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Scott blanks welcome to my podcast thank you very much Dom it's great great to be
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here it's great to have you here Scott blanks um The Godfather of New Zealand
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comedy you've been called to some people it's actually a split uh the ones that
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I've helped um get anywhere with my advice or what support I call me the Godfather of Comedy and then there's
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another Bunch that call me the gatekeeper the gatekeeper sounds really intimidating that's those are the ones
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that never quite made it um would you say uh if for anyone that's watching or
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listening to this podcast that is maybe um a fan of Joe Rogan there's someone
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that he mentions a lot um it's a lady that's had a huge influence on his
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career and many other comedians in the states are you sort of like the Mitsy shore of New Zealand oh Mitsy from The
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Comedy Store in La yeah I met her once many years ago not that she took any interest in meeting me um I said hello I
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I run a comedy club in New Zealand and you could just see her eyes glaze over she was going this is not going to make
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any difference to my business uh and so but I I did go into The Comedy Store that night and um uh I think I saw
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Richard prior that night being wheeled in in a wheelchair carried on stage by a bunch of helpers sat in the chair he
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mumbled for about half an hour we all respectfully listened and laughed when we thought we were supposed to laugh
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because there was a lot of security standing around around the room sort of intimidating you so you knew you just
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had to laugh it was well past as used by date unfortunately but it was an experience of The Comedy Store in LA and
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I met Mitsy and she is famous I haven't ever thought of myself as being a Mitsy
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Shaw though would that by the way that was a great story that just came out of a Richard what year was this oh this
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would have been um uh mid90s yeah uh very much at the end of his career um uh so it was mid to Lish 90s just as we
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were establishing the classic yeah yeah cuz he's he's phenomenal I'm I'm a bit
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I'm 51 so it's not if I get to say I'm a bit young but I'm a bit young to
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appreciate Richard Pry but one of my um favorite movies that me and my siblings used to hire and know over and over
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again from the vide to when we were growing up was Brewster's Millions all right which is one of his but phenomenal
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comedian but you you watch his routin now and it's um yeah a lot of his jokes
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it's quite quite sad like it was a you know jokes about his own um sort of life
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and a lot of it was very TR J yeah I mean that's the thing about that comedians they get to that point in
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their career where um you know they start start telling the truth and from the 70s and 80s weren pretty for some
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people yeah and uh he would have been one that had you know he he was own undoing I mean his his his drug taking
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and whatever certainly fueled his lifestyle um and not that he wasn't the only one back then of course yeah so
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you've never been compared to Mitsy Shaw no one's ever said that no thank you do
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is is that a good thing I feel like that's uh just in terms of um like what you've done by setting up this comedy
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business in New Zealand and just the influence that you've had on the not just the industry in general but just
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thousands of individuals as well yeah there's um funny enough if you travel around the world there are sort of Home
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comedy clubs in a lot of places of course The Comedy Store in La is sort of First Generation Um I also met the guy
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who ran the Improv in La which was sort of the comedy stores main competition they both alongside each other and both
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he and Mitsy were um were sort of Legends um and and did act a little bit like Godfathers in the in the Maron
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Brando sense um I also met Don who run runs The Comedy Store in London um again I mean his son now runs it and but he
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Don is still around he's older than I am and um he was back in the 70s when um
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the young ones and things were starting to emerge and he worked very closely with those guys getting them on stage in
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The Comedy Store people like Alexis s which was the new generation of Comedians and quite frankly the same
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generation that inspired us here so every city seems to have like a home comedy club and each of those comedy
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clubs tends to have a personality behind them um who runs them yeah yeah well Brendan love grve um a very famous New
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Zealand comedian who you've had a huge influence on he once said Scott should
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be kned for his services to Comedy um this is this is just setting the scene of who we who we're talking with um and
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it's been reported that you've seen more Live Comedy than any other New Zealander
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uh I would say so yes I mean I I've been I my first foray was back in the 80s
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with the group funny business so that was very much part-time hobbyist because there wasn't an industry that we were
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sort of thinking we were going to trade into but they ended up doing three TV series which was more successful than a
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lot of the lot of the Contemporary commedians so funny business 3 TV series um uh back in the ' 80s so started
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watching comedy then but once we opened the classic it um yeah became much more regular and of course the part of that
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is the raw comedy quest which is watching people who don't know what they're doing first timers and I've been
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that's been now running for next year will be the 30th Anniversary so that's
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30 years of the raw comedy Quest yeah you so the classic uh you set up in 1997 What did comedy and new center look like
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before you started the classic well I'm thinking is like bity James mcell and
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gadsby Hudson and Hall that was coming out of the 80s um the there were quite a few TV comedians funny business got
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their three TV series we used to tour to universities on orientation weeks that inspired a group of lads at um at Massie
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University down there in paly um and they formed a group called facial dbx and you will know some of the names from
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this group I mean not in that group but attached to it the Corbett Brothers Jeremy and Nigel um John Bridges who
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went on to make seven days uh the project um and Patty Go show John was a member of facial dbx yeah it was on IC
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TV back in the day yeah and I went to IC TV so we there were five or six people in facial dbx they were inspired by
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funny business at an orientation gig and then in the early 90s facial dbx and the
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remainder of funny business merged together to form a kind of super group called Comedy Fest we spent five years
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developing standup in Oakland uh and that was when it was really starting to look like oh here comes an industry
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because the Comedy Festival which was run by a different Bunch started at exactly the same time so after 5 years
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of doing that everyone just looked at each other and said uh what next and the obvious thing was let's open our own
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venue yeah the obvious yeah sort of obvious why um why why have you never had to go at comedy yourself um too busy
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I do have a theater background but I spent my 20s doing musicals yeah Westside Story yeah dancer I was a
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dancer singer later actor and then I started directing musicals and directing plays I really like that directing role
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you know it's fun being the performer but it's really creative being a director and I suppose that's the role I
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fell into very much with the comedy community is directing traffic and and providing a stage for people to do
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something give it a go have it you know get leave their comfort zone get on stage and try and be funny I mean that I
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actually really enjoy that part of the industry yeah so so it's it's not fear or
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anything that you've never had a go it's just that you you get more joy out of um
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well it's a commitment thing if I if I was giving it a go I'd have to be
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thinking about doing it as a profession if I did that I'd have to give up a lot
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of other things because of the commitment required I mean I watch every year we get 100 plus people enrolling
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for raw comedy Quest right and that gets cut down to about six or seven who will
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make the final and of those six or seven each year maybe one or two will go on to
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actually ply a as a comedian and get paid for doing it so that's one or two from 100 so think of the equation there
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2% yeah do you want to you know are you prepared to commit to that kind of outcome I I was too busy doing other
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stuff I so I quite enjoyed that not putting myself on the line and having to commit to that level well why do you
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love comedians so much like youve you've you've it's been like a life of service
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really like helping well remember that I heard this way way back find a job you love and you never have to work another
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day and you life which is exactly what I found you know I've never done a day's
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work in my life um by the way that is not true get into that I I did I did a few professions but but more recently I
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feel like I'm really doing something I love doing therefore it's getting up in
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the morning and doing it i' never once go Oh hell I've got to do this job again
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yeah no I I love it too much and um the thing I get the biggest Buzz out is of is watching people who aren't comedians
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who think they might be comedians come along get right outside their comfort zone get on stage and have a go and then
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having a little bit to do with developing them towards being pro comedians these are everyday people they
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haven't gone to drama school they haven't gone to any other art school they're just everyday people who think
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oh I'm going to give that a go and some of them become full-time professional
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comedians um and are touring the world you know performing all over the place look at someone like Sam Wills the boy
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with tape on his face he's had about a over 10 years of residency in Las Vegas um and he was a kid from Christ
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Church yeah yeah there's so many so many questions about that we'll get into
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there'll be a chapter of that later on like um s aspiring comedian about um you
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what they can learn from you you know a man that's seen it all um first of all
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let's go back let's go back to the beginning so born in 1959 in ockland yep
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yeah yeah yeah the love of Comedy where did that come from albums early on like my first record I ever bought um horrify
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my elder brother who was a contemporary music critic and and writer and journalist and for Hot Licks magazine in
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Oakland and the first album I ever bought was Fred Dag's Greatest Hits so phenomenal album he looked at his
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younger brother and I think gave up at that point he went okay that's you um
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and then soon after that I think there was uh um uh Mario Lanza's Greatest Hits an opera
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singer there's another weird one for you but the third album was a Monty Python
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album um I think it was uh um matching tie and handkerchief followed by live at Drury Lane and I was a montypython geek
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um strangely my sons have become them too they love Monty Python and uh uh how how old are your sons and 13 did you
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introduce them yeah um uh tis butter scratch is the line of our family um in fact we've come up with a concept for
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next year's Armageddon that revolves around the um tis butter scratch sketch
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on the Holy Grail movie so you're going to see a costumed Army Galloping with
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coconuts through amaga but that's next year we forget about that for the moment
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um so uh the montypython and there was a group of like-minded kids maybe four or
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five of us who used to get together in dark rooms and listen to Monty Python albums and recite um the sketches we'd
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know the sketches word by word for word and that was probably rough roughly around 12 13 years of age yeah very
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formative years yes I suppose that planted the seed and then um so you finished school
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you get an accountant accountant I I went through Secondary School focused on accountancy I left um I was I had
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skipped a year very early on back in the primers year year two three I skipped one of those years so I was always the
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youngest in my class so I completed the sixth form which is now what year 12 um I completed that when I was still 16 um
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so I left school I didn't do the seventh formal year 13 I left school went to ATI
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so I was still still 16 in and going into Queen Street and going to a ATI um and at the end of that year um I was I
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turned 17 that year and I started work at Price Waterhouse so at 17 I was going to town in my suit and tie doing
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part-time um accountancy and being an auditor for price waterhous and like the accountant accountancy version of Doogie
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haer I know it was I felt I felt I never thought about it but everyone I worked with was over 2021 they were all could
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go to licensed premises so Friday night drinks was spent these guys smuggling me
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into the Royal International on Victoria Street and um because and pretending that I was their age and and the B and
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turning a blind eye mind you ID back in those days was a piece of paper so you know no photographic ID so they couldn't
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really say I wasn't um 20 or 21 whatever the drinking age was there I was 17
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years of age dressed in a suit Friday night drinks and Green Street yeah that's right that was my first driver's
