Comedy Festival – My picks for the final week

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I’m going to keep it short for this week’s comedy picks because the festival is ending early for me – I’m running away to join the circus. Well, practically.

I can recommend all three of these shows from firsthand experience:

The Rose Matafeo Variety Hour

Okay, so I haven’t seen this show, I’m seeing it tonight, but I’ve seen her before and she is hilarious and endearing and I can’t wait for the lols.

Joseph Moore in Dope Ass Jokes

I went to this show last night and I’d go as far as calling it one of my favourites of the festival this year. Especially the rapping. There were laughing tears.

Markus Birdman in Love, Life and Death

A token international in this week’s picks (my, how things have changed). Saw his show last night too and it’s very clever and funny and covers his real life experience with hospitals and stuff like that. Deep, but not too deep.

More comedy picks

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The second week of the comedy festival is on and if you are wondering what to see, wonder no more! I’ve seen three shows that are on this week and I can recommend them all!

Rainer Hersh as musical comedy superstar Victor Borge was my absolute favourite of the eight shows I saw last week. I laughed and I laughed and I went home feeling happy. The is a great feeling. His show is on until Saturday, and then he leaves his alter ego behind and does a show with the APO. If you like cleverness and laughing, go!

I actually had the chance to meet him before seeing the show last week to make this video for work – it’s just a teaser, but it made me really look forward to his show and I wasn’t disappointed.

FanFiction Comedy is brilliant. Comedians write stories about things they’re obsessed with and it’s ridiculous good. I went on Saturday and my friends laughed so hard I actually wondered if they were going to hurt themselves. It’s no wonder that Heidi O’Loughlin

and co had a huge season in Melbourne. This is perfect for anyone who is a little bit nerdy or obsessive and you might get to see one of your favourite international acts on stage too. And there are new stories every week!

Dai Henwood‘s show Adapt or Dai shows why he’s one of New Zealand’s most successful comedians. This show talks about his recent life changes including homeownership and fatherhood, and touches on more risqué stuff like sex toys and ramekins. There are edgier comedians, but Dai’s show is plain good fun.

There are heaps more shows to take a punt on. I’ve been listening to people’s raves and it sounds like some of the picks for this week are Elis James, James Roque and Urzila Carlson – but Urzila’s shows are sold out because she’s rad.

We’re almost halfway there people… if the winter blues are getting to you, a laugh could be just what you need.

16 Acres and other design type films

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One of the more unusual invitations I’ve received recently was to the launch of the Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival, which included a screening of 16 Acres, a film about rebuilding on Ground Zero. I like to think I have an enquiring mind, so off I went to the launch. I took Raj, my only architect friend. We sat next to a journalist I know and her architect friend, oh how we laughed.

16 Acres has all the characters you could want in a film: the zillionaire Larry Silverstein, political figures, civil servants, battling creatives and families of those who’d lost their lives – all with agendas and motivations. our favourite personality was architectural commentator Philip Nobel, who doesn’t appear on the cast list, but had us in stitches with his acerbic observations.

I found it surprisingly fascinating – a brilliant insight into the machinations of many and how much of a role emotions can make in very expensive decisions. I can’t believe the people they got to talk, but most of them are no longer in the same positions of power. It mentions New Zealand – only for a split second – but if that’s one of your criteria for enjoyment, you can tick that box.

I’m really keen to check out more of the festival, which starts on Thursday 9 May. The programme looks great – this year sees more design added to the lineup, which is good for people like me who are interested but not experts. Films I especially like the look of:
- American Artifact- about American rock poster art (RIP Frank Kozik, we were lucky to have you visit just a couple of years ago)
- The Architecture of Carlo Scarpa – fusing historic buildings with new ideas
- Linotype: The Film – sounds odd but intriguing.
- My Playground – frankly, I think I’d rather watch a film about Parkour or freerunning than attempt it, but I suspect the film will be a bit mad, along the lines of Man on Wire.
- Art & Copy – advertising and inspiration. What can I say, my Dad was a Creative Director.

He’s a bit of 16 Acres..

This week in hilarity

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Boy oh boy am I going to laugh a lot this week. Not just at my own jokes, like just before when I posted on Facebook about how my potential new bunny would get free WIFI, but at legitimate comedians. That’s right friends, the NZ International Comedy Festival is here and I am going to see heaps of shows! Hurrah!

