obscure observations and sound effects as he takes the audience on a fantastical journey into the world of mysticism, past lives… and birds.”

The Comedy Mixtape with Pax Assadi

A showcase combining “the freshest comedians on the block hitting the stage with some of comedy’s household names.” Hosted by Pax Assadi, featuring Tofiga Fepulea’i, David Correos, Kura Turuwhenua, Courtney Dawson and possibly the liveliest crowd in television history.

Tony Lyall, live in Auckland

If you like his work on The Project, now you can enjoy Tony Lyall’s debut stand up comedy special. Filmed upstairs at The Classic Studio, Lyall covers everything: life, family, kids, and the things strangers yell at him when driving by in their cars. Also, the vaccine, AND pedophiles.

Urzila Carlson: Token African

Recorded in August 2022, Urzila Carlson attempts to get to the bottom of what it means to be from South Africa in a one-hour special. “Why does being South African not register as African in most places? You’re thinking about it right now, aren’t you? Questioning it.” Laughing AND thinking? Wild.

NZ On Screen

Pulp Comedy

So many nostalgic options to explore here. This episode from the year 2000 features a young Rhys Darby doing his very best T-rex impression. There’s the 2003 episode featuring then Taika Cohen as Gunter the German “joke” teller, complete with huge fake teeth. In 2004, a baby-faced Flight of the Conchords did a “creepily earnest” performance of ‘’If You’re Into It’.

Disclaimer: The Spinoff does not endorse any Pulp Comedy content that has aged poorly since the early 2000s (which is… a fair bit of it).

Pulp Comedy Presents: Ewen Gilmour

Described as the late Ewen Gilmour’s “not-so-special”, the West Auckland comedian receives a coathanger to the city from Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey in this Pulp Comedy special. According to NZ On Screen, the 40-ish minute special includes topics such as “the love-making benefits of a goatee, flying high, stoned semen, westie Halloween and using the SPCA as a cattery.”

An Audience With the King

In the final performance of Mike King’s 2001 nationwide tour, King recounts “cultural subtleties” from his time on the road, giving a “non-PC bro-down on everything from westie pick-up lines, to sport and childbirth.” Caution: definitely refers to women as “bush pigs” in the first minute.

Netflix

Urzila Carlson: Unqualified Loser

The only local comedian to have their name up in lights with a prestigious one-hour solo Netflix special, Urzila Carlson delivers her thoughts on recasting “The Biggest Loser,” sex tape regrets and boxed wine hangovers.

Comedians of the World: Urzila Carlson and Cal Wilson

Both Urzila Carlson and Cal Wilson represent Australasia in Netflix’s Comedians of the World – a smorgasbord of 20-30 minutes stand-up sets from around the world. Alongside big names like Nicole Byer, Nish Kumar and Mae Martin, it’s not a bad showing from little old Godzone.

Neon

Flight of the Conchords: Live in London

After a long hiatus, Bret and Jemaine returned to the stage in 2018 with an all-new comedy special, bringing back a few old favourites like ‘Hurt Feelings’ and ‘Bowie’ alongside new yarns about complimentary muffins and moving ditties about gender role reversal… reversal.

Apple TV

Rose Matafeo: Horndog

Classic high-energy horniness from the Starstruck creator, BAFTA-nominee and Edinburgh Fringe winner. Explores love, obsession, self-esteem, life in the early 2000s, and the apps that just won’t leave her alone – including a truly perfect joke about period tracking.

Keep going!

Michelle Ang (Image: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureMay 12, 2023

A New Zealander at Hollywood’s writers strike: ‘This is going to be a long one’

Chris Schulz

Guest writer

Michelle Ang (Image: Tina Tiller)

Michelle Ang has joined the picket lines in Los Angeles as striking writers shut down America’s film and TV industry.

When Michelle Ang visits Los Angeles, she usually meets friends in cafes, or attends meetings at TV and film studios dotted around Hollywood. This time, those catch-ups have had a different vibe.

“The best time to have a chat and spend time and be useful is to join them in the picket line,” she says. “I was doing catch-ups and picketing at the same time.”

Ang, a veteran New Zealand film and TV star who works behind and in front of the camera, spent several hours protesting outside Paramount Studios this week. Alongside her were some very big names. “There are all kinds of people,” she says. “People are driving by and honking. I looked over at one point and was like, ‘That’s Christopher Nolan.’”

Right now, Hollywood’s TV and film industry has pretty much shut down as 11,000 writers go on strike. Members of the Writers Guild of America spend their days in front of studios waving signs like, “Here’s a wild pitch: Pay us!” and “We have some notes!” to protest conditions, pay and the diminishing role writers are playing in the peak TV boom.

Some say they’re striking to protect writing as a viable career. “This is an existential fight for the future of the business of writing,” one told The New Yorker. The WGA is at odds with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over several other issues, including the rise of AI in the writer’s room, the creation of “mini-rooms” that employ fewer writers to do more work, and the lack of certainty in their chosen careers.

Ang, whose long list of credits includes Neighbours, Fear the Walking Dead and Star Wars: The Bad Batch, says everyone’s talking about how much the TV landscape has changed in the streaming era. “Contracts were structured to really favour the main broadcast networks. That’s how you would make a good fee,” she says. “Then, [writers] would get residuals (money from repeats, or international sales) that you could live off. You’d probably get one, two, maybe three jobs a year max if you’re lucky, and you’d get residuals.”

That would be enough to keep writers going through leaner times. Now, with streaming, they just get paid once per job with no certainty on when their next one will come. It’s always leaner times. “The compensation for streaming is significantly less and residuals … they almost don’t exist,” says Ang. “There’s a real dissonance of how corporations are making money. And that needs to be updated.”

Writers are going on strike in Hollywood — No one knows how long this writers’s strike will last. (Photo: Getty / Design: Tina Tiller)

Last time this happened, in 2008, seasons of hit shows like Breaking Bad, 30 Rock and The Office were cut short, big budget movies like Transformers and Quantum of Solace were re-written on set, and late night hosts were left to fend for themselves. In one famous scene, Conan O’Brien spent more than a minute twirling his wedding ring to fill airtime.

Ang says that the mood on the frontlines is buoyant, but this strike feels different to the one in 2008. “Everyone is talking about it … they’re really supportive of it and feels like they’ve got the stamina currently,” she says. Unlike last time when they forged on while writing their own material, late night talk show hosts have gone off air immediately, and many have spoken out in support of their striking writers.

But, two weeks in, predictions are that this one could go longer than 2008’s strike, which lasted 100 days. Ang heard this from a friend who has been on strike before. “He’s like, ‘Watch, it’ll get harder … this is going to be a long one, at least three months or so,’” she says. “That’s going to be hard to weather for some people.”

Ang is there to promote her work on the anthology film Kāinga, but she says the city feels much quieter than it normally is. “No one can do development, everything’s on hold,” she says. It all depends on the strike. “Everyone’s waiting to see how long it’s going to be.”

‘He mea tautoko nā ngā mema atawhai. Supported by our generous members.’

Liam Rātana
— Ātea editor