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license as well it was like a giant bit of waxed paper and it was very easy to itch the numbers out
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onth yeah you could if you if you were clever with a bit of paper you could duplicate it and change the dates on it
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very quickly we shouldn't be talking about things like that Tom well it's
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it's an ID hack that nobody can use anymore anymore no no um so from there you ended up up at um a company called
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kiraj jodian which which I remember but um I suppose for anyone that doesn't
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remember it's probably like HS of today yeah Event Cinemas whatever there was
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they owned one side of the street Amalgamated C cinemas open the other so I gave up accountancy and um I realized
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that wasn't a profession I wanted to run with because I'd started doing amateur
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Dramatics and musicals and I met all these like-minded people and I thought oh hold it there's something else out
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here so I gave up the accountancy and started my own little company called scot-free promotion I was 19 then and um
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hiring myself out to create sort of create events to promote things and the first person who hired me was a lovely
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guy called Ry kraff who also went to San College he was another San College old boy like me um and he employed me to
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help him put on promotions for movie releases and very quickly I think I did that for him for about two years and
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then he quit and said you should take my job and I said I don't know anything
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about what you do I mean you're an office and you know you're the marketing
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manager for Kira jod and he said my boss is an idiot I'm not saying you're stupid
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but he will employ you because he's an idiot and he doesn't know any better so
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I applied for the job and got it and became the marketing manager for Kera jod and film Distributors for 10 years
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and that one of the early movies that I helped promote was secret policeman's
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ball suddenly we all got to see Billy conell Alexis s u Monty Python um some of the young ones all in this movie and
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I went wow so what is this about uh and it really affected me I went okay now I've seen something else um so uh that's
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when funny business turned up you know um we we uh I was working for Cara jodian and at night we'd all hang out at
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retro nightclub which um some people may remember in oconnell Street and uh and Graham who ran retro decided on a
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Wednesday night let's have a comedy night try and fill the club up on an off
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night and a lot of the people that regularly went to the club all had a go at telling a joke I did I got up and
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told a couple of jokes so I have done it um uh wasn't you yeah but you you I mean
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you didn't persist with it no not at all you just enjoyed being oh I was just
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like more of a fan yeah I was more a case of seeing all these like-minded people and and and there were quite a
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few who turned up to that club never been to the club before and did told jokes some of them were original
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material some of them were joke tellers I mean um Willie dwit back then he was William mki but he got we adopted the St
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name Willie D so Willie won that competition that was his first big leap into comedy but we also met Dean Butler
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uh Peter Murphy Ian harcour Chris hegan and they were the core of funny business
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um so uh we spun out of that competition and started running Wednesday nights at
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The Winds of Castle in Parnell every Wednesday we ran a comedy night we didn't think there was anything wrong
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with doing that lots of people including the um Liv sound who owned the baned PA
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system with 36 channels um said well you can use our PA and we went oh thanks yeah and they were sort of looking at us
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and I went I said I only need two channels so I would sit at the mixing desk with 36 channels and I'd just have
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the two first two sliders going mic mic mic and music mic and music I'd be doing
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that and this empty desk otherwise yeah so so funny business so I can I can vaguely remember them so they had like a
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few TV series right three TV series yeah I remember um like one song in particular Norman the [ __ ] Norman the
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[ __ ] they the one thing they did was sketches and a lot of music um they didn't do standup comedy as such that
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was the sketches and music and you can go to YouTube search funny business New Zealand you'll see Norman the Mormon
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you'll see k um you'll see uh what other another great song oh they did the New
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Zealand national anthem um bunch of guys standing on top of Mount Eden at the crator singing their version of a New
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Zealand national anthem uh one I posted yesterday I bought a lounge Suite um that's a great clip I bought a lounge
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suite and that's uh that I posted is it a song or it's a song will he sings it
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um and it's about uh his first job earning some money and he goes out and his friends are going out and buying
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cars and you've got this it's a great music video very funny he goes out and
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buys his first Lounge Suite that's I mean it sounds just got to see it to believe it yeah yes so oh
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yeah yeah will will he D so you how's he now uh he head us ups and down he put a
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book out a couple of years ago experiences drug issues and look he'll probably be listening today um uh
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listened to this podcast and we go hi Willie um we love him you know he was always um a bit on the edge uh and at
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some point in his life went a little bit off the edge and uh but he's he's
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getting by um it's not easy when you've had a stroke and you've lost quite a lot
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of the use of one side of your body um but he's having to deal with it so he
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is so funny business from is that where the seed was sort of planted for you to start up your own comedy car yeah well
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we were running it um as a sort of professional group you know we sold tickets at the Windsor Castle we had we
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had income from it wasn't much um and we used to just split that pretty much
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evenly between all the members of the group um uh so that and they toured and they they did stuff they got you know
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you could easily get it wrong um we got hired for a couple of corporates which was just awful uh you know funny
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business was not suitable corporate audiences at all Dean Butler back then was very edgy and some of the things he
00:19:04
did certainly uh didn't fly very easily with corporate audiences so I'm glad we
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didn't pursue that too much further um but that was definitely the first foot
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into the comedy industry um and I didn't know that it was going to continue uh it
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actually I drifted away and was focusing on on the movie stuff um I didn't get
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too involved in the lat stages of the um the 80s when funny business were doing the TV series um they were doing their
00:19:29
sort of own thing uh but Willie asked me to come back and help when they joined up with facial dbx and said look we've
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got a whole bunch of performers here we're all keen on starting something regular but we do need someone to run
00:19:42
the business side of it and do the promotions that's what I was bought back into do yeah the behind the scenes um
00:19:48
yeah and I left kaj jodian at that stage which was a company that was falling apart um and so I'd sort of gone back to
00:19:54
doing my own thing managing people um promotions for film companies freelancing yeah big thing suddenly
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freelancing became a thing and that's what I did uh but and they basically got
00:20:05
me to freelance for them helping them promote the comedy and it wasn't the only thing I was doing but it grew and
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it became the only thing I did th this must have been um a mortifying time for appearance here's here's their son he's
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got an accountancy degree he's a young man at um price waterhous and he's into
00:20:22
the movie business and then he's getting out of the movie business into the comedy business they must have been
00:20:26
terrified like what's our son doing SE because I look back now on the directions of my life and my father
00:20:32
passed away when I was 12 and a very formative part of your life to lose your father um and and although I was the
00:20:39
youngest son I became the man of the family and my other two brothers sort of grew up and drifted off overseas and I
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was left here with my mom and and I was the man of the family and I spent it's
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why I was you know in a suit at 17 on Queen Street because I had to get out and earn a living um mom was supporting
00:20:57
herself and a bit of me but I had to start earning money so that got me working and it got me thinking outside
00:21:03
the square I never had a father who sort of reigned me in um and uh I don't know
00:21:09
if that helped CH the direction of my life but not having someone telling me what was the right thing and wrong thing
00:21:14
to do because Mom didn't she sort of kind of just supported any of my decisions so I could make sweeping
00:21:21
decisions like leaving the accountancy profession which um although it horrified a few of the of the fathers
00:21:29
that were had been supporting our family cuz one of them had got me the job at price waterhous and suddenly I turned
00:21:35
around and said thanks Alan for getting me that job but I'm leaving price waterhous and he's going I sort of
00:21:40
pulled a few strings and I went no I'm sorry I'm going off on my own and yeah
00:21:45
you so you I I sort of did make decisions like that maybe arbitrarily you losing losing your dad at 12 what
00:21:51
sort of impact did that have on you on you that was well you had to grow up yeah you the two things is that you you
00:21:57
had to make you you couldn't ask someone for advice um so you very quickly start
00:22:03
developing you know your own life with you know just yourself um and I think it had a huge impact in hindsight um that I
00:22:13
didn't have someone just telling me right and wrong uh not that I was I wasn't a bad kid certainly never went
00:22:19
off the rails uh but when it came to making career decisions and things I just they were my decisions yeah yeah
00:22:26
just sort of missing that sort of Rudder in a way yeah yeah and is it something that um this this was a long time ago
00:22:32
for you I'm guessing this was like the early 1970s um but given your your son's age
00:22:39
so recently they've been the same age you were when you lost your dad is that
00:22:42
something that came back to the front of your mind it did when I I reached his age of about 45 when he passed away and
00:22:49
when I got to 45 I went okay I've got here um I didn't even have kids at 45 so
00:22:55
I'm a late starter um and so I had Nicholas is 15 so um he was born um in when I was 50 so my uh 50 was uh I'm you
00:23:07
know I'm now a gold card I'm now 65 are you yeah and um to work for free I've
00:23:13
got I can I I don't but I can um so I've got a 15-year-old who and they look up
00:23:17
to me and I'm well aware that I'm in a way it's I'm lucky kind of Lucky still
00:23:22
to be here although you expect to live that long these days but when you've had
00:23:25
a father who passed away at 45 you don't expect it you don't take it for granted
00:23:29
I don't take it for granted so I do en enjoy um that's been very important to
00:23:33
me in the last sort of five 10 years that I've been careful to divide my time
00:23:38
between say comedy and my family so my family are are as important well are more important to me than comedy yeah
00:23:45
yeah so your wife Bridget you you guys met at a a wedding for one of the dean Butler's wedding yeah yeah yeah yeah
00:23:51
yeah one of the funny business guys and was also on radio hii for a number of years I was not expected to turn up to
00:23:56
that wedding because I was so married to the CL classic that people said to Dean
00:24:00
uh you'll you'll never get Scott to come to your wedding it's a Saturday he'll be
00:24:04
at the club you know you you you you're you're dreaming um and I didn't even
00:24:09
RSVP I just turned up at the wedding and they went oh my God Scott's come to D
00:24:14
wedding and and Bridget was a bridesmaid at that wedding she had nothing to do with the comedy industry she came from
00:24:20
the Hawks Bay so um and and so people go Bridget and Scott's got a girlfriend and
00:24:26
she's got nothing to do with comedy what was the um what was yeah what are your Recollections of meeting was it
00:24:32
like love at first sight or H it was D on the Dance Floor i i i my um secret passion was dancing I was dancing since
00:24:40
I was 12 or 13 right through secondary school I belonged to the jazz dance group Horizon um I don't think my
00:24:47
motives were exactly pure because I looked at all the boys in the first 15 and went great 30 guys get to hang out
00:24:54
together the whole time and share a dressing room I'm in the dance group Mike and I my friend Mike two of us and
00:25:02
20 girls not just 20 girls 20 beautiful girls who can dance and I said I think I'll keep this to myself but I reckon
00:25:09
this is the best uh deal here um and that right through my life I well until I was about 30 I was dancing a lot and
00:25:17
and dancing with a lot of really fabulous ladies so so you're at this wedding and are you just pulling out are
00:25:22
you are you just pulling out the aame on the dance I'm on the dance FL I'm string
00:25:26
I'm Every Move I can make uh and uh Bridget loved dancing with me and um that I tell you what it yeah love at
00:25:35
first sight when did you guys get married uh 2005 right yeah right yeah and then it
00:25:41
was um yeah I I don't know if you want to talk about this or not um but in uh
00:25:46
February 2008 you guys had a a daughter yeah yeah Kate and unfortunately she died the day before she was due um and
00:25:55
again an incredible experience and sometimes you can take a big picture look and go you're put on this Earth to
00:26:01
experience everything it can throw at you and then you learn something from everything that's throwing at you you
00:26:06
learn lessons um and you know I firstly I at at the age of 48 or so I wasn't
00:26:13
expecting even to have children so to lose your first one you go oh my God was that my last chance um you know and
00:26:20
Bridget was getting older too she was um turning 40 and we're going okay this may
00:26:25
have been our only chance and to lose her the day before she was due you know like nine months um and it was you know
00:26:34
it was huge but what was beautiful was the way it brought together the comedy industry and you suddenly go oh okay now
00:26:40
I realize what's so special about this Bunch we're not just an industry we are
00:26:44
a community and when something like that happens a community bands together and supports that's includes the staff and
00:26:51
The Comedians and you got this beautiful thing where they all supported us for months not you know for weeks and months
00:26:57
and we did did fundraisers for The Midwives macking in for the midwives macking in for the midwives we did
00:27:02
fundraisers for The Midwives at the hospital who took qu care of us so that we could buy them lots of equipment for
00:27:07
their staff room and stuff which they didn't have that wouldn't necessarily be
00:27:11
funded by the med the health industry you know good TVs stereos coffee machines all sorts of things so um and
00:27:19
so it was a beautiful experience and um it could have been uh if we hadn't had
00:27:25
the two boys subsequently yeah it probably could have been much bigger Line in the Sand um but it wasn't we we
00:27:33
had Nicholas we had Matthew so we sort of managed to continue our lives and we've now got two beautiful boys but you
00:27:38
you know a Scottish comedian called Janie Godley she passed away two days ago from cancer um aged 63 two years
00:27:45
younger than me and she passed away uh two two days ago she came to New Zealand um that year after we lost Kate uh she
00:27:55
came to the Comedy Festival and we already knew her she'd been before she came again and she was an amazing person
00:28:02
to deal with cuz her life experience was incredible she was raised sort of in a gangster family in Glasgow she was um uh
00:28:10
abused and molested by her uncle um she had to deal with that through her life the thing she said to my wife Bridget