It’s hard picking which shows to go to, because there are SO MANY FUNNY PEOPLE TO SEE. Here’s how I’ve decided what shows I have to not miss out on this week:
- Comedians who share my first name.
- Real life friends who won Best Newcomer (Auckland) last year and should be even better this year.
- Comedy with piano. I loved it when Manny did it in Black Books, I reckon I’ll love this too.
- The award winning show with the unpronounceable name.
- The kids show by the same guy, because if I learned anything last year, it was that Barnie and Trygve’s The Magic Chicken was even better than Constantinople.
- The dudes who made the Facebook in Real Life video, but have done way more since then.
- A trio of guys from the land of the mighty Chiefs, because I’ll probably get the jokes, and because I want to round out my list with some more kiwis.

See you there?

Here’s Josie Long on Never Mind The Buzzcocks ages ago, because I’m seeing her on Wednesday and I saw the Buzzcocks last night and that’s enough reasons!

Local goodness on the tellybox

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It used to be that local TV shows seemed like the faded elderly cousin of international imports, but not so anymore. I’m not saying ‘support NZ made’ out of some sort of patriotism – I’m saying that we’re producing some excellent television.

We’ve got shows like the excellent Native Affairs which I watch all too rarely, we’ve got 7 Days, we’ve now got a local version of X-Factor which looks like it has high production values as well as entertainment value, and we’ve got a fifth series of one of our best dramas Go Girls.

I’ve seen the first two episodes of the series and I was impressed. I laughed a LOT. I thought it was shot beautifully. I really like the new characters – they remind me of heaps of people I know. The cast are great and believable – and came across as pretty seasoned.

I was stoked to see Leon Wadham (far left) in the core cast – he was outstanding onstage in Silo’s Tribes last year.

My pick for star of the future: Tai Berdinner-Blades (second from the left) – she plays the lovably awkward Tai beautifully and she’s gorgeous.

If you’re youngish and any of your friends are kind of stupid but you adore them anyway, I predict you’ll enjoy the new Go Girls. It starts on Tuesday night on TV2 around about 8.45.

Interview with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy

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It’s always exciting news when it’s announced that your favourite band is coming to town, and when I was granted an interview with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy I was thrilled (just ask my colleagues and Facebook friends). What a lovely and interesting man he is.

The story originally appeared in LIVE (digital edition here), but because it’s the week Wilco are set to play here in Auckland, here’s it is.

Wilco’s Solid Sound

Wilco endlessly create music as a band and in side projects across the music spectrum. They even have their own music festival. Josie Campbell speaks to Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy ahead of the band’s down-under tour.

Wilco last performed in Auckland at The Civic after the release of their seventh album Wilco (The Album) to a near-rapturous crowd. This time they’ll be at Auckland Town Hall on a tour supporting their last release The Whole Love. The band will be joined by soul legend Mavis Staples, who has just finished her second album with Jeff at the helm as producer.

“I feel very, very privileged to get to work with Mavis and have developed a real deep bond with her and Yvonne. She’s an angel, she makes people feel better, and it’s an amazing thing to get to be around.”

It’s too soon for the setlists to be finalised for the tour, so Jeff can’t say if there’ll be crossover between when Mavis is on stage and Wilco’s set, “but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that happened.”

Like all fans, I want to know how the new album is coming along and if we’ll hear new material on the tour. The answer is yes, and no. “There’s always a new Wilco album coming eventually,” he says down the line with a chuckle. “We’ve just really started working to be honest so it’ll probably be some time.”

“Generally we don’t play new things live because I’ve always found it more difficult to record those things, a song, once you’ve played it live. It just feels like the audience is missing when you get to the studio.

“It’ll mostly be some things we haven’t played from the catalogue before and a lot of stuff of the new record because we haven’t had the chance to play it there yet.”

The band’s lyricist, Jeff says it’s a general restlessness and curiosity that sparks his creativity.

“I enjoy listening to music a lot but I tend to spend most of my free time reading. I like almost anything and I’ll listen to almost anything. I think that’s a good way to stay inspired – just try to embrace more and try and understand more. Even music that I don’t quite get, I think it’s exciting sometimes to try to understand it, and the same with some fiction.”

They’re a prolific group, with multiple side projects and the band’s Solid Sound Festival happening for a third time in June. I ask how it feels to be curators of a festival, instead of being booked by promoters to play.

“It’s really creative. One of the big differences is we get to extend our concept of the band and our overall aesthetic to a festival and try and pick things that give a bigger, deeper picture of what inspires us. It’s a pure luxury to get to do that.”

While a trip to Massachusetts for Solid Sound Festival sounds like an worthwhile travel goal, a night with Wilco and Mavis Staples at Auckland Town Hall promises to be an extraordinary night of music. And fans, keep an eye out for Jeff in Newton; he reckons he’ll probably have a shawarma around the corner from Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios.

You can catch Wilco with Mavis Staples at Auckland Town Hall on 6 April.