Like all Aotearoa comedians at this time of year, she’s excited about the NZ International Comedy Festival, while confident that the people are just about over the era of political correctness.
Comedians are good storytellers. Have you always been a useful storyteller?
My mother was a teacher, so I could read and write from the age of three. I wrote my first story as a four-year-old. It was about a dog. It wasn’t funny.
As a teenager, where others would write notes to their friends in class about the most recent gossip, mine would always be fantastical stories about magical lands and anthropomorphic teddy bears. I think my friends were more laughing at me.
In a very composed performance at Southside Comedy last year, you spoke of your country roots and how it is living in the rural back blocks of kumara country, Dargaville. How was it growing up in the sticks?
I grew up thinking a Kumara Festival was a perfectly normal thing. It would always kick off with the Kumara Parade, which is kind of like the Hero Parade, but with less PVC.
Opportunities were scarce, though my mother found what few activities were around to throw me into.
My closest neighbours were beyond view and it was my brother’s house anyway, so weekends were spent fighting with siblings, as opposed to hanging out with friends.
There was no movie theatre, no activities for teenagers to do other than go to parties, drink and get pregnant, which I found very sad.
But we had experiences city kids never had. Like my step-dad towing us around the farm on a wooden sled he made and tied to the back of the tractor. And there are some good wholesome small town values that I’m sure are still ingrained deep inside me… somewhere.
Are you now based in Auckland? How do you find its lifestyle and culture? What do you miss about Northland?
My house is in Auckland, so technically yes, but I can go for months living out of hotels without going home. I spend a lot of time travelling around New Zealand, Australia and the US.
It seems not to be the cool thing to say, but I love Auckland. There are so many opportunities and wonderful cultures here. Dargaville when I was growing up contained pakeha and Maori. My school only had one Samoan kid and one exchange student from Hong Kong.
I do miss the grounded feeling of being so embedded in nature. I grew up on a huge farm that went all the way out to the cliffs at the beach. And I miss mama.
What are your thoughts on the lot of Kiwi women? Can they do anything and can you?
I grew up without a dad, so had no idea other people experienced gender roles until I was well into my teens. My mum fulfilled the job of both mum and dad. From sewing and knitting to cleaning out gutters and fixing the toilet.
She got up at 3am every morning, milked the cows, worked as a teacher, raised four kids single-handedly, studied at post-graduate level extramurally and kept an obsessive-compulsively clean house. She may be a robot.
I think women find what they look for. I’ve never seen gender biases because it never occurred to me that they were out there. If you look for them, I’m sure you’ll find them. I grew up with those ads on TV in the 1980s: “Girls Can Do Anything.” I believe they can do most things. Except pee their name in the snow.
It never occurred to me that there were things I couldn’t do because I’m a woman. I’ve always had male interests and views. I’m a jazz musician and a comedian, both male dominated industries. My friends are mostly comedians and therefore mostly male.
I’m somewhat of a boy-girl. Not in a hermaphrodite way, but in the way that I love to put on a pretty dress, but you’d never catch me actually shopping for one.
Will Hillary Clinton get the nomination, ahead of Barack Obama?
Either way, it’s a great step for the US, purely from the fact that it’ll be a minority that will win. And as politically correct (PC) as the US pretends to be, they have a long way to go in equality for minorities.
It’s comedy season again and everyone’s got a joke at the ready. What are your thoughts on the NZ International Comedy Festival and the Kiwi comedy scene?
After touring throughout Australia and the US, I realised the Kiwi comedy scene is, by far, the most supportive comedy community. Overseas can be very cutthroat, while in New Zealand the comedians are one big loveable, very dysfunctional family.
The NZ International Comedy Festival every year gets bigger and more popular, both with the public and with international acts.
I find it sad that the public has the attitude, “We’ll go see an international act because we can see a Kiwi act any time.” They don’t. And there are some great Kiwi acts out there that they’re missing out on.
Did you ever think you’d be a stand-up comedian?
I decided when I was 14 I was going to be a stand-up. I’d line up all my dolls as an audience and lip-synch to a tape of Robin Williams’ stand-up routine.
But that didn’t stop me becoming trained as a psychologist, then studying astrophysics. I’ve also worked as a phlebotomist, a restaurant manager, jazz musician and an itinerant music teacher. Now, I’m a fulltime comedian.
What subjects are making for good joke telling?
There seems to be a backlash against the PC era at the moment, so anything un-PC is easy pickings. For myself, I seem to be on a religious bent at present.
Lives: Sylvia Park. Educated at: Dargaville High School, University of Auckland. Favourite comedian: Sean Cullen – a genius in improvisational and absurdist comedy! Favourite musician: Kiwi Luke Thompson. His new album Here On The Ground has been on continuous play in my car for eight weeks. Would like to meet the most: Albert Einstein and Beethoven. They had great hair. Favourite place in NZ: My Dargaville beach at sunset. Hardest city to play: Washington DC, when you’re doing gags about their soldiers.