00:28:17
which she said she had applied to herself was that no matter what happens the the abuse and and stuff that she
00:28:23
suffered the loss of Kate you must not let that be the thing that defin the rest of your life you must be prepared
00:28:31
to move on and grasp the rest of your life and live it which is what Janie had done and uh and my wife Bridget and
00:28:38
myself really took that on board that we must almost honor the memory of Kate and
00:28:43
live on and live large and do the things we wanted to do including having two more children and it was a we just
00:28:49
recalled that advice a couple of days ago um and I mentioned that Janie gave us advice that only Janie Godly could
00:28:56
have given us about not letting you your life be screwed up by the bad things yeah well thanks for sharing that that's
00:29:03
really powerful yeah that's um yeah um when I was married to JJ we went through we were unable to have kids
00:29:11
so we went through years and years of fertility treatment and IVF and uh the closest we got was um you know having
00:29:17
some embryos that get you know replanted and and they divide in you um so like by
00:29:23
legal definition it's called a miscarriage when we lost the baby but we're still talking in the first week um
00:29:28
to take a baby to full tomm and then lose it like I can't imagine just how well you can imagine what Nicholas our
00:29:33
second one was like that Journey that 9mon Journey was so stressful because of course we sort of knew that we could
00:29:41
lose Nicholas up till the last day so the day he was born was like wow you know you was scared to do anything
00:29:49
scared to move yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah all right I um yeah thanks for sharing that it's intensely personal I
00:29:56
appreciate it and really good lessons in there as well well that's the thing I'm
00:30:00
sort of thinking today what are people want what could I possibly know about for instance well that's a life
00:30:04
experience comedy experience that would have any interest to people out there but then a lot of the lessons we've I
00:30:10
learn in the comedy industry apply right through your life not just to Comedy yeah or also you're just you're just an
00:30:16
interesting guy that's um had a fascinating life and you've done um yeah
00:30:21
like the impact you've had on the comedy scene and just as a small business owner
00:30:24
in New Zealand like there's there's lessons here for anyone in any walks of
00:30:27
life so what's the juice of life I I've I've discovered over the years um that
00:30:32
making a difference to other people and then allowing them to acknowledge that is really the juice of life you can be
00:30:39
very very happy person just making a difference to people and then giving them the opportunity to say thanks you
00:30:45
should always do that you shouldn't um suppress that feedback um because some
00:30:49
people need to do that themselves so um and that's why I think I I posted in
00:30:56
after the loss of Janie I did say that you know if you want to know what a mortal life is it's the difference you
00:31:01
make to the people you leave behind that's how you gain immortality is the difference you've made to the people
00:31:06
that are continuing to live who will still talk about you for years if not decades afterwards you
00:31:12
know yeah that's so true I yeah that's so true like I'm I'm an atheist so you
00:31:18
unfortunately I don't I don't believe in an afterlife I think we're like a
00:31:21
computer and when you're gone you're gone but yeah we're dust we're we're
00:31:24
dust but some of those some of that dust is memories and some of some of it's the
00:31:28
impact you just imagine if that dust could just sort of seep into your body it's it's in there you know yeah the
00:31:34
bigger that yeah the bigger a hole you leave on on the lives of the people that are left behind um I think that says
00:31:41
that says a lot lot about you I think ultimately that's what all any of us want is not not to be forgotten
00:31:45
immediately yeah you you you can have a very happy day when you wake up and go God I've made a difference today to five
00:31:51
people yeah yeah all right let's talk about the birth of the classic so um October 1997 um the CL opened at 321
00:31:59
Queen Street where it still is to this day yes um yeah did you did you imagine 27 years ago would still be there and
00:32:07
you'd still be there 27 years later no did you see there's a 5year plan or I
00:32:12
look I I can't I got a feeling that we sort of had a business plan but you had
00:32:17
to have a business plan to get a bank account and even and and um the the guy from the ASB was very supportive I um
00:32:24
wish I can remember his name now uh was it Craig I think um he no it wasn't Craig was someone else but he he sort of
00:32:31
said we're not going to get an overdraft but you know we we'll keep an eye on you
00:32:34
and help you out um the suppliers you know the the the council had to give us a tenancy it's it's a council property
00:32:41
but mind you the the tenant beforehand was an adult cinema so it wasn't much of
00:32:46
a a you know it was a bit of an upgrade for them wait wait I'm going to pause
00:32:50
you there what what it so like a movie theater that just play played pornos yeah in the 70s and ' 80s early ' 80s it
00:32:55
was the Classic Cinema I went there and saw Westside Story 1979 with the cast of
00:32:59
the musical I was doing you know we saw Westside Story on the big screen that was to inspire us as we were going
00:33:04
forward to do a live show um but and later on he lost uh access to all those reels of classic movies so he did the
00:33:12
next best thing which was to get um video cassettes of porn and he would play that all day continuous sex movies
00:33:19
we've got the promotional board at the club that still there that says continuous six movies at 112 5 and8 I
00:33:26
mean this is this is this is pre internet but you could still get like VHS movies from from behind the salon
00:33:33
doors at video easy didn't do and some of the men didn't do that they went and
00:33:38
they wanted to be like a a community experience and the stag party sharing the uh sharing the room with other stag
00:33:44
parties and Men watching movies on the big screen before you go off to a strip club um that's so Bleak I know and that
00:33:50
but the thing is that was the tenant that that the council had to deal with um and he had look he had a penny rent
00:33:58
no one was really valuing the properties much they all had um Heritage things on
00:34:02
them so I don't know if the council knew what to do but Les Mills was the mayor
00:34:06
of Oakland at the time sir Le Mills and and so we sort of went to his people and
00:34:10
said we would like to raise the moral fiber of 321 Queen Street by developing it into a comedy club um if you listen
00:34:19
to Comedy it's not necessarily raising the moral fiber yeah but compared to but
00:34:23
compared to ER Cinema so they they didn't think twice about it they they booted him out and um we took over the
00:34:29
whole building and um and developed the the firstly The Silo theater in the basement which is now the basement
00:34:35
theater and then we developed the classic upstairs six months later as we waited for um Jan griffed to leave the
00:34:42
building and Retreat to the Hollywood in Avendale which was his other Cinema which wasn't an adult cinema and Jan
00:34:48
Griff did is to be uh applauded for all the great work he did for the cinema industry he wasn't proud of the adult
00:34:55
cinema but the income from the adult cinema helped fund the Hollywood in Avendale which is also still going today
00:35:02
as you'll know um and has a very fine pedigree in the local um film exhibition
00:35:06
industry was the the porn Cinema lucrative did it do quite well uh well enough I don't know well he didn't have
00:35:12
to pay much rent I don't think so yeah I I've got no idea what the bottom line of
00:35:17
it was um so but anyway it was there until weed took over the building and turned it into a comedy club yeah and
00:35:24
and you're still there now um we almost weren't though after 3 years we had to
00:35:28
voluntarily liquidate the business because to open it we um we went into a fair amount of debt uh to fit it out and
00:35:36
everything we just didn't have enough cash reserves so in the first three years we scrambled to try and cover that
00:35:42
Capital outlay we never really quite got there and of course fell into all the traps you do which included debt to the
00:35:49
irid um money we owed our investors which included me and and a bunch of people mostly family and friends I think
00:35:56
Jeremy Corbett was the the one who lost the most money in the voluntary liquidation and he didn't mind one bit
00:36:02
yeah we all had shares in it so we all we all had shares and and um and we so we voluntarily liquidated which means we
00:36:09
had to give up our ownership of the business and we passed half the business over to a trust and the other half fell
00:36:16
to me that was the the risky part the production of Comedy both at the classic and beyond that was considered the
00:36:23
greatest risk and I took that on um just individually with a new company and and
00:36:28
Trust ran the classic as a comedy venue and so we did that in 2000 um and I can remember New Year's
00:36:37
Eve 2001 going uh at home on my own listening to you two as we contemplated the loss of the business completely and
00:36:47
I was uh I had you two cranked up full bore I was renting and raving around the house thinking of what the hell we can
00:36:54
do and suddenly my accounting background came to me and I went voluntary liquidation with a friendly Liquidator
00:37:01
in other words our Liquidator no one else's Liquidator it's been done so many
00:37:06
times in business since so that we Could reconstruct the company and hang on to it which is what we did um and that went
00:37:14
on for another three years until I bought the classic off the trust so I had two companies the production company
00:37:21
and the company that ran the classic which was sort of like a hospitality company and that's what happened in 20
00:37:28
3 um and so on my own since 2003 why why did it end up in liquidation was we ran out of money we
00:37:37
just we ran to too much debt we had we owed the IID H I think we owed the IID about
00:37:43
$30,000 or something and in in tax not paid and that's it's a it's a pitfall of
00:37:49
most companies the first debt you will incur when you're running out of cash as
00:37:53
a debt to the IID it seems to be that that's the thing people think the first
00:37:56
people I'm not going to pay um uh is the and the IID realized we sat down with
00:38:03
their people talked about the company said what we wanted to do in the restructure and what they did is they
00:38:08
said okay we're going to be keeping an Eagle Eye on you but we're going to give
00:38:11
up that debt you owe us um and we're going to let you start again that's
00:38:16
effectively what they do and I I look they do it all the time yeah was that when they had the ad campaign it's our
00:38:21
job to be fear probably I don't think it what will we do with this Ed campaign
00:38:26
tell you you know you've got to all credit to them they're not they're not
00:38:30
the you don't hear about them being nice guys you know they but they're also not
00:38:34
necessarily the bad guys they just have their line and you can always sit down with them and go I've screwed up and and
00:38:42
they'll give you the opportunity to pay off debts to help you know they will do
00:38:46
everything they can to keep you in business but was the was the issue though that like no what you people
00:38:52
weren't used to seeing comedy so no one was going to shows was it were we we we
00:38:57
were topheavy with you know maybe too many chiefs in the industry not um okay too many cooks whatever and the cleanup
00:39:05
the cleanup to get it set up will cost you more than what you anticipated yeah so so when it it came back to you know
00:39:10
probably in hindsight when we got to 2003 and I was in charge of well sort of overseeing the classic and running the
00:39:16
comedy it was one person you know as opposed to the panel of people we' had beforehand and I just think that was
00:39:22
probably the reality of it that we needed to strip it back to just the essential ele you know we had Big Dreams
00:39:29
not all Big Dreams pay off though yeah yeah so when did it become easy or easyier I I think it's worth pointing
00:39:37
out um to set up this podcast there's um there's uh like an email inbox info
00:39:43
classic. co.nz or whatever um so I messaged that inbox and um got a got got a reply a couple of hours later from you
00:39:50
yeah so you are still very very Hands-On I'm the only one there's no I'm the only
00:39:54
full-time employee of both comedy. co. inz Productions and the classic I only I'm still the only full-time employee um
00:40:01
the rest are part-timers who work at the classic but I I run the production company on my own has it been a good
00:40:07
living or is it a labor of love uh always a labor of love but you asked me of I'm going to give a big plug here you
00:40:13
asked me which at which point did it get easier when I got married to Bridget who's an occupational therapist and if
00:40:20
you know OTS um OTS know how to organize stuff they also really good at fixing stuff
00:40:28
she's much better at making stuff building stuff out of Kit sets than I ever was so if you buy one of those
00:40:34
things online and it gets delivered Bridget is the one probably going to be assembling it um she also I think
00:40:41
disassembled me and reassembled me and said look you know you've got something
00:40:45
here but we've got to do it properly so she really got me uh focused in the right direction um and uh brilliant
00:40:53
because she if anything Bridget's coming into the company made the big difference
00:40:58
she now she doesn't work as much for the company now but she did for about 3
00:41:02
years during that period that when I took over on my own it's amazing how life works out day
00:41:09
like you know that that wedding where none of your friends thought you were going to that day like how different
00:41:13
would your life like had you not gone to the wedding that day exactly that that happens all the time you cross paths
00:41:17
with people and you go you can't believe that suddenly that person you've crossed
00:41:21
paths with is the it's such a turning point in your life I've got that I I
00:41:26
look back at lots of turning points you know um uh that I go that was a Cornerstone or turning a corner in my
00:41:33
life and getting married definitely was yeah yeah just puts your I was going to say puts your life on a different path
00:41:39
but it's on the same path but it just sort of maybe like course corrects or just yeah it's amazing it's really
00:41:45
inspiring um okay so you mentioned before your retirement age now like are you slowing down what are
00:41:51
you not really because as I said it's it's job I love doing and anything it I
00:41:58
wouldn't want to stop doing it because it really makes your day it puts puts a
00:42:02
big kick in your step every day because I get to sit there and think of things I
00:42:06
might want to do with um local comedians or even now I'm planning the international comedians that are coming
00:42:12
to the Comedy Festival next year and um and to me being able to do that is so much fun including we're we're looking
00:42:19
at a tour with the boy with tape on his face coming back from Las Vegas headlining the festival that won't be
00:42:26
announced yet you've heard it for the first time maybe um it's not it's not
00:42:30
signed and sealed yet but that really gives me a kick because um Sam who is tap face was a kid we found on the
00:42:36
streets busking on the streets of Christ Church who then went on to develop the tape face show at the classic toured the
00:42:43
world of it stormed the Edinburgh Fringe stormed America's Got Talent he went
00:42:48
viral With viral he's been back on the best of America's Got Talent a number of
00:42:52
times has a residency in Las Vegas like if there's a kid I've made a different
00:42:57
too Sam would be one and here we are talking about him coming back to do a little tour of the country in May next
00:43:02
year that is the juice yeah you can you can see your eyes light up when you talk
00:43:08
about um yeah about some of these people that you've seen um you know I suppose
00:43:12
from the beginning of their career and you've watched them develop um it's a
00:43:15
real sense of Pride eh yeah well also it's not just the locals it's the Internationals we've had here who who um
00:43:23
still keep in touch um and still talk about their visit to the New Zealand International Comedy Festival and
00:43:28
particularly their visit to the classic and some of them say there is not another comedy club in the world like
00:43:34
the classic they said you go to most places and it's competitive there's no
00:43:38
love lost between the headliners and the new faces um uh here they come in and they go my God there's there's a
00:43:45
community at this comedy club and and the headliners sit down with the raw Comedians and give them time and support
00:43:52
and they said that does not happen anywhere else in the world particularly in places like America where it's dog
00:43:58
eat dog and they and so they talk about the club Stuart Lee who you know is one of my favorite UK Comedians and if you
00:44:05
don't know Stuart Lee just search Stuart Lee and watch his Clips he's Absolute
00:44:09
Comedy gold well he published his novel and um his book of his life and he said his two favorite comedy clubs in the
00:44:17
world uh the stand in Edinburgh which is absolutely you know a classic um again it has one person behind it um and the
00:44:26
classic in in New Zealand and that Stuart's two favorite clubs in the world um James acter who you may know um was
00:44:33
in the recent Ghostbusters film has has got amazing podcasts and toured he's
00:44:39
been here five times and I toured him here five times and he said in his book I mean I I hate blowing my own horn but
00:44:48
he published in his book that his favorite producer in the world is me and with just little old me in New Zealand
00:44:53
he gets he's produced all over the world yeah and and thank you for um as you put
00:44:58
it blowing your own horn because this is like a culture and environment that you
00:45:01
have um been the architect of entirely oh well I just love all you yeah I love meeting these particularly going to
00:45:07
Edinburgh Fringe which I've done I mean I've been there about 14 times and you
00:45:11
go to the Edinburgh Fringe and you go around all these tiny little venues and you spot new Talent before their bigger
00:45:18
names you see them doing maybe their first Fringe and I have the opportunity to say to them after that Fringe or
00:45:23
while we're there would you like to come to New Zealand next year to the comedy
00:45:26
FES and their eyes light up they go what they've never left the UK they've
00:45:33
never done comedy outside the UK and they get to come to New Zealand they think it's fantastic Simon Pig who you
00:45:39
know the actor Simon Pig came here in the mid90s uh first time he had left the country came here did The Comedy
00:45:46
Festival we sent him back and his agent got in touch and said Scott what have you all done to Simon cuz he left here a
