News team deals with slash horrors

Issues cast (clockwise from top left) Brett O'Gorman, Justine Smith, Simon McKinney, Jamie Bowen and Toni Potter. Photo / Supplied

Anyone who doubts the cast's commitment to the comedy stage show We Are Currently Experiencing Some Issues need only look at the bruise on comedian Justine Smith's right arm to see they are serious.

The size of a fist and the colour of a murky rainbow, Smith got the war wound while training with the Pirate City Roller Derby Girls for a segment of the show in which the five-strong cast whizz around on skates.

"It hurt - but it was fun," declares Smith, who won the 2003 Billy T James Award for best comedian and was last year named the New Zealand Comedy Guild's (NZCG) best female comedian.

"I never realised how seriously those girls take their skating. I even got told off for making too much noise."

The roller skating might not bother her but Smith admits acting - as opposed to being herself and doing stand-up - is more nerve-racking.

"I'm actually quite shy," she says, which might surprise those who have witnessed her in action. "I did The Reindeer Monologues last year and it was totally intimidating. I was so nervous, I could hardly rehearse in front of the actors. I'm used to standing up and just talking to people, not working from a script."

That's partly why she wanted to work on We Are Currently Experiencing Some Issues, described as a first by director Ben Crowder for the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.

Issues is about a struggling TV news show trying to win the ratings battle in the face of staff cutbacks and spiralling production costs.

Given the latest round of staff cuts at TVNZ it might sound all too familiar, but the concept was first discussed about 18 months ago by Crowder and staff from Stamp, the artistic development wing of The Edge.

"We never wanted to do stand-up but something more innovative," he says. "I am interested in the crossover between comedy and theatre.

"It is unique for comedians in New Zealand to collaborate in this style - to devise a theatre/comedy hybrid with all the trappings of a full production and the lengthy and dedicated rehearsal process that comes with such a package."

After extensive auditions, he signed up Smith, Jamie Bowen (TV3's A Thousand Apologies), Simon McKinney (2007 NZCG best male comedian), actor Brett O'Gorman and Shortland Street's Toni Potter as the hapless staff making the most of the network's decreasing resources.

"We have three comedians and two actors so the show has elements of both styles but it is not a comedy sketch show. The goal is to create a layered and sophisticated theatre comedy which comments on the sometimes vacuous nature of television news and the format of reality-style television."

Potter, best known as Shortland Street's troubled nurse Alice Piper, admits she was thrilled to land a part but worries she isn't funny, although Smith is quick to reassure Potter that she always makes her laugh.

The two worked together in 2004 on the comedy This is What We Call the Justine Smith Show, but Potter has since been tied up with more melodramatic Shortland Street storylines.

Some might say she needs a sense of humour given what her character has been through: kidnapped and operated on by a serial killer, becoming pregnant only to have the baby - father unknown - die, unwittingly getting caught up in a pornography ring and then having her best female friend confess her undying love.

Crowder and company have spent about two months devising the show, using marker pens and sheets of brown paper to write down ideas that might make good comedy. These are pinned up against the walls of the scout hall where they rehearse.

"We can't write anything too rude down or it will offend the young scouts," he says. "We're working on the premise that if we all find it funny, other people will too.

"We do want to push a few boundaries and [not] censor material because it might be socially unacceptable."

Performance

What: We Are Currently Experiencing Some Issues.
Where and when: Herald Theatre, May 12-16.