KEY POINTS:
Art student, comedian, wearer of $3 moccasins from opshop in Kerikeri - yup, Ash Kilmartin is cool. She also owns a Savage Garden album, but don't let that put you off going to see the Comedy Festival's "queen of serene".
"People think I can be a bit deadpan," she explains. "I wouldn't say I'm the most energetic comedian. I tend to keep a straight face and a straight persona."
She's not just a straight face. Since the age of 15, when she faced a Town Hall crowd of 500, she has worked her way up the comedy food chain to regular gigs at Queen Sts funny-person-establishment, the Classic.
Named at the 2005 festival as best newcomer, and last year most improved act and nominated for best female comedian alongside her mentor, Jan Maree, Kilmartin is practically a comedy veteran at the ripe old age of 20.
Listeners to 95bFM will also know her for her Tuesday lunchtime slot.
Fangirl - her festival show at the shabby-chic Wine Cellar on K Rd - is a self-deprecating trawl through a life's obsession with music. It's the radio show she always wanted, a personal, track-by-track analysis that includes songs by the Garden and thankfully progresses through the Smiths and Iggy Pop, plus tales of being "completely starstruck" by her idols, Peaches included.
"Meeting Kim & Corbett was a big deal for me. I know that sounds really silly because I've also met much more famous people from overseas, but I grew up listening to them and they were such big role models for me doing what I do now."
Bored of watching comedians drone on for an entire hour, Kilmartin has jazzed up her routine with a few props. A hanging microphone and a big pair of earphones adorn her set. The Wine Cellar is also significant in that it's a music venue frequented by Auckland's creative underbelly. Kilmartin lives nearby and says she enjoys a Cheers-like camaraderie when she walks in.
That's something she risks by claiming she was once the only punk in South Auckland and the sole straight art student on K Rd, but hell, she's all for stereotypes.
"At Papatoetoe High School I was probably the only kid who would walk around wearing Illicit T-shirts. I know every teenager feels like this but it's that sense of isolation, that you're the only one who is doing what you're doing. I think it's especially true of comedians. They tend to be the ones that were picked on at school."
Inspired by her step-father's collection of Monty Python, Billy Connolly and Billy T. James recordings, Kilmartin used humour to cope.
"I was the smart kid but I was also the smart arse."
At school she became involved in Class Comedians workshops for budding stand-ups. She's now in her third year at Elam studying drawing and sculpture. That might sound odd given art students' reputation for dwelling at the other end of the hilarity spectrum, but Kilmartin insists the two disciplines work well together. She just won't do stand-up comedy as performance art, so stop asking.
"You're communicating ideas in such a way that you're trying to get people on side I guess, and often humour is a great way to do that. I just prefer to keep them separate."
Both her art and comedy routine are "self-conscious" works, she says.
"Not in the sense of 'My hair's not right' or 'God, people are staring at my jeans' but that I'm being completely honest about myself. Everyone can identify with meeting someone and coming across completely wrong. Everyone knows what it's like to have a stash of CDs that you don't want anyone else to know that you own."
Lowdown
* Who: Ash Kilmartin, the hot new face of local comedy
* Age: 20
* Show: Fangirl, Sunday, May 13, The Wine Cellar, St Kevin's Arcade, K Rd
* Tickets: Ticketek.co.nz