00:45:54
nice boy he's come back with white peroxide here and tattoos and we went yep that's
00:46:00
us and then there's been a lot like that over the years um Tommy Tian um was
00:46:05
another one he was here the same year as Simon um Dave Gorman who had never left
00:46:10
the UK came here uh and Ross Noble he was another one yeah he yeah yeah Ross um and we've had lots of famous faces
00:46:20
drop in yeah they were already famous but they they hear about the classic from all these people in the UK and they
00:46:26
often get in touch and and say look I'm going to be down the road playing spark
00:46:29
Arena but could I come in the night before and do 10 minutes and I go yep sure oh like heard drop some names oh
00:46:35
Ben Elton he's he's popped in um uh John Bishop who's coming here shortly um uh
00:46:42
alen Davies was one of our first acts that we ever produced International acts we ever produced when he was young now
00:46:48
of course he's um he's big time and you see him on Qi I don't even know if he
00:46:52
does as much live work Alan Davies Bill Bailey um was another one who came to us
00:46:56
early on in his career incredible um and I'm trying to think of the people the
00:47:00
sneaky people who have dropped him more recently um you know funny enough I'm
00:47:04
not I'm not thinking of the names because they just pop in do a spot and they've gone you know wa why do they
00:47:09
yeah if they're doing shots back in why do they want to come in and do a 10minute Sit is it like sharpen them if
00:47:13
they've never done New Zealand before they just want to make sure that new zealanders will understand their accent
00:47:20
sometimes it is just that they just they come in and they've got a 10-minute what
00:47:24
they call like highlight set and they just want to know they might just be trying out a dozen different references
00:47:30
that they use in their act they just want to make sure that the punch lines the references the accent connects with
00:47:35
a New Zealand audience that's all they want to do yeah yeah wow that's so cool
00:47:40
yeah one of the um yeah one of the best shows I've seen there like I I bummed
00:47:43
into ree Derby and he said to me oh um I'm doing a thing at the classic tonight
00:47:47
you should come along it's just a low-key thing and it was um I've never
00:47:50
seen anything like this before it was just him with a bunch of notes and he was sort of like um running through
00:47:56
basically triing jokes cuz he was working on a a DVD at the time um so it was just sort of I don't know if you
00:48:02
call it refining your SE or what it's called but that's what he was doing and
00:48:05
the audience was sort like guinea pigs and it was um that's big Wednesday that's big Wednesday is fresh Comedy
00:48:10
Night with Pros trying out new material you have a dozen comedians on stage the raw comedians who have got it right at
00:48:16
the open mic they graduate up to Big Wednesday so they get their first big Wednesday they'll be sharing the stage
00:48:22
with a variety of pros of different levels all trying out new stuff and I think think the bigger the pro the more
00:48:28
casual they will be about it to the point of having a list of notes and things yeah he he just didn't even
00:48:33
didn't even care if it was uh funny or if it didn't work or not it was um I
00:48:37
almost got used at the end of the night he was using the audience but um in the best possible way it was it's a it's a
00:48:42
comedy trick too that if you lower the expectations of the audience it's much
00:48:47
easier to be funny so if you say to an audience okay I'm here now re Derby for
00:48:52
the next uh seven minutes I'm trying out new stuff I've never done before and
00:48:56
I've got a list that I've rented on what you've done there is completely lowered
00:49:00
the expectations of the audience they're going okay we're not going to see
00:49:02
polished re stby we're not going to see material that's proven we when in fact
00:49:07
we should expect not to laugh that's comedy goal if you can take that away from an audience to the point where they
00:49:14
don't expect to laugh then there's only one place for them to go yeah and that's
00:49:18
to laugh and they will laugh so much easier at all the jokes if they weren't
00:49:22
expecting to laugh in the first place yes so for you um we talked before about the receivership thing um would
00:49:30
that be the biggest challenge biggest challenges you've ever gone through I'm
00:49:32
thinking like because there's been CO as well Global financial crisis we're in a
00:49:36
recession at the moment yeah the I mean Co came along and by that stage I had sort of learned that you've got to I'm a
00:49:43
I'm an optimist so the basic rule of an optimist is that soon as you're presented with a problem it's not a
00:49:49
problem it's an opportunity and that's what I look at every problem as an
00:49:53
opportunity and if I can't then someone you know I need to be reminded to do it
00:49:58
because that's the key to overcoming any problem is to go okay here's a problem
00:50:03
covid pandemic closed down for God knows how long what's the opportunity here
00:50:09
well the opportunity was do you know what we haven't painted the club for for
00:50:13
10 years 15 years we haven't fixed things so we spent though all those all that downtime repainting the club we
00:50:22
didn't change the daycor we just gave it fresh colors fresh coats of paint we
00:50:26
changed a few things but I got a lot of work done I got all the work done in that club that I had been putting off
00:50:32
for probably years all done during lockdown so there was an opportunity for made out of a problem uh that comes
00:50:39
along all the time you know like Global financial crisis um I'm sure we reinvented the wheel during that time
00:50:46
and we reinvented the wheel when we liquidated in 2001 so that's what you continually are doing going okay how can
00:50:52
we turn this to a positive do you get stressed by anything business related out you oh yeah uh I was I had an
00:50:59
anxiety attack on last Friday night um just about uh it was a hard week we had small audiences I was going we haven't
00:51:07
had small audiences for for quite some time not since preco who what are these small audiences oh my God it's the Down
00:51:14
Season the off season's here we haven't had an offseason what am I I'm and I had
00:51:18
an anxiety attack about oh I've forgotten what to do with the off seon and um and uh and also I had the whole
00:51:25
festival planning stuff going on in my head about you know big commitment to The Comedy Festival in May next year all
00:51:31
that planning is done now all the deals are done every all the venue hire agreements everything's done now and I'm
00:51:37
going oh my God so much work to do and business is not right and so massive anxiety attack um prompted by I'll admit
00:51:45
freely here prompted by having a gin on Friday night I gave up alcohol four months ago um just because I knew it was
00:51:53
a healthy thing to do and I wanted to see what it was like you know here's an
00:51:56
opportunity I didn't have a problem drinking but I wanted to see what would happen if I
00:52:00
stopped drinking and so I hav't had a and so last Friday night my wife Bridget was away for a
00:52:07
girls weekend and and she was telling me Oh we're just having a gin and I went
00:52:12
I'm home with the boys we're watching a movie I think I'll have a gin and I
00:52:16
actually think it backfired on me and at midnight I'm having this massive anxiety
00:52:21
attack can't go to sleep because of all these things that are going on and I
00:52:25
went oh no I was at the Gin well yeah it probably was you know yeah people talk about um a thing called
00:52:32
anxiety which usually happens the day after drinking well there you go I but that was a few hours I see you didn't
00:52:38
even get to enjoy the uh the bars of intoxication all no I hated it I boy if anything underlined the fact you've done
00:52:44
the right thing it was that having that gin i' sudden woke up the next morning
00:52:48
go that was it I'm not going to have the social gin anymore um so you think you're off the booze now oh I had four
00:52:54
months I haven't even thought twice about it I feel years younger yeah yeah yeah it's great well what's the biggest
00:52:59
difference everyone talks about the sleep how your sleep improves oh God last night I think I slept about 10 or
00:53:04
11 hours um I woke up this morning going I hope I it felt like I'd slept for two
00:53:09
days it was fantastic but uh yeah great sleep um uh also just funny enough that you get a lot of sort of aches I think
00:53:19
it's just the alcohol in your body you wake up and go oh my God I'm achy what's
00:53:22
that about and I and that's all gone uh so oh like inflammation or something
00:53:27
maybe yeah I think so yeah yeah it might be sort of inflammation I'm sure the
00:53:31
liver hates alcohol I don't think I'm the first to realize that yes some doctors say that I
00:53:37
think they do that it's a theory um yeah I'm I'm yeah I'm constantly I I love my
00:53:42
red wines P pen on Wes in particular I'm constantly like re-evaluating and reassessing my relationship with alcohol
00:53:47
because I know I drink more than what I should and yeah do you go to I I love it
00:53:51
when you go to the doctor and the and you going for I go for an annual checkup you know you do at my age and um and the
00:53:57
doctor will say to you and how many standard drinks would you have a week and firstly you're saying to yourself oh
00:54:02
my God how big is a standard drink I've got no idea I know it's not my poor um
00:54:09
you know you that that I I stopped using a nip measure a long time ago and uh and
00:54:14
you you and so they know too that you're thinking this and so you go um uh six
00:54:21
and you know the doctor's going that's 12 if nobody is telling the truth
00:54:27
about their consumption and a standard drink yes as I said I'm a Wine Drinker
00:54:31
um if you go to a restaurant um yeah the sort of poor they give you in a wine glass it's a standard drink and it's
00:54:36
like a you're like what is this it's well you know you they give you that
00:54:39
they have that big glass and they give you they give you the standard drink and you go no I don't want to taste it I
00:54:44
want to drink it you go they go no no that's the poor you're thinking that's
00:54:48
that's that taste you do when you sort of put it in your mouth swi it around
00:54:50
and spit it out suddenly you realize oh the the the glass sizes I'm having at
00:54:55
home that's definitely more one standard drink oh that's good yeah no one no one
00:54:59
who gives up alcohol um ever sort of regret sort of misses a day like every single person that you speak to that's
00:55:05
giving up alcohol the I'm not I I've mentioned it only because I think it uh
00:55:10
you were talking about things like that but I'm I don't preach it you know I'm
00:55:13
quite happy to say to someone I did it um I don't tell everyone else they have
00:55:17
to do it you know it's it's your own decision it's much easier when it's your
00:55:20
own decision yeah yeah yeah I love that and I mean if anyone chooses to become like an anti antio Crusader like you
00:55:27
know fair play to them as well but um yeah as long as you're doing it just for
00:55:31
you I suppose that's yeah well it's a danger of the workplace you know where I
00:55:34
work um I've got to be careful I don't drink the profit and so uh in a way it's good and
00:55:40
I turned up at work the other night and I said to cam the bman um he he said the
00:55:45
usual and I said look could you boil the kettle I've bought a licorice tea bag
00:55:48
I'm going to have a licorice tea well did that c that was a good joke that got
00:55:52
a lot of laughter that night right that one down um yeah when you walked into pod lab today we we offered you a drink
00:56:00
and you gave us your coffee coffee and tea schedule so you got um two coffees before midday it's very very structured
00:56:07
two coffees before midday Y and then three teas one one first thing in the morning that's the lemon and ginger this
00:56:13
is going to sound weird um an Irish Breakfast at about 3 in the afternoon and a licorice tea at around about 8
00:56:19
9:00 at night you ever mix it up and you know I do look the licorice tea friends
00:56:24
of mine drink licorice tea and they drink it day and I go no no no licorice tea is too exotic that's an evening tea
00:56:31
you can't drink Exotic Tea in the middle of the day that's like having a wine at
00:56:35
midday and they just look at me like I'm some sort of weird Nutter I think so I
00:56:39
like to savor my licorice tea at night uh now we're talking teas we're just
00:56:44
we're going to be changing the world out there do just just a couple of Boomers a
00:56:48
couple of Boomers talking about our cup of tea habits yeah um also what does like an average um average day or week
00:56:53
look like now like how how many times a week are you at the class I try and go I'll be there a couple of times a week
00:56:58
at least um and I do work some shifts like uh my staff all have um we tend to employ creative people so a lot of them
00:57:05
um are currently in their exam periods at University I've got two kids who are
00:57:10
at the South Seas Film School we've employed a lot of people from the South Seas film school over the years a lot of
00:57:15
people from the mains music school when it was running uh also just University students and um they all have their exam
00:57:21
season so while their exam seasons on I tend to be covering shifts front of house I don't do bar shifts I don't
00:57:28
pretend I know how to pour a drink um so I I'll I'll I can manage the place and I
00:57:32
can do front of house um so I sometimes can be there two or three nights a week and then there'll be another week where
00:57:38
I don't go there at all yeah and are you when the comedians are on like are you
00:57:43
busy working but keeping an ear on them or are you watching them yeah they say when they hear me laughing they know
00:57:48
that's going wrong that's a big joke in the club that if if you can hear me
00:57:52
laughing in the club probably only me laughing the comedian on stage know whoop W I've just done something wrong
00:57:59
oh CU it means no one in the crowd is laughing and no but it's often because
00:58:02
the comedians gone and done some of their best material and misdelivered it and mistimed it and hasn't got the laugh
00:58:09
they were expecting and there's nothing funnier than looking at a comedian's
00:58:12
face trying to carry on from a point where they've just delivered one of their great punch lines and no one's
00:58:17
laughed and and and you go and I'm at the back in his sterics watching it go
00:58:21
wrong and they go oh no he was watching oh god um but I I sometimes just keep my
00:58:27
ear out that's sometimes I don't have to sit because I'm really lucky people go
00:58:31
how do you know what's funny and particularly you know I I I I admit at 65 how am I going to know that that a
00:58:38
comedy that a 20 25 year old is doing is funny because they're going to say well
00:58:42
you know you're not in touch with that generation but I don't have to be
00:58:46
because I've made sure there's a room full of people doing that job for me so
00:58:50
I can sit at the back of the room and just listen to the crowd and the crowd do not lie and I've told the comedians
00:58:56
there are so many different types of laughter there's the laughter of pity which comes from an audience going oh
00:59:02
they're trying hard you know we'll give them a bit of pity laughs and you know
00:59:06
and it's painful and then there but it's the Applause breaks it's the
00:59:10
uncontrollable laughter that that culminates in an Applause break no audience will give an Applause Break um
00:59:17
uh that's planned they that'll be the bit they didn't know was coming that's
00:59:22
when they'll applaud a comedian so you're listening often for Applause breaks and those Applause breaks will
00:59:27
filter through the floors and through the walls I don't even have to be sitting in the room I could be sitting
00:59:31
in the front bar and alsoo all of a sudden you hear there's massive Applause
00:59:35
break coming from the venue and you know that comedian has just really [Music] killed does anyone do that real early on
00:59:45
you you do your raw comedy nights like is you must have seen people over the years that come along and they just kill
00:59:51
it immediately and you just know they've got something special they are the legends there are people who take two
00:59:56
years of raw comedy to even get close to getting it right and then we've got
00:59:59
comedians who turn up and do one heat and they from that heat they make the semi-finals they get through the
01:00:07
semi-finals they go to the final and on an odd occasion that person will win the
01:00:11
raw comedy quest with their third gig it's happened I think twice mare um won
01:00:17
it in 2011 with his third gig in that final were people like Pac CII Eli matthewson Tim bat James R um Sam Smith
01:00:29
who does a lot of TV andz comedy work yeah co-winner of the um the the traitor last year as well all of them were in
01:00:35
that final M third gig won the quest um and he now lives in the states still does a bit of Comedy he's got a big
01:00:42
management company he manages talent in Los Angeles now um so uh Mo's one um
01:00:48
I've had a few Joel McCarthy keep an eye on him he made the finals he didn't win
01:00:53
it but he made the final with about his third or fourth gig um and he's in the
01:00:57
Comedy Festival next year at the classic Melanie bracewell she won the RO comedy
01:01:02
Quest and her career is just gone taken off now yeah can yeah do you have to be funny to be a good comedian or is this
01:01:10
some people that you've seen that are like um total [ __ ] but they've had a
01:01:14
really good work ethic um and a really good attitude and they've uh taught themselves funny yeah at the two ends of
01:01:19
the spectrum there are the people who are great writers and you you can be watching them on stage and go that was a
01:01:24
really nicely written bit of Comedy but not performed very well at the other end
01:01:30
of the spectrum you've got natural performers with huge stage presence but lacking a bit of material and on the odd
01:01:37
occasion we put those two parties together we go you need to talk to them and you need to talk to that one sit
01:01:42
down work together and that happens so the person with all the presence and can learn a bit of craft from a good writer
01:01:51
and the person with the CRA with the craft can learn a little bit from the person with the Performing ability and
01:01:56
the presence um so you you it's great and then some people just have enough of
01:02:01
either to move ahead you know they've got both things yeah have you ever had
01:02:06
to have a petty conversation with someone where you pull them aside and say listen you know you've been coming
01:02:10
here every Wednesday night for the last four years it's just not going to it's
01:02:14
not getting better it's not going to work I I think um I've don't I've never
01:02:18
told someone to stop yeah uh uh but I think they get most people when they been gigging for quite a while they get
01:02:27
to understand the rhythms of how the classic is programmed and how I produce and they will soon glean from that where
