A comedian plugging another comedian's show? Joanna Hunkin saw Simon McKinney do it. He's that kind of guy ...
KEY POINTS:
Walking into a busy Grey Lynn cafe, it doesn't take long to spot comedian Simon McKinney.
The small, sprightly blond is hugging a waitress - with his bum stuck out like a toddler who has just soiled himself. Or a drunkard. Anyone who has seen McKinney's show will know they are essentially one and the same.
The waitress, it turns out, is fellow comedian Justine Smith, who serves McKinney's beer wrapped in a flyer for her upcoming comedy festival show The Lady Bunch.
Smith - or Jussy as he calls her - is one of the New Zealand's funniest women, says McKinney as he hands over the flyer.
Not many people would plug another comedian during their own interview, but McKinney does so without thinking. He's that kind of guy.
Nominated for this year's Billy T Award, McKinney is a comedian on the rise. Last year he was voted Best Male Comedian by his peers at the New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards.
Asked what such awards and accolades mean for the comedian, he says they are great, because they give him a bigger soapbox to shout from.
"It's not just a thing for me. I love comedy in general.
"The higher you go, the more people ask you what's going on. You can point them in the direction of other comedic areas. There's a lot of talent out there that isn't being tapped in New Zealand."
McKinney is a team player. He likes working - and playing - with others.
For four years he was part of the kid's television series Squirt, voicing the animated fish Hamish McGroper. Based in Dunedin, he teamed up with some mates - including fellow award-winning comedian Jeremy Elwood - to do some theatre sports in their down time.
The boys began touring the South Island, performing their sketch show at comedy clubs, and eventually McKinney became a regular on Pulp Comedy.
Southlanders, according to McKinney, are the hardest people to make laugh in the whole country. The further north you go, the easier it gets.
"In Dunedin it was sink or swim. It's the best training ground, I think, to learn to be funny. A lot of very funny people have come there because of that.
"We started down there and got this feeling for making Dunedin people laugh. By the time we got up here [Auckland] it was ridiculous. We got got a wee bit cocky."
Despite that initial success, McKinney abandoned all notions of comedy when he moved to Edinburgh in 2002.
"I forgot all of that. It was silly. How could you make a living out of comedy?"
But after three weeks in the Scottish capital, McKinney was having a hard time figuring the place out and decided he needed to meet some more people.
"I went to a comedy club one night and thought, 'Well, if nothing else I'll find out what they laugh at'."
The following week he decided to give it a crack himself and quickly found a niche.
"I had a go and immediately I found that being a little blond Antipodean with a stupid voice was actually quite valuable over there."
Soon he was booking gigs throughout Britain and went on to perform more than 300 shows during his two-year stay, transcending
from dabbling amateur to professional comedian.
Back in New Zealand, McKinney returned to work on children's television, writing for Saturday Disney and Studio 2. But after two years of nine-to-five he returned to comedy for grown-ups.
Last year McKinney quickly caught festivalgoers' attention with his uncanny ability to mimic the nasal drone of supermarket checkout operators on a PA system and the infuriating ineptitude of taxi company dispatchers. He also does a wickedly good Scotsman and drunken stumble.
McKinney reckons that's the secret to good comedy. Finding things in everyday life that are naturally funny - things which might normally be annoying or frustrating, like trying to set up a new DVD player, and turning them into a joke. From then on, whenever someone sees their DVD player, they will think of you and laugh.
"It's a kind of brand awareness," he explains.
And it seems to be working. After seeing McKinney, your trips to the supermarket will never be the same again.
LOWDOWN
Who: Simon McKinney
What: Billy T Nominee
When: Land of the Long White Clown at the San Francisco Bath House, Wellington, 22 - 26 April; The Classic Studio, April 30 - May 3
