Also, I’m not an expert in comedy. To be honest, I’m not really much of an expert in anything.
I first graduated in 2013 with a BA majoring in International Relations and Political Science. I’d dropped out of lLaw after 3 years (one more year than the expected norm of two). I then proceeded to work for the Earthquake Commission for almost five years. You can fill in the necessary gaps of a life that has been lived like that as you please. My point is that I haven’t always sought my own opportunities. In my first year at what was then (and I am unsure if it still called this at the time of writing this) Victoria University of Wellington, I missed my opportunity to write for a student magazine. I had always liked writing at high school but was too afraid to put anything out there once I was at University. Now I’m older, I don’t care as much, even if I’m shit at it. I like doing it, and everybody needs to be able to do at least one thing that they like doing. Whatever your passion is, it isn’t always stumbled upon; you sometimes have to seek it out. This is a lesson that pays better dividends the earlier you learn it.
So, I have reviewed three comedy shows (two live and one Netflix special), for Salient this year. I tried to be honest about the shows that I reviewed. I think that I was, but as it turns out, it’s difficult to review the things you like. You need to think about what it is that you enjoyed about them, why you think you enjoyed them, and you then need to convince yourself that the reasons for this enjoyment are compelling enough to share with others (a difficult step for many of us). Finally you put pen to paper (the impossible step for almost all of of us).
I felt this sense of impossibility more than ever when originally trying to write this piece. The gaps in my knowledge of all things comedy become very apparent to me, and trying to write about “humor” in any way that I could actually stomach seemed totally beyond me. Encircled by dirty mugs filled with teabags in varying states of decay, my despair had reached its nightly high. I’d reached a point writing this thing about farting in a boy’s face when I was at school and just thought; this is “utter, actual shit”. Not “actually utter shit”, no, “utter, actual shit”. As in the thoughts that were beginning in my head, then flying down the digestive tract of my nervous system, to be pinched from the tips of my fingers into the keyboard, were really, really bad.
I tried to change tack. “The oldest known joke told (un)surprisingly is a Sumerian joke, dating between 1900-1600 BC.” Nope. I started to write about “Aotearoa’s special relationship with comedy”, how laconic and deadpan we all are when we’re overseas, and how Flight of the Conchords and Taika Waititi have “enshrined New Zealand comedy as a hotly demanded creative export”. It was at this point that I realised A) a lot of great comedy and stand-ups have come out in New Zealand before, during and (I’m optimistic) after Flight of the Conchords and Taika Waititi and, as a follow on from A), B) I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. I didn’t have the artistic pedigree of someone who’s lived and breathed comedy throughout their adult life, to be able to think beyond the “Flight of the Conchords and Taika Waititi” box. I think if I want to be a reliable reviewer then that may be problematic.
However, it’s more problematic if I just give up. I do like comedy and I do want to get better at writing. This may not necessarily make my reviews compelling or interesting, but I’m writing for myself as much as I am for any audience. If you ever thought about writing or doing anything creative where a leap of faith is required, for me at least, learning you have the ability to jump is infinitely more valuable than where you end up landing.
Insofar as comedy is concerned, the only real credential I could offer is what I find funny. If you agree with me, then maybe I’m on the right track with reviewing things.
When I was in my first week in my Year 9 English class, a boy bent over and farted in to another boys face in such a profoundly penetrative way, that I was sure there was going to be a fight. The boy who was farted on quietly put down his work, stared into the eyes of the farter, and as if talking about the weather, calmly asked, “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know. . . Sorry?” the first boy replied.

They both laughed.
I remember that story so vividly, primarily because it was my face that got farted into, and in a lot of ways my sense of humor hasn’t changed much.

From Picasso and Van Gogh to Weinstein and co, Nanette dissects a festering nexus of societal water cooler talk. That is to say, it brings conversational threads about the abuse of storied power through history, the dangerousness of being different, and the misunderstanding of mental illness in one prevailing voice.
Hannah Gadsby has used her role as a great stand up to ferociously skewer so many of her audience (this author included) with polished barbs of a lived experience that is told in such a powerful way, that to try and squirm away from her insight just makes it that more poignant.
The last third of Gadsby’s show is relentless and is simply Must. Watch. Television. It’s almost difficult to overstate how good Nanette actually is. Just go and watch it. Seriously. Stop wasting her time.

I want to be clear; I’m not trying to have a go at anyone here, or be a provocateur for the sake of it. I just feel in a climate where the entertainment industry (and I believe stand up comedy has its place here) is striving so hard to be diverse and to tell the stories of the marginalised, to be a white middle class male comic and to not address the fact that you are, is to presume that your story is still the dominant one.

If there was an underlying theme that runs throughout the show, it would be that of Kingsford’s relationship to technology. He lamented that it’s slowly divorcing him from the rest of reality, all the while trying to find common ground with the audience by appealing to the technoholic in them. This, in my opinion, is a fine theme to base a show around, however Kingsford never gave the audience their due, even as he tried to forge this connection with them. Jokes about video games being all about “mushrooms and killing people” felt and fell flat because the audience didn’t buy the simplification. I want to think that this is intentional and that Kingsford just isn’t prepared to take a big swing just yet, not comfortable sharing honest opinions without dumbing them down for an audience.

The show had a disjointed feeling. It seemed as though Kingsford was still trying to figure himself out as a stand up, and he wasn’t yet willing to engage with the sensibilities of the young millennial crowd that make up his target audience. I don’t necessarily think the show was bad, just that there was a lot of room for improvement.

Phoney Love is about dating on Tinder in the Modern World. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this seems like a topic that most audiences would’ve figured out for themselves. Roche addresses this herself, referring to her set as “the current most hack topic in comedy”. While the self-awareness/deprecation doesn’t do the work Roche might hope it does in getting Phoney Love’s material off of the ground, it does open the door to allow her persona to come through. And therein lies the strength of the set. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great jokes throughout (the statistically-sound approach of asking 100 women “do you do anal” stands out) but these jokes are sprinkled through the audience, rather than giving them a good, heavy dusting. Again, that isn’t to say the material is necessarily bad – just that the subject matter itself is a bit flat. In this particular show, there’s more persona here than storyteller.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Roche’s persona is undeniably captivating. There’s a point about midway, where Roche describes her show (in her characteristic breathy drawl) as “bitching about men for 60 minutes and then hoping a line will of them will form afterwards, asking for her number”. And for the most part, she nails that pitch. Roche herself – all of 5’ nothing – stands during the set dressed in a trim black circle skirt, one Chuck Taylor tucked behind the other, clutching the mic, swaying from side to side. It would be hard not to imagine some fluttering eyelids or thumb sucking mixed in there somewhere, and I have no doubt that this persona is intentional. It is this coquettish first impression which makes lines like “if you stick your dick far enough down my throat you’ll eventually touch my heart,” wallop the audience. She is at her best when she skirts back and forth between the line of sex positivity and pushing the societal standards of indecency, and she’s even better if she does it quickly enough that the audience is one step behind. But unfortunately, there’s just not enough of that in this in this show.

Lucy Roche will return to Wellington for the Wellington Comedy Festival in

Young Dumb & Full Of Comedy. May 1st – 5th.