01:02:35
they sit in the greater scheme of things and they will realize they don't necessarily sit in the the professional
01:02:43
um going next level group okay cuz they're not moving through the ranks or the you see comedians going next level
01:02:50
and sometimes you'll see a young comedian go next level and there'll be another Bunch who started before that
01:02:55
comedian going hold it how come they're getting ahead particularly you know the
01:03:00
benchmarks in the industry like they're getting nominated for a billy award how
01:03:03
come they're getting ahead how come I'm not getting ahead and I think the
01:03:07
realization might just filter through oh maybe it's me you know then it's not the
01:03:12
industry ganging up on me it's me not realizing that I just I can't go next
01:03:17
level because I just haven't quite got the gear I haven't quite got the performance that's going to take me
01:03:22
there that doesn't stop you performing because we have lots of different you
01:03:26
can perform at and I've got hobby comedians people who have perfectly good day jobs who never attend to tour the
01:03:32
world they you know they've got families they've got day jobs neither of which
01:03:36
they want to sacrifice at all but they just love doing comedy and they they will perform regularly they just may
01:03:42
never headline or they may never may never do their own one hour show in The Comedy Festival and they're happy with
01:03:48
that they are happy with that because their number one pleasure is getting on stage and making people laugh quite
01:03:53
frankly I don't know many comedians that do it for the money they do it for that
01:03:58
beautiful moment when the audience is laughing at something that they've crafted and constructed and performed
01:04:03
themselves and you know that is that's gold for people yeah that feeds the soul
01:04:08
yeah you you have very few do it for the money but um you you almost single-handedly have created a pathway
01:04:15
where it is a career option for some people you know what I mean yeah um about the best I pay as rent money you
01:04:20
know I would tell you probably never buy a house from the money you earn from the
01:04:23
classic but by that stage if you if you're a headliner at the classic you're
01:04:27
already moving on to the to the to the big pain gigs um things like podcast Dom like you're doing you those are the big
01:04:33
pain gigs um and and all those TV shows that you see people doing um you know that M guy Montgomery his career in the
01:04:41
last year or so has just gone through the roof you know the with the guy Montgomery spelling be there's a prime
01:04:47
example of someone who came through raw comedy I don't know if guy made the F he
01:04:51
might have made the final I thinking back when that was he might have made the final didn't win it he was he was
01:04:57
took a while to just find his comedy voice that's the hard part finding your
01:05:01
voice and when they find it they really start to work and then he just started opening doors and then he he took the
01:05:09
move to Australia he got management over there he did the guy Montgomery spelling
01:05:13
be here recently it got picked up by Australian TV he's performed it live in
01:05:17
the UK now wouldn't be surprised if the UK are looking at it as well so yeah
01:05:23
yeah I I saw an I was in Sydney in September I saw an said that on TV and it was [ __ ] good yeah it was really
01:05:28
good great series because it's not about being comedian it's not about comedians
01:05:33
it's about spilling yeah oh know it was incredible um so are there many people
01:05:38
like him where you you know you're not you're not sort of thinking to yourself
01:05:43
that guy's got something that guy's going to be the next big thing no I I I
01:05:47
would never pretend to say that that I had uh everything to do with guy Montgomery success at all is that all I
01:05:53
did was provide him with a stage to try and develop what he was doing which is all I do is I put them on the stage some
01:05:59
of them become more commercially viable some of them move on to headliner and you know you can you can pay them for
01:06:04
doing 30 minutes and closing a show other times you're just paying them for 10 or 15 minute spots obviously that's
01:06:10
slightly less money um but all you're doing is giving them the stage what they
01:06:14
do with it after that I I can't be too responsible for where they go after the
01:06:18
classic guys done a brilliant job of taking himself Next Level Next Level and Next Level again um there are some
01:06:26
comedians who have left New Zealand and gone to the UK and all they're doing is
01:06:29
working the pro circuit in the UK but of course the pro circuit in the UK there are hundreds of classics there's not
01:06:35
just one classic like we've got in New Zealand there are hundreds of Classics
01:06:39
you can be doing comedy four nights a week um doing headliner or well pained spots all over the UK and making a good
01:06:48
living out of it yeah how long do you think the uh average sort of apprenticeship is like how how many five
01:06:54
years 5 years 5 years before you can probably expect to be a regular Pro um it can be up to 10 years before you'll
01:07:00
make a headliner probably eight years I've had some good people who made became Headliners um and and sometimes
01:07:07
people don't realize how long comedians have been in the industry they go God
01:07:10
they're an overnight success story and I'll go actually they did the raw comedy
01:07:14
Quest 10 years ago it's the the iceberg isn't it yeah you see the bit out of the
01:07:18
water but you see yeah um okay well let's run through some names and um um if there's a story about the first
01:07:26
impression of these people let me know Guy Williams yeah well I mean guy uh he is an unusual person and as he's turned
01:07:33
out and he's admitted more recently in his comedy you know um neurodiverse not
01:07:39
something that he was aware of years ago something he's discovered and uh it
01:07:43
might account for some of the crazy comedy that he has done um so he is he's
01:07:49
not uh he can be an acquired taste for some audiences um he seems to poiz people but that's not necessarily his
01:07:57
Live Comedy work that's done that tends to more be his television work and he
01:08:01
seems to have audiences that love hate him um sometimes it's really cool to see
01:08:06
a live audience come and see him and you can hear people afterwards go oh he's
01:08:10
nothing like he is on TV he's actually he's really funny here isn't he uh Rose
01:08:14
Meto yeah well Rose was in the Raw comedy Quest I think she was runner up her year um and so she did a little bit
01:08:21
of Comedy but she's typical of she wasn't really a classic stand-up iian
01:08:25
she did a bit of work but she wasn't as comfortable on a standup stage as she
01:08:31
was on a theater stage so she started to do a lot more of her comedy and theater
01:08:35
but she took off to the UK and that's where her career has taken off she hadn't made the same inroads here before
01:08:41
she left New Zealand no I think she was doing like some sketches and stuff on John on Ben before going to the UK and
01:08:48
then again that was all essential experience I mean she should look back and she won't resent those years she'll
01:08:53
call those basic training and she got to the UK with some skills but also she's
01:08:58
far more exotic in the UK than she is in New Zealand and that's often the case
01:09:03
that a New Zealand comedian is just like oh yeah we've got lots of those here and
01:09:06
then they go to a foreign market and they're they're really exotic you know
01:09:10
in the UK the New Zealand accent and the New Zealand personality um um Celio Sullivan who won our raw comedy Quest I
01:09:17
think back in about 2000 um yeah around he was an early winner and he's in the UK now and also
01:09:23
around Europe touring show called the idiots guide to New Zealand and um and it's a live show that takes advantage of
01:09:32
all the crazy idiosyncrasies of been a New Zealander and it's a 60-minute live
01:09:36
show which he's done at the Edinburgh Fringe now for two or three years and that's a what a great show for a kiwi to
01:09:42
do in a place like Europe or England where everyone's craving odd information
01:09:47
about New Zealand who would have thought there was a market for it there is okay
01:09:52
um Ben Hurley first impressions of him oh Ben's got a great story because he
01:09:57
was in he never even went through the raw comedy Quest because back when he started doing comedy there was a thing
01:10:02
called pulp comedy the TV series actually did 13 series on television initially with Mike King hosting um Paul
01:10:09
ego hosted a few Brendan loveg Gro hosted a couple um Ben Hurley came along and within a a year or two of of
01:10:17
starting he skipped the raw comedy Quest and got straight onto pulp comedy the TV
01:10:21
show for the three minute opening spot like the the new faces slot but the rule was if you done pulp comedy the TV show
01:10:28
you couldn't enter the raw comedy Quest so he hosted the grand final of the raw
01:10:32
comedy Quest a couple of weeks ago uh and one of the things he told the audience is he told them that story he
01:10:38
said I didn't even have to do this I went straight to television of course he
01:10:42
would of course he' say that he's an outlier though right like yeah yeah um
01:10:48
Ura cson yep another one who her she started late the year she began she was working in advertising um she did the
01:10:56
raw comedy Quest but she had a little bit to learn so she she made it to the final on about her maybe her third gig
01:11:04
so she went through the did a couple of Heats did the semi-finals she made it to
01:11:07
the final but she didn't win it um but by the end of the following year she was
01:11:13
a full-time Pro comedian so she didn't have to wait long she was just on such a
01:11:18
fast track um if she had entered the raw comedy Quest the following year she would have walked away with it uh but
01:11:24
she carried on really quickly to become a full-time Pro comedian and she left advertising yeah phenomenal so um yeah
01:11:31
from South Africa moved to New Zealand and advertising just thought she'd give
01:11:35
comedy obviously I don't know maybe people had told her she was funny and she should give it a go but a lot of
01:11:39
people would hear that and it doesn't have the same outcome well no because we
01:11:43
we get a lot of people from advertising entering the Roy comedy Quest copywriters now copywriters just
01:11:48
naturally you know they're writing funny lines or great copy all the time that's
01:11:52
what their job is but not all of them are natural perform perers so sometimes they'll come along going I write the
01:11:57
funniest lines they all make it to TV and you go yeah but can you stand on stage and deliver them and not always
01:12:03
the case and sometimes their ego works against them I think the advertising advertising industry does a good job of
01:12:10
inflating the egos of some of their creatives oh so if the audience doesn't laugh at there's something wrong with
01:12:14
the audience rather yeah yeah and they and they they don't really can't aren't
01:12:19
prepared to open themselves up to that kind of judgment from a bunch of amateurs in the audience what do you
01:12:24
guys know what would you know you be a Maya pay me quarter of a million a year to write these I can't think of like um
01:12:31
many many other Industries where you know there's that saying the customer's
01:12:34
always right in standup comedy like the customer is always right they laugh or they don't right one of the most
01:12:40
essential things with open mics is not to have open mics with an audience full of comedians unfortunately that's often
01:12:45
what happens so one of my major goals when I first started out doing the raw comedy Quest I said the most important
01:12:52
thing is to make sure we have a real audience that's not just an audience full of comedians judging the comedians
01:12:58
on stage you got to have real punters so that the comedians have honest feedback
01:13:03
from a live audience that um helps them direct them yeah um oh just a thought so
01:13:10
there's a few female names I've read out there um and I'm guessing you and the
01:13:14
classic have had like quite a big job in educating audiences that women are funny
01:13:19
and women can be funny um and would that be a fair thing to say like before the classic came along there was maybe the
01:13:25
top twins who else uh well when we first started the classic we we'd growing out
01:13:29
of kitty O'Brien's Tavern which we've been using for 5 years down there at
01:13:32
Victoria Park markets um and we had I'm thinking three comedians we four uh three or four we had Michelle a court um
01:13:42
the the fabulous Cal Wilson who unfortunately passed away last year rest in peace yeah and um Jan Marie uh and
01:13:49
Jack Tweety and you couldn't think of four more diverse ladies in for very different styles um but
01:13:58
Michelle was probably the first uh and she was pregnant with her daughter during those years um and so she told
01:14:05
all the stories and we support you know the the the the comedians that were around really um helped her and
01:14:12
supported her and also basically taught the audience how to behave Michelle was very good at taking care of herself she
01:14:18
always has been um but she knew that she was a rare breed um so we had to very slowly educate our audiences that yeah
01:14:28
uh New Zealand woman are funny not just New Zealand woman all sorts of diversity
01:14:33
now can be seen on our stages the my goal is that I don't want to be seen doing what I call positive um diversity
01:14:40
programming which is I don't put a female comedian on a lineup because oh gosh we've got to have a female comedian
01:14:47
on the lineup or we have to have someone who's diverse in any way um persons of
01:14:52
color neurodiverse I want every one of them to be on the lineup because they deserve to be there because they're
01:14:58
funny enough to be there it's not a very powerful thing for a female comedian if
01:15:03
for some reason they think they're on the lineup because they're female that's
01:15:06
that's a not a strong position to be coming from every one of them wants to go the reason I'm on this comedian is
01:15:11
because I'm on this show is because I'm as funny as everyone else on the show
01:15:16
and that is really important that myself and the industry uh working along those
01:15:21
lines so that the audiences are been told no this is not a show about quota this is a show about quality and
01:15:28
everyone on this lineup is quality I love that that's a very brave thing to say though yeah no I I tell you what
01:15:34
it's easy in my business I find it easy at the classic because that's my head
01:15:39
yeah you know that's the only way I operate it's not necessarily the way all
01:15:43
parts of the industry operate yeah I've actually heard Seinfeld in an interview
01:15:47
say a similar thing similar sort of phrasing to that um let's run through another another few names and the first
01:15:53
impressions of them um Dy Henwood yeah well D's hilarious D wasn't a stand-up comedian so he
01:16:02
appeared from Wellington um this crazy Little Theater boy um Turned Up from Wellington to Oakland came up to Kitty
01:16:08
O'Brien's did he enter the Royal comedy Quest he might have um he turned up um
01:16:14
the son of people from Court theater you know he was a theater boy um he didn't
01:16:21
really know what stand-up comedy was but he went on stage and just did die you know and character stuff all character
01:16:27
stuff um he kept on doing that he came came up with um P Funk chainsaw which was dler pro wrestler um that's what he
01:16:34
did on the Classic Stage when it first opened P Funk chainsaw just for diversity he came up with um John the
01:16:40
bank teller so he was a bank teller from paliston North I think um that was his other character uh and all
01:16:47
character-based never just real die on stage and it started to become a the albatross around
01:16:56
his neck this character stuff he was trapped in character and uh and I I remember talking to him about it and
01:17:03
saying look to to get Next Level you're going to have to be yourself um you know
01:17:09
you these characters are like a fourth wall it's like you between him and the
01:17:14
audience with these characters we want to see real die and um and he started to do that so I thought okay what he's
01:17:23
really good with is talking to the crowd so I gave him um one night he hosted a raw comedy Quest heat um Ben Hurley was
01:17:31
supposed to be hosting that heat but he didn't uh for some reason Ben cancelled
01:17:36
I said well I'll get D at short notice give him a crack at hosting a raw comedy
01:17:39
Quest heat um in the Heats that night was a young boy from Channel 4 C4 TV and one of the presenters from C4 uh and so
01:17:50
Andrew Schusterman who we all you know in the industry shy shy bought the staff along to watch their boy compete in the
01:17:57
Raw comedy Quest shushy didn't come to the classic very often if at all he's
01:18:01
sitting at a table in the audience waiting for his guy to come on D Henwood comes out hosts um the show and shy went
01:18:08
oh who's this guy I could use that and he gave Dy his first TV series insert
01:18:15
video here that was that was it dy's whole life whole career changed in that
01:18:21
one moment when Ben Hurley didn't turn up and D hinwood did and shy Saum so there you have a single moment where D's
01:18:29
life turned on a dive like that and thankfully it was a happy ending for being hly as well well didn't managed to
01:18:34
carry on yeah yeah but that was incredible I love that story because I often tell comedians you never know
01:18:40
who's going to be in the room so do not turn down a gig no matter how ordinary
01:18:45
the gig might be if someone says hey come along um do a spot you never know who's in the room and whether they could
01:18:50
make a difference yeah yeah it's funny completely different industry but um a few weeks ago on the podcast I had um
01:18:56
Christian Kullen the former all black on the podcast and he said the same sort of
01:19:00
thing and he said it's a message he gives to his kids all the time like you never know who's watching and the
01:19:04
example he gave is uh one of his first um games he was playing for horof fena against counties and this was when joner
01:19:10
was playing and he said his team was down by like 100 pound but he managed to either I don't
01:19:17
know tackle Jonah or score a triy whatever and one of the old black selectors was there and they saw him and
01:19:21
they saw some promise so even though his team was getting their ass CED uh that's
01:19:24
that's exactly the cas you know you never know who's watching um it's a
01:19:29
great lesson about don't phone it in because you might just screw things up if you found it in yeah um what about re
01:19:37
stby oh crazy was so he he's got a military background did he do some comedy in Christ Church or was his first
01:19:43
stuff at the uh we went to in the mid90s um before we opened the classic uh we were producing the comedy at kitty
01:19:51
O'Brien's we went down uh um we took Mike King Andrew Clay on a tour to Christ Church and we also took Brendan
01:19:59
lovegrove um sugar and spice comedy duo and Tay RAR and I think Jack Tweety so we talked the youngsters of comedy and
01:20:06
these two mainstream Headliners um King and clay and we put on shows some at court theater for the youngsters and in
01:20:13
the pubs and clubs for Mike and Andrew and we thought while we were there let's
01:20:17
have a open mic comedy competition and one kid turned up who was in the army or just maybe just coming out of the army
01:20:26
who um who did Frank Spencer impersonations so his whole thing was dressing up in Frank Spenser from some
01:20:33
mothers do have him and just basically doing oh bet some mothers do have him on stage and that was the first time we
01:20:40
ever saw Rees Darby and sure enough he carried on doing that sort of stuff moved to ockland you never knew where to
01:20:47
put Rees Derby because he wasn't a standup comedian he was sort of this weird hybrid of theater and standup Lots
01:20:54
lot of character lots of noises and sound effects yeah robots jetpacks dinosaurs honestly we you didn't know
01:21:01
quite know where to put Reese in the lineup you couldn't open with them it was too odd you couldn't close with them
01:21:06
it wasn't headline it was somewhere in the middle but it was a welcome change
01:21:10
of pace so you've got six or seven standup comedians on a bill there's nothing better than chucking something
01:21:15
at the audience which freshens the pallet halfway through the show that was Reese you'd throw them out there the
01:21:20
audience go what the hell was that bits of it were hilarious and then but then Reese went on he went to the Edinburgh
01:21:26
finge and did shows there but what he had done has got to know Flight of the Concords and so when fight of the
01:21:33
Concords did their TV series they made reys um Murray the manager oh yeah and the um and the BBC Radio series they did
01:21:42
before that yeah well that's the thing they did the radio series they went they
01:21:46
the fly of coods went to The edur Fringe that Reese was there at the same time doing his Oddball thing down the road
01:21:52
Flight of the Concords were buried in a basement venue that dripped water from the ceiling no no one knew who flood of
01:21:57
the Concords W they had never been to Edinburgh no one rated them nothing and then all of a sudden Daniel kitson who
01:22:05
was a comedian's comedian started talking about Flight of the Concords and the reviewer from chal went along to uh
01:22:13
chle was a website that and that it was new back then but it was reviewing comedy shows the reviewer from chal went
01:22:18
along and went into the room to watch Flight of the Concords and he said in his review he said I knew I was a about
01:22:24
to see something special because over half the room were British comedians there's no way all those comedians would
01:22:32
go to a show unless they knew it was the thing to see in Edinburgh and sure enough that year flood of the Concords
01:22:38
just took off the BBC approached them about radio series they went yep and then and they said and the they went
01:22:45
through the script and they said okay we need a manager uh as part of the storyline and the BBC wanted to cast a
01:22:52
British comedian as the manager and of the Concord said no we've got the manager it's Rees from New Zealand um
01:22:59
and they went oh no no no he no one knows him we need names we need some famous people in the series because
01:23:04
you're unknown Flight of the Concords just put their foot down said no Reese
01:23:09
will be the manager and when the same thing happened when they made the TV series they said uh because it was made
01:23:16
in America and um HB yeah we got we've got to have some got to have some famous
01:23:20
faces in it and Flight of the Concords once again put their foot down no ree Darby will be the manager and you know
01:23:28
he's never looked back I love that so much they've um they obviously always
01:23:31
had that because um yeah before they went to to the UK uh TV and Z were looking at doing a show with them yes um
01:23:38
and they oh that's great that's that's gold comedy gold in New Zealand I won't
01:23:42
try and tell the you try and tell the story oh no there was just it was just it's always a famous story about how New
01:23:47
Zealand television is never ahead of the the game yeah uh and how the famous people sort of they're like they always
01:23:53
miss out which is n strictly true but that was a big one yeah I think the executives at TV and Z wanted to like
01:23:58
rewrite it or do something differently and they look the series they were offering was a typical TV sketch Series
01:24:05
where Flight of the Concords would have been sort of a sidebar characters in a with a lot of other comedians doing
01:24:11
sketches it wouldn't have been the show they made in New York yeah this was probably the time of
01:24:17
um like Peak uh cultural cringe in New Zealand with with comedy like how how do you think we shock that we we shock
01:24:27
that remember this only only too well like it was um I don't know there was something about comedy on New Zealand TV
01:24:33
like it was kind of kind of cringy or we felt embarrassed about our comedy you know how you Chang that yeah keep on
01:24:41
doing the same thing for 30 years eventually the generation that doesn't think New Zealand comedy is
01:24:47
funny will retire if not die um and a new generation will become the employers of New Zealand comedy and the new
01:24:56
generation are raised in an environment where there is a home of Live Comedy where there are New Zealand comedians
01:25:01
touring all the time where there was a Comedy Festival on that's that's all
01:25:05
that happened the generation that didn't think New Zealand comedians were funny
01:25:08
moved on and their kids and a newer generation took over and they love New Zealand comedy yeah I love that hey just
01:25:16
looping back to the the the Wellington guys so talking about um Flight of the conqu before and I suppose we can lump
01:25:22
um tiger into that set as well did you have much to do with do they were they classic kids or was Wellington a
01:25:28
completely differentt definitely was a different breeding ground for comedy I love it outside the gene pool of Oakland
01:25:33
comedy so Wellington and Christ Church otago they all create their own kinds of comedians because they different genetic
01:25:39
pool I mean the the um uh the tyer and Germaine were part of a sketch group um and they bounced out of that scratch
01:25:49
group and tyer and Germaine did um The Untold Tales of Mai which was such a funny show and I produced that in the
01:25:57
Comedy Festival at the herald theater here that bought it up from Wellington put it on there um and uh it just got
01:26:04
such a great reaction and it was just another Launchpad for those guys I mean they quickly moved on um and tier's
01:26:11
career took off but he was never a stand-up comedian tyer was a real he was as odd if not more odd than Reese Darby
01:26:18
his standup was well he was an anti-st standup so what he would do is destructure the art form he would
01:26:25
deliberately break all the rules well guess what he does in Hollywood deliberately breaks all the rules so
01:26:31
that's taer shtick he he looks around sees what everyone else is doing and then goes great my opportunity here is
01:26:36
to change this and that's what he is a game changer yeah actually since we're
01:26:40
on him um I heard you or read you in an interview talking about um what you've
01:26:44
done with the classic like I think the phrase you use was something like creating a good room yeah um and and
01:26:49
then you explained what a bad room was and I saw him maybe 10 years ago 12 years ago I don't know hosting the vone
01:26:56
newand music awards and he completely bombed ter it was terrible but it's um
01:27:00
yeah the problem was not tier it was the room the wrong Environ I hate corporate
01:27:04
gigs that's a corporate gig yeah yeah no it's um because that no one in the room
01:27:09
has invested in the show they're all there to feed their own Egos and win prizes it's really hard to the the best
01:27:15
thing you can possibly try and do is not be funny and that's Corbett's advice you
01:27:19
know Jeremy Corbett would would succeed on a gig like that before anyone else because Jeremy always said the last
01:27:25
thing you want to do is look like you're trying to be funny what you have to do
01:27:28
is connect to the audience um and then when you're funny it's least expected so
01:27:33
corporate comedies in Minefield best to stay away from what you do want very simply is you want everyone in the room
01:27:38
watching you want everyone in the room being able to hear the show you don't
01:27:42
want dog legs in the room with audience members hidden around a corner anything like that everyone in the room and most
01:27:48
importantly the people in the room have invested in the show in some way the obvious thing is a $5 $10 15 20 $30
01:27:55
price whatever as long as they've paid something to be in the room they've
01:27:59
generally made a commitment to watch the show yeah yeah I love that that's so good and
01:28:05
um yeah Jeremy Corbett uh potentially one of the most like a lot of people listening to this or watching this will
01:28:12
just know him as the guy from seven days yeah um but he's phenomenal on stage
01:28:16
I've been in situations where I've been like out at dinner with him and then you
01:28:19
know 20 minutes 30 minutes after the meal he's on stage and he's just so
01:28:23
relaxed he talking about some of the stuff that happened over dinner Andy just like so relaxed on stage think of
01:28:30
what a survivor in a changing media World Corbett is because he came out of University um uh graduated from
01:28:38
University with alongside the facial dbx boys came to ockland um he got a job as
01:28:44
a roving reporter on one of the regional news shows doing funny bits to which of
01:28:50
course lots of people have done since but that was his thing I think I remember that Clark be on um on one of
01:28:56
Julie Christie shows I think was there that's right and and so he did that he
01:29:00
he got onto radio so very quickly got onto the mor FM breakfast show where and mor FM breakfast kept him well employed
01:29:08
what for 15 years com K Corbett and and and Corbett and ego Paul ego ended up on
01:29:14
that show um Jeremy is one of the you know you talk a real Survivor in a changing media world because even in the
01:29:21
last 12 months You' go wow we we haven't seen the the um changes like we have in
01:29:27
the last 12 months to New Zealand media but guess what shows still going next year and guess who the host of that show
01:29:33
still is next year yeah so there you go so he's still there and uh still totally chill about
01:29:41
it yeah totally laidback yeah yeah the the most lovely laid-back guy and such good attitude like I remember a
01:29:47
conversation I had with him about radio one day and I think had just signed like
01:29:50
a three or 5e contract for Mor FM and I I said to him something like that God aren you that's a long time to lock it
01:29:56
in aren't you worried like and I was like what if you get sick of it in a year or two years and he's like well
01:30:02
it's a contract but you know it's performance-based contract so ultimately
01:30:05
like if I don't if I don't want to be there then I can be a real pain in the
01:30:08
ass if I want to be yeah I thought oh that's really cool I never thought about
01:30:12
it that way yeah um what are your thoughts on um like woke culture and cancel culture well again that sort of
01:30:20
comes back to the whole diversity thing in comedy as well I don't think you you
01:30:24
don't want to be doing positive woke programming positive woke material um you want it to be there because it suits
01:30:32
the audience and Suits the show like it it's just part of the show and it's
01:30:37
amazing how if you tell an audience you're going to go to a woke comedy show
01:30:41
they'll go you'll get half the people who go finally I can go to a woke comedy
01:30:45
show and the other half of the audience are going the last thing I want to do is
01:30:48
go to a woke comedy show and you've got so now if you don't tell anyone that's a
01:30:53
woke comy show but you just educate the comedians who are pretty sharp people that they'll soon work out what
01:31:00
content's going to work and what not what you want to make sure is that the audience they're performing to is a good
01:31:04
cross-section of people that you would find in society today which means you've
01:31:09
got the whole audience monitoring each other and I've seen hilarious situations
01:31:14
where there's one table in the room who get offended by a comedian on stage on
01:31:19
behalf of another table in the room but the other table's going uh no we don't
01:31:24
need you to get offended on our behalf we don't mind this this is funny and the
01:31:29
people who are going well we you should be offended by it they go no I think that's for us to decide we can decide
01:31:35
for ourselves what's funny and what's not we don't need to be told by other
01:31:40
members of the audience we're quite bright and that's the way comedy should
01:31:44
be it'll be everyone gets to make up their own mind no one is told what they
01:31:48
can and cannot laugh at yeah and if you don't want to see a certain comedian
01:31:52
don't complain about them just don't pay money and don't go and see them yeah
01:31:56
what are your thoughts on um I mean this is topical at the moment by the time this episode comes out it'll be old news
01:32:02
but um Tony hinchliff and um his joke at uh Donald Trump's conference the Pu is
01:32:08
that is that a bad room wasn't even funny joke no I I didn't actually see it
01:32:11
as a joke it looked like a um it looked like a statement of um sort of I know demographic statement he was sort of
01:32:19
going oh these are the kind of people that I think live in Puerto Rico you go but that's not funny
01:32:24
and also he Wasing down so Golden Rule and comedy don't punch down particularly
01:32:29
if you're Donald Trump who doesn't know any other way but to punch down or punch
01:32:33
anyone he doesn't punch down he punches everywhere at once um but then don't
01:32:37
employ he says he had no idea who this guy was and he' had no idea he was going
01:32:41
to be on the bill [ __ ] you know there's no way Donald Trump just yeah put anyone on before me I don't care you
01:32:47
guaranteed he knew exactly what was going on there um but I didn't think the
01:32:51
guy was funny no he he is very funny though have you heard of kill Tony kill Tony it's like a I heard of it not I've
01:32:58
seen it's like a 60c comedy that him yeah oh okay right K Tony yeah know he's
01:33:02
he's he's one of like Joe Rogan sort of protes or whatever he's very good so I
01:33:06
wanted I mean that was a bad line but uh I thought maybe that's an example of a
01:33:11
bad room as well uh you well like a comedian on stage at uh I mean political rallies is that the right place to put a
01:33:18
comedian on you're not there for the laughs I don't think um are there any
01:33:23
Twins and comedy um that you see coming through now that excite you um well we just had a raw comedy Quest recently and
01:33:30
um and it really put a kick in my step you know I've done 30 years of raw comedy quests and I've seen some that
01:33:37
were like oh yeah that great winner great winner but boy not a lot of depth this year and um and I was thinking this
01:33:43
year I was going oh God how much depth have we got and then I saw the final and I went oh my God that was one of the
01:33:49
best finals I have seen in years and I've gone ahead and I've nearly every
01:33:54
particularly local Oakland based comedian that was in the final I've already organized the next two or three
01:33:58
months of Comedy including the winner and you talk about about woke or whatever um the winner was a very n very
01:34:07
neurodiverse autistic boy Jasper who's just a revelation because he doesn't
01:34:13
know what he's going to do the audience certainly don't know what he's going to
01:34:16
do I've never sat in the room and felt so dangerous um and that danger trans um
01:34:21
manifested itself as huge laughter because the audience was so much on the edge of their seats they thought this
01:34:27
boy does not know what he's going to say next we know we we could be in a dangerous situation here and I was
01:34:33
watching Jasper and I suddenly what Jasper has material he's been hiding this for the last three or four months
01:34:40
doing Heats it's been very hard to spot his material and all of a sudden at the
01:34:44
final it all came together just a six minute set nice little bits crazy links no Segways off on a tangent the audience
01:34:54
were in hysterics and um and the judges I remember afterwards we were going looking at me going I said who was your
01:35:00
favorite had four judges all four said Jasper and but they looked at me and said what are we supposed to do with
01:35:06
them and I said that's not the bit that matters you just have to decide who was
01:35:10
the funniest person tonight and they said well it's Jasper and I said he wins
01:35:14
and Jasper won and now I've got this Grand Adventure over the next year as we
01:35:19
try and find out what Jasper's going to do next because we've got no idea I love
01:35:24
that having that happening right now is so cool God you still get really excited
01:35:29
about young Talent don't you emerging Talent yeah I mean Jasper you can tell
01:35:34
um that he's never done anything like this in his life before um uh probably
01:35:39
getting a job is challenging and keeping a job is probably challenging we're you
01:35:43
know I haven't really had a chance to sit down with him and talk about his life other than get him on stage and
01:35:48
perform but you go that's fantastic to see someone grasp that opportunity and
01:35:53
go with it that's that's the reason we're here you know that's the reason
01:35:56
the classic exists is to launch people um whether they be polished you know comedians with huge futures or whether
01:36:03
they just be someone living in the moment yeah what about um uh Tik Tok and other social media how how has that if
01:36:11
at all changed comedy in New Zealand I'm sure there are people you could get on
01:36:14
here or tell you uh that have changed their lives and their careers but I don't watch I haven't watched any Tik
01:36:20
Tok that I'm aware of occasionally see Clips I don't even know they're on Tik
01:36:22
Tok and I don't follow social media to that degree um I can't be bothered with
01:36:27
Instagram and a lot of them use Instagram stuff um I use a bit of Facebook to promote my shows and even my
01:36:34
kids say oh Dad Facebook oh my God you're so old and I go hey I come from a time when there was Telex machines you
01:36:43
know I I I remember when we started comedy I didn't even have a mobile phone
01:36:48
and and I didn't have a computer cuz I didn't know how to use one when I
01:36:51
started doing comy yeah um and they think it's hilarious that I'm on Facebook you know but but social
01:36:57
media definitely there are comedians making big inroads on Tik Tok and social media and
01:37:04
Instagram um what about some of the worst stage bombings you've ever seen oh
01:37:08
I tell the story about the boy in the Raw comedy Quest who um came to the club quite confident I don't remember his
01:37:15
name and I wouldn't say it if I did he was confident he came in he was focused
01:37:20
he was with his girlfriend um this is a story I tell when I gather the finalists
01:37:26
before every year I gather them and I tell them the story um just to try and relax them and he went on stage and he
01:37:33
was doing what he thought was funny and the audience just stared at him with sort of a glazed look and he was getting
01:37:39
nothing he certainly wasn't getting what he thought he was going to get from an
01:37:42
audience and it started that the atmosphere the tension started to grow because you could sort of see he was
01:37:48
expecting laughter and the audience weren't giving it the tension grew and it grew and then he just stopped talking
01:37:53
he looked at the audience and he threw a live mic against a brick wall and if you
01:37:58
know the sound that makes yeah bigger than that when you've got an amplified
01:38:02
sound system he threw the live mic against the brick wall stormed off the stage tipped over the punter sitting in
01:38:10
the front table in his chair who was one of our absolute regulars tipped him over
01:38:14
on the on the floor stormed out of the club out the front door and walked down Queen Street I I rushed to the front
01:38:19
door to see where he'd gone I went oh dear and he didn't say anything to
01:38:23
anyone he just left we never saw him again about 2 minutes later his girlfriend came out of the venue like
01:38:29
she didn't leave straight away she sat there for two or three minutes then she
01:38:32
finally came out and she said to me I better go and see how he is she should have been on stage the
01:38:41
timing is everything great timing and she went out the door we never saw them again yeah oh my God that is amazing
01:38:48
that would have been amazing if he set that up so deliberately bombed on stage CER these days there would have been
01:38:54
someone with a camera on that and we would have had footage of it yeah do people film and all the time now yeah
01:39:00
comedians all and they're desperately looking for that bit of crowd work so they run the cameras on their sets not
01:39:05
so much to record their sets although we do say it's a good idea to record your
01:39:08
sets go home and review them because sometimes there'll be bits you'll go oh
01:39:11
that's the funny bit that's not but also they're filming crowd work and you'll
01:39:16
notice online now you get lots of comedians posting little 30- second clips of showing how they can deal with
01:39:22
audience members in the moment it's spontaneous oh crowd workor is and interacting with the crowd dealing with
01:39:27
hickers dealing with hickers or provoking comments from the audience and then running with it as material
01:39:33
yeah um what about so first I'm thinking if I ever had a got stand up comedy i'
01:39:38
be you no you sure you've never been up there once you had no no I'd be I'd just
01:39:44
be I'd be too nervous I think and I think that would be my downfall you must
01:39:47
see um people that just look look like a lamb that's ready to go to the slaughter
01:39:52
well you get interesting thing is you get these young guys who and girls you know people in their late teens early
01:39:57
20s who haven't got a huge amount of life experience who go on stage and do standup comedy and sometimes they're
01:40:03
just channeling their influences which will be comedians that they've watched
01:40:07
probably a lot of on online or on TV and you'll see the style you go ah that
01:40:11
person's watched a whole lot of too much Chelle that person's watched a lot of
01:40:15
Stewart Lee you know and you're watching them on stage pausing for effect without
01:40:19
any effect or James acter he's got a style which I've seen comedians try and
01:40:24
copy Ross Noble and Ross Noble makes it look so easy and you see them and and they're the young ones then you get
01:40:30
older ones who go I'm going to give comedy a go you know on their it's on
01:40:34
their bucket list um middle-aged sort of Kickback kind of like in their late 30s
01:40:39
40s going I'm going to give that thing a go which I always threaten to give a go
01:40:45
and they're the interesting ones because sometimes they've got Wicked stories
01:40:48
because they've got life experience they'll talk about their great big OE
01:40:51
overseas they'll talk about having kids raising children um Adventures they've
01:40:57
had even even boring lives you know nothing else other than watching TV life experience which they some of them can
01:41:03
turn into great comedy um so it's interesting the contrast of someone without the life experience who's sort
01:41:09
of trying to come up with something someone who's got a wealth of material but is learning how to perform it maybe
01:41:15
that's the thing they'll be lacking is that performance yeah that's that's ftic
01:41:18
I suppose um would Suzanne Paul fit into that category she did the raw comedy she
01:41:23
made the final yeah and you know you going she can't she we had to treat her
01:41:28
as if she was no one it was really important we didn't we didn't want to
01:41:32
give her special treatment we had to just look at her and go just imagine this middle-aged woman has turned up to
01:41:37
do stand-up comedy she had funny stories and of course she had the easy part which was the audience knew who she was
01:41:44
so she could do funny stuff about um Natural Glow so she was sort of doing comedy about Natural Glow you know and
01:41:52
the funny products she done and her TV career and whatever and her unusual life and the audience just loved it so she
01:41:58
made the final but she didn't win you you say um you couldn't treat her any
01:42:02
different but I mean you could but you know as we said earlier it's the audience that dictates isn't it yeah if
01:42:08
the audience didn't like her she wouldn't you I didn't put her in the
01:42:10
final to to boost the profile yeah um what about kiwi audiences in general are they kind or cruel very honest
01:42:17
International comedians come here go oh my God you know these audiences are so honest you know you know when funny the
01:42:23
audiences will tell you but also they'll tell you when you're average uh and so
01:42:28
it's really good that our audiences are so honest because it makes great comedians yeah and when you go on stage
01:42:33
how long do you have to win the room uh about less than 30 seconds you know you can tell you can sometimes
01:42:40
watch a raw comedian Go on stage and you've never seen before and and um I I
01:42:46
mean this is by no means arrogant because I can be proven wrong which is good but sometimes you can watch the
01:42:51
first 10 to 15 seconds and know that this person's got something just by the
01:42:56
way they approach the room and what they what they open with and you you can instantly see stage presence so you go
01:43:03
great well I can't wait to see if they've got material because they've got
01:43:06
stage presence it's there in the first 10 to 15 seconds so you instantly you're
01:43:10
watching them for longer than you normally would and go great and so now we often say to comedians you've got to
01:43:15
get the first 30 seconds right because if you don't get the first 30 seconds
01:43:19
right the next uh 5 minutes 10 15 30 30 minutes could go horribly wrong yeah yeah what what do you mean stage
01:43:26
presence just the is it like a the rule is Ben hurly summed it up this is a great line this is a great piece of
01:43:33
advice you have to tell the audience you're funny not ask them if you're
01:43:37
funny can see the difference there because there's nothing worse than someone who comes out who's sort of
01:43:43
pleading for some laughter and and you can sort of feel from their comedy that they're not sure whether they're funny
01:43:48
and they're not sure whether what they're about to say is going to get a
01:43:51
laugh as opposed to a comedian who comes out and tells you they're funny you
01:43:56
don't doubt it for a minute in fact you find yourself laughing at some really
01:43:59
lame punch lines because the confidence and the delivery is so strong that you don't doubt for a minute that you're
01:44:06
watching a comedian yeah can the audience just smell fear yeah smell fear that's exactly the line smell fear and
01:44:12
you you got to tell the comedians when they're starting out you have to disguise the fear and so don't tell the
01:44:19
audience this is really hurting because the audience will feel the pain and they'll clam up then again
01:44:25
you can sometimes play that card beautifully and go oh this is my first time please go easy on me and the
01:44:32
audience will go oh yes we will and the and you'll find that the comedian is
01:44:36
actually playing that card deliberately and the audience jump on board they're
01:44:41
going let's support this comedian Let's help them all the way I could argue that
01:44:45
Jasper who won the raw comedy Quest immediately got that because he came out and went um okay so I'm autistic and uh
01:44:52
this could go horribly wrong and the audience are going well okay we'll see if we can help you not make it go
01:44:58
horribly wrong Great Space to start from because the audience immediately are on
01:45:02
side you know so sometimes you can play that card to your benefit how how many people do it once and then it's like no
01:45:08
never again yeah yeah yeah we I mean I say about 100 plus will enter the raw comedy Quest some of them will only come
01:45:14
once some of them will come two or three times throughout that year and if they don't make the semi-finals you'll find
01:45:19
that they drift away so um yeah there's there's plenty people like I mentioned
01:45:24
those people before who particularly I find that what I call the both male and female middle-aged and their 30s and 40s
01:45:30
it's on their bucket list and once they've done one gig it's off their
01:45:33
bucket list and you don't see them again yeah wow you think it potentially you
01:45:38
could be bitten by the bug though oh yeah that's the the adrenaline rush of getting it right is huge I mean I often
01:45:43
say I'm a drug dealer I pedal adrenaline so so when people uh people get hooked
01:45:49
on that Adrenaline Rush from being Comedians and you've got them you know I'm their dealer yeah it's a do
01:45:55
Hut yeah yeah yeah yeah um what's the difference between being a hickler and
01:45:59
just being an obnoxious [ __ ] well the positive hickler will contribute to the show by saying something that's
01:46:05
intelligent and and also will get into a dialogue so if the comedian comes back at them there's actually some banter but
01:46:13
then you've just got an idiot who who's too drunk and sometimes you can't even
01:46:16
tell what they're saying they're just making noises you know and also they're
01:46:20
trying to impress their mates they're at a table stag parties are the worst or
01:46:23
hens Knights funny enough hens Knights just as bad as stag parties where there's someone at the table trying to
01:46:28
impress their mates um and uh and you know you just have to deal with it um Stuart Lee in his book said that I I
01:46:36
identified a really interesting thing for him when he was here because the English rugby team were here touring um
01:46:43
or The Barbarians were touring and Stuart had come out here to get away from the English audiences for a while
01:46:48
went on stage here and there was a big group of rugby supporters from the english team in the audience and he said
01:46:54
I can't believe I've traveled 12,000 M and I've still got you people in the
01:47:00
audience um and he was trying to deal with them and he sort of dealt with them and he came off stage and he said ah a
01:47:06
nightmare I said I'll tell you what you missed there Stu there were the the thing is you were trying to get you were
01:47:12
targeting the person as if they were the alpha male of the group I said the alpha
01:47:16
male was sitting there with his arms folded uh he never said a thing I said sitting next to him was a Delta
01:47:23
the Court Jester who was yelling and speaking to you and feeding back because he was trying to impress the alpha in
01:47:30
the group and Stuart said to me Scotty I have never thought of that before he said that's a great insight for dealing
01:47:37
with groups you've got to tell what you're dealing with whether you're
01:47:40
dealing with an alpha or whether you're dealing with a court jester who's trying
01:47:43
to impress the rest of the group he said because that'll help you control whatever's going on so I said oh I can't
01:47:49
believe I've told Stuart something that he hadn't do off do you do you you or
01:47:53
your staff ever intervene or do you just let the ecosystem sort itself no no no that's the thing about our staff is that
01:47:59
unlike a lot of comedy clubs our staff will go down and they'll they'll they'll
01:48:03
say to the people you know please be quiet sometimes people react straight away and go yep sorry we didn't realize
01:48:08
that we thought we were supposed to chip in and and crowd crowd work yeah yeah that's the problem about all that Social
01:48:14
Media stuff is they think that's a comedy gig now audience is going oh comedy gigs are just the comedian
01:48:20
yelling at us and US yelling back at the comedian no that's not what a comedy
01:48:23
show is but sometimes you do have to remove people um and you we just say look if you sometimes it's just people
01:48:30
talking and they've come along and they've got a night out but they're
01:48:33
catching up with friends and they want to catch up and talk to their friends and you go great you can do that in the
01:48:37
front bar we've got a you can go and sit out there chat to your heart's delight
01:48:41
and not interfere with the show for all the other people in the room that have come to watch it it's so rude it is yeah
01:48:47
yeah and phones turn your phones off oh yeah yeah it's funny since you've been
01:48:52
there you started I'm guessing um what was there like um like was it brick phones no maybe but it was phones that
01:48:59
could literally just make phone call people would bring their Telex machines into the gig and you could hear the
01:49:04
paper going through the printer as you're trying to playing the fa yeah playing with the fax machine at the gig
01:49:09
terrible nothing really in a room full of fa machines no but the difference between when you started and now it's
01:49:13
like people have got their phones on and on them all the time oh we had to give people a separate table for their phones
01:49:19
back in the ' 80s you know the brick phone oh big storage lock is there a rack or
01:49:24
something to put them on no but of course not everyone had phones but of course nowadays phones are are dangerous
01:49:30
because the audience tries to record the sets on stage comedians don't want the
01:49:34
audience randomly recording their material so you have to run around the room telling people to put their phones
01:49:39
down all the time yeah and with your raw nights do you do like do you make a habit of giving pep talks to firsttime
01:49:45
comedians to put them or anything you too much information you know every one of them is dealing with a different set
01:49:50
of circumstances some are really confident about their first gig others are so nervous that they're not going to
01:49:56
hear anything you say to them so I've learned that I don't give any feedback I
01:50:00
I'll leave it weeks if not months before I start giving feedback most of the
01:50:04
finalists who are just in the Raw comedy Quest who have been gigging for a year I
01:50:08
gave them their first bit of written feedback in after they had been in the final you know I just said this is what
01:50:13
happened to you in the final if you want to know what went wrong what went right
01:50:17
this is what we identified as from the judges and I just fed that back to them so that'll be the first time they've
01:50:23
heard from me so generous of you to do that though now how do you how do you councel someone who bombs if someone
01:50:29
like bombs real badly and then they they come to you like it I always give people
01:50:32
a second gig that's the most important thing I tell them I say you this this is
01:50:36
not a onetime only opportunity I said if this goes horribly wrong tonight I'll
01:50:40
let you on again if you want to so don't think you'll being judged tonight and it
01:50:44
takes the pressure off if they go Oh you mean if I get it horribly wrong tonight
01:50:47
you'll give me a second gig and I go yep and they go phew and suddenly they don't
01:50:51
have to try so hard yeah I think that's good if you know that failure is not fatal yeah I think
01:50:57
that's good but that's the same that would you know that's one of those
01:50:59
things that applies if you any employer don't do a make and break thing with
01:51:03
people because you know you've got to if anything let them relax into the job
01:51:08
give them a preparation period something you never fire someone after their first
01:51:13
day yeah you got to know that failure is like a stepping stone to success if they
01:51:17
might learn something a comedian learns something from every gig that's another
01:51:20
thing I say to them you need to learn a lesson from every gig you do just walk away with one thing you know it might
01:51:27
just be one little bit of material it might be the way you hold the microphone it might be the way you stand or move or
01:51:33
not move you know is do you need to animate yourself more find out next time go out do a complete opposite to what
01:51:40
you did last time and if you stood still last time in front of the microphone stand next time take the mic out of the
01:51:46
stand and walk around the stage and do exactly the same set and see if it's any
01:51:49
different yeah yes speaking of the microphone so David Chappelle is famous for like cracking himself up and like
01:51:55
banging himself on the thigh with his microphone like do you see young comedians coming on stage and you can
01:52:01
you can tell almost immediately who they the Chappelle yes you maybe not necessarily Chelle but you can tell who
01:52:07
they he's he's a major influence on young comedians no um when they start
01:52:11
smoking on stage in the classic yeah poor um poor mic technique is the first thing that people get rid of and they'll
01:52:17
generally be taught that really quickly in fact we always do a brief orientation
01:52:20
on their when they come in I don't do it but my tech does all my tech does is
01:52:24
take them around the room show them the Green Room show them the stage show them
01:52:27
the microphone and then the simple thing he say says to them when you come out decide whether you want to hold the
01:52:34
microphone and get rid of the mic stand or stand and leave the mic in the stand but don't do both so because of course
01:52:41
what some people do is they'll take the mic off the stand and then they'll try
01:52:44
and hide behind the mic stand and you've never it's nothing funnier than watching
01:52:48
a person who's as wi as a person try and hide behind a microphone that's thin as
01:52:52
the mic stand that's thin as a mic stand yeah but that's what they try and do
01:52:56
yeah just make yourself small make yourself very small um what's one piece of advice you would give to anyone
01:53:02
wanting to give stand up comedy a go um firstly uh don't Bank everything on that
01:53:07
first gig um write some material and um and don't try and write too much just if
01:53:14
anything less is more so don't go out with 10 minutes of material if you've
01:53:18
never done a gig before go out with three or four minutes just get the first three or four minutes right and then
01:53:23
build on that some people turn up and they go oh I've only got 6 minutes on Raw but I've written 15 minutes and you
01:53:29
go you I know you've written 15 minutes but you've never performed 15 minutes
01:53:33
you know why would you bother we're not even looking at the stage but it'll be
01:53:37
two or three years before I ask you to do 15 minutes just do four or five minutes the first time yeah uh and are
01:53:44
there any absolute cornerstones of doing a good set um it depends on whether you're raar or Pro there is one of my
01:53:52
one it's all about expectations so an open mic audience is expecting nothing
01:53:57
so that's the great space that's left for a raw comedian coming out on an open
01:54:00
mic going right you people are expecting nothing I'm going to give you nothing
01:54:06
and and anything else is a bonus that is the starting point with Pro comedians I
01:54:11
always say find out exactly what gig you're on right find out who the audien
01:54:16
is just get a little bit of background to why this audience is in the room you know what's the gig is it a paid gig are
01:54:23
you being paid to perform really important because if you are don't take any risks with material do exactly what
01:54:29
you've been paid to do but also find out what the expectations of the audience
01:54:33
are if the audience have paid $100 a ticket you better get your game right because they're expecting $100 worth of
01:54:41
Comedy better be there in the show um but if they've paid $5 you've got a bit
01:54:46
more room to wriggle also the guy who or the the person male or female who booked you for
01:54:52
the show find out what their expectations are and this is a lesson I also tell my children about their when
01:54:58
they're working for people including me when they're working for me I go work
01:55:01
out what the expectations of your employer is and then exceed them by 10% so don't know exactly what the person
01:55:07
paying you to do the gig or asking you to do the gig is expecting of you look at the running order you're in the
01:55:13
middle of the running order you've been given six minutes everyone else on the
01:55:16
running order has got 10 or 15 minutes you are the new person leave that gig being too good to ignore
01:55:25
in that six minutes get it right so you'll know that the um the person doing
01:55:30
the gig is not expecting you to headline they're not expecting you to close the
01:55:33
show and completely wipe the floor you know you're not Brendan love grve um your new face just deliver on the on
01:55:41
what that person expects and exceed it by 10% and they'll ask you back and every time they ask you back they'll ask
01:55:46
you to do another a few more minutes and every time they ask you back you exceed
01:55:50
their Expectations by 10% [ __ ] you've got so much IP don't you well that applies to any job in the
01:55:56
world that you do if you were you know if someone said Dom I want you to do a podcast you go great what's your
01:56:01
expectations of that podcast you would find out what it is and then you'd make
01:56:04
sure you exceed that by 10% you got a happy boss then I love that it's a good
01:56:08
rule for life I was just about to wrap up but you you mentioned Brendan love gr and we haven't um mentioned him at all
01:56:13
apart from at the very beginning when um I read a quote that he said you should be kned for services to Comedy I've got
01:56:19
a I've got a um order of New Zealand Merit that's that's something is it near
01:56:23
enough near oh that must have been um yeah how was that was that beautiful when was that uh that was in 19 sorry
01:56:30
2015 I think 20 it was then 16 um was it that long ago oh maybe not I've forgotten but the most important thing
01:56:39
for me is that I got to go to government house and take my mom and my brothers uh
01:56:43
to government house oh my God you know that was Mom's moment in the in the to
01:56:48
take her baby boy to government house to get a medal from from well from the queen but from the from the governor
01:56:54
general so she just wore her best outfit and came along and had tea in government
01:56:59
house and to me that that was the biggest joy of the whole thing that's what it's all about isn't it yeah yeah
01:57:05
so yeah it's it's tangible proof that it worked out good like turning you back on
01:57:09
the accountancy career yes yeah yes it was and what about your kids they're at
01:57:14
that age now your teenage boys have they expressed any sort of interest in comedy
01:57:18
or well Nick works as a barback at the club so he cleans glasses on a Saturday night um and he gets paid for doing that
01:57:23
and not allowed to serve alcohol obviously but he's allowed to wash glasses restack restock um my youngest
01:57:29
can't wait to do that job but I've told him he has to wait another couple of
01:57:33
years um but Nick doesn't do it because he's got any interest in comedy he's
01:57:37
doing it to finance a very expensive hobby called Warhammer um where he has to buy models and paint them and they're
01:57:43
quite expensive and so that's he loves that but it was interesting I had him
01:57:47
watch the raw comedy Quest final and I said to him afterwards I'd really like
01:57:50
your feedback and had really good feedback about every act in the final he also he also picked the winner but he
01:57:57
said he knows who was going to win but was another guy that he liked better and I thought this is a 15-year-old who I
01:58:05
haven't taught him anything and he's already a really good judge comedy yeah
01:58:09
do you think there's there might be like a succession plan there with the classic
01:58:12
um no I I I maybe more so I think my youngest is more likely to find it the kind of thing he might like to do Nick
01:58:18
already got his master plan at 15 um but that's fine uh you know I don't expect
01:58:24
them to do it if they want to if they want to help me out if they want to run with it I I tell you what there are a
01:58:29
lot of producers Club managers and things around the world whose kids now work for them and have taken over their
01:58:36
businesses that's the same I got wow this will not be the first if they did happens all the time because it is such
01:58:42
a cool industry to be part of and the kids grow up watching their parents do it and they get to see how much parent
01:58:48
how much fun their parents are having and also get to see how happy their parents are why wouldn't you want to do
01:58:54
something that makes your parents happy yeah yeah yeah how long are you going to
01:58:58
keep doing it well it doesn't hurt yet you're going to doesn't hurt yet well yeah no but but it seems like
01:59:05
you you love it so that's not really a job you know as we said before you know
01:59:08
if you find something you love and you don't work a day in your life um yeah
01:59:11
would would would you be happy to die at the classic well what I did is at the 25th anniversary we had a big party at
01:59:16
the club all the comedians came industry came and they all sitting in the in the
01:59:20
auditorium I got up and did my spe and I got them all to get their phones out this was at the 25th I said right take
01:59:26
out your phones right Open up The Diary now scroll through to the first weekend in October
01:59:31
2047 that's the 50th anniversary of the classic could you all please put that
01:59:36
party in your diary now and I will see you there and I tell you what there was a weird feeling in the room because no
01:59:43
one in that room had ever scrolled through the 2047 and put a diary entry to remember the classic comedy club's
01:59:49
50th birthday on the first weekend of October 2047 it sounds like something out of Back to the Future or or Blade
01:59:56
Runner um and and you go yeah I'll see you and I said I'll see you all then I
02:00:01
didn't say what I'd be doing but I fully expect an invitation to the party how
02:00:05
year you be in your 80s I'll be 80 um uh oh yeah in my 80s yeah wow um sh it's
02:00:14
been a this been a great chat fun thanks so much um yeah what about a book you ever going to write a book have you
02:00:21
thought about writing a book like me asked but these days this is podcast and things are a new book you know people
02:00:27
are far more likely to listen to your podcast and they out to read my book you yeah I mean I've really enjoyed this
02:00:33
chat because I think um you're just you're like you're a fascinating guy and
02:00:36
you've done this um you know incredible service for New Zealand comedy um you've
02:00:40
ran this little business which you started from scratch and you've done it forever um but also just a treasure
02:00:45
Trove of information here for anyone that wants to give standup comedy a go from a man that's um seen and heard it
02:00:51
all it's easy to come down and watch and if you ever think you want to do it the
02:00:55
first thing to do is to come and watch don't make you don't make your Open Mic
02:00:58
the first time you've ever visited the classic oh my God come and watch a whole
02:01:02
lot of people getting it right and wrong because you learn as much watching people make mistakes as you do watching
02:01:07
people get it right yeah that's the simple uh you know that applies to any job my God you know you watch someone
02:01:12
play rugby badly you'll soon go well I won't do that if I want to be an all
02:01:15
black so well Scott blanks The Godfather of New Zealand comedy thank you so much
02:01:20
for coming on my podcast pleasure Dom thank you very much for having me yeah and we just wait there just got a quick
02:01:26
set of questions J we've just got this quick set for Generate okay Scott blanks so the um show is
02:01:36
sponsored by the generate kiwi sa scheme and they've challenged me to give $20,000 to a bunch of Charities by
02:01:42
giving every guest the opportunity to donate $500 to their favorite charity as long as you answer just a simple set of
02:01:49
questions so what um can you think of a charity you'd like to support or we can
02:01:53
do it at the end uh yeah yeah okay yeah okay Scott blanks what is some kiwi saer
02:01:58
advice you'd give to your younger yourself or your boys um right I have never been on kiwi saver um because I
02:02:07
could never afford it to and then it just seemed like one thing you go well there's no point in starting this so
02:02:12
late in life but I think you can always start kiwi sa I think my problem was oh no I'm too old to be on kiwi saver uh
02:02:19
but all my staff and are on kiwi and and it's it's automatic these days and I
02:02:24
know my boys will be as well um so uh it's but my advice would be yeah play a
02:02:31
long game and I would say kiwi saver is a long game yeah start early yeah look at me com Comedy Club 30 years on I'm
02:02:37
afraid that the comedy club is my kiwi sa um what's the best advice uh best piece of advice you've been given about
02:02:44
money um best piece of advice I've been given about money um probably that would
02:02:51
voice it would probably hinge from my own father who um avoided debt and and it wasn't really something in my
02:02:57
grandparents and my parents generation don't go into debt uh it's too easy to
02:03:02
say that now but I try and avoid it like the plague so I and particularly since we went into debt with the comedy club
02:03:08
back in as I said in 2000 so I I try and um try and avoid any great level of debt
02:03:13
it takes the anxiety away yeah are you a spender or a saver um I'm a good balance
02:03:19
of both yeah yeah I will treat myself I won't hold on to money of cuz I firmly
02:03:24
at my age now I believe you should go out and treat yourself there's no point
02:03:28
in hanging on to it until you're 85 and going God then I'm going to go on the
02:03:31
holiday of a lifetime like hell you will yeah I'm a fin believer that you need
02:03:36
like um a dollar each way on that because um you don't want to scrimp and save for this trip of a lifetime that
02:03:41
may never come um but you have to be a little bit prudent about it at the same time um what's been your worst money
02:03:48
mistake from buying a comedy club no that would have been it um getting on the wrong side of the no getting on the
02:03:53
wrong side of the IID yeah right early on in business yeah early on and going and just going realizing the mistake and
02:04:00
but too late um and then having to sit down and and remedy the whole situation um that would be my worst money mistake
02:04:07
yeah and you're an accountant as well you should have known better oh yeah yeah um does money buy you happiness no
02:04:15
no not at all no definitely not I mean I talk about the juice of Life the juice of life is making a difference to people
02:04:21
um um and you you you couldn't be happier if you uh with with money than you could if you were surrounded by
02:04:28
people who are grateful and happy for what you can do for them you know that is really what it's about you know yeah
02:04:35
yeah I think I'd agree you plenty that the base level a but if you're not lying
02:04:38
awake at night worrying about money then that's probably you've probably got
02:04:41
enough yeah yeah um what would you do if you wake up tomorrow as a surprise billionaire
02:04:49
um I'd probably fix the things the club that I haven't fixed recently I can
02:04:55
think of all sorts of crazy things I would do but uh but uh I certainly there'd be something involved with
02:05:01
comedy um there'd be something involved with um uh catching up with my brothers
02:05:06
overseas it wouldn't be a massive spend no I I can't I don't know what I'd do
02:05:10
with a billion dollars quite frankly and you're you're retirement age now but
02:05:14
you're showing no signs of slowing down um where would you like to retire um that's a big question you know
02:05:22
I'm I'm I'm very much in the moment I'll see where I am before I decide I don't
02:05:26
have any place I'd like to go and retire um Queen Street has been my uh working
02:05:31
address since I was 17 my the accountant firm I worked for initially was on the corner of queen of Victoria um I then
02:05:38
worked for kage odian in 246 Queen Street the only time I was off Queen Street was when I worked for the old
02:05:44
Alan custom house which was renovated by American millionaire called John Halbert
02:05:48
and I worked in the theater and box office at the that was just round the corner on custom Street uh the only
02:05:54
years off Queen Street with a few years I was working for myself from home so I've been working my working career has
02:06:01
been what 40 over 45 years almost all those years the working address has been on Queen Street so I'm not going
02:06:09
far yeah too late to move to another street now yeah yeah Queen Street M hanger um what's the best thing about
02:06:15
being a kiwi oh best thing about being a kiwi um I think being being that outside the
02:06:23
square the distance the the lovely you know you talk about the tyranny of distance but also the the beauty of
02:06:28
distance from the rest of the world um it gives you an opportunity to just do things a little bit differently and the
02:06:35
lovely part is when you travel is just how exotic people think you are you know I'll never forget going to the um uh The
02:06:42
Improv and Melrose in Los Angeles and I went up to the box office and I said oh hello um I'd like to come in tonight to
02:06:48
see the show I work in the comedy industry and new Zealand um and I was hoping to see a show tonight and the
02:06:55
girl just looked at me and said keep talking I I went what she said she said I just love your
02:07:02
accent and she said and you're really lucky tonight because Billy Crystal is
02:07:05
GNA be on stage and he went he's just sneaking in to do a spot and I went oh
02:07:10
that's fabulous and she said of course it's fabulous she she just loved the
02:07:14
accent that's amazing um and last one what advice would you give your 20-year-old self um ooh you ask don't
02:07:22
get into de with the IR no no you could argue the same advice I might give my 15-year-old which is which I have said
02:07:28
to him about giving that 10% more than what's expected um uh probably I could have um
02:07:35
identified the comedy industry earlier on back there as a potential I didn't I
02:07:39
wasn't hadn't met the right people I met the right people when I got you know we
02:07:42
got into it in my 30s and when I went to the Edinburgh Fringe I met lots of like-minded people but you should never
02:07:48
second guess yourself you know the most important thing is to keep kicking doors
02:07:52
open that's my advice to my boys and that's the advice I give my 20-year-old
02:07:56
self is don't think the door you've just opened is the last door you're going to
02:08:00
open you've got a you're looking down a corridor there keep the doors kicking
02:08:04
doors open and don't close the doors behind you because you know don't close
02:08:09
those options you've already got open run with them keep as many options going
02:08:13
keep as many balls in the air as you can so that you can see which one is is the
02:08:17
one you love the most cuz you're not going to know certainly your first decision my first decision was to be an
02:08:22
accountant it wasn't the right decision um I've see too much pressure on young
02:08:27
people and their teens to make career choices now and I go no way you know you could you could change your career into
02:08:34
your 30s 40s even in your 50s you don't have to stick with your first choice yeah 100% yeah keep keep kicking
02:08:42
doors open so my I've just gone through this with my son for choosing courses
02:08:46
for the year 11 and he we just said just just keep the doors open don't make it
02:08:51
decision going well I'm going to not do that course because I have no interest
02:08:55
in that I go try and do that one as well as the other ones you want to do because
02:08:58
you don't know in 5 years time which one you should have done I love that so much and just re
02:09:04
reiterating the um the 10% thing I love that I've never heard that before but I
02:09:08
think it's a great way of framing things um what's that again well just work out
02:09:12
what the expectations of your employer your parents um your your favorite aunt and uncle but your employers the
02:09:18
expectations of the audience find out what their expect are the expectations of the staff and the venue you're
02:09:23
performing in find out what they are and you can do that with casual inquiry and
02:09:28
a little bit of chat and interview and then exceed them by 10% aim to you'll
02:09:32
probably end up exceeding them by 30% or 40% but if you aim for 10% which is realistic at least when you leave that
02:09:39
business leave that job leave that venue the employer is going to go they always
02:09:43
gave more than I asked them to yeah such a good piece of advice yeah Scott blanks
02:09:48
$500 to your favorite charity which would be City Mission uh having worked on Queen Street for 45 years the work
02:09:55
the City Mission does to keep our streets safe for the people that have to live on them and have no choice about
02:10:00
that in life they're the people that I would support great cause I've volunteered a little bit there myself
02:10:05
it's um wonderful place hey thank you so much for your time pleasure Dom thank
02:10:09
you