A new comedy gig is coming to Northland and it's being organised by the same man who set up the last new comedy gig, Naughty North. The next one, Rangatahi Raw, is a stand-up competition for senior students drawn from six high schools, said comedy fest aficionado Oliver Scripps. He
Young Northland comics in the Raw
Oliver Scripps: ''I have to keep my eye on the end game which is that the audiences is entertained.'' Photo / Michael Cunningham
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But you can't over-prepare. Rangatahi Raw will require its young comics to have rehearsed or at least use some tried-and-true material for the preliminaries.
''It has to all be original, I'll accept no thievery,'' Scripps sternly warned.
''I have no issue with someone sounding like another comic but, as [late American comedian] Ralphie May said, be quintessential. There has to be 'you' in there.''
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What about the possibility some smart-az youngster might be a little lacking in boundaries or judgment when it comes to what's on her or his mind? (Probably the wrong thing to say to a stand-up comic.)
There are, Scripps said, no boundaries in comedy. He prefers to call them ''benevolent transgressions'', stepping over an invisible mark with intention but not ill-intent. People who either deliver or receive comedy should to some extent be unafraid, be willing to be confronted, or to confront.
Humour that is dark and brutalist, which is what Scripps' own style is, can also say evil isn't so scary when it's quite ridiculous, he said.
All very well, but in the case of 16 and 17-year-old Rangatahi Raw contestants letting rip? Scripps concedes: ''There's a lot of black and white at that age, it's a very raw thing.''
So, he would advise them to prepare by watching more comedy and, when on stage, keep an eye on what they're saying. Comic routines are usually pre-written, well rehearsed, dependent to a degree but not entirely on spontaneity. Even spontaneity is usually well rehearsed.
There are a few steps to go through before the show goes public at Forum North's Capitaine Bougainville Theatre on October 4.
The students will be auditioned, then workshopped with professional comics to develop their Raw talent. Given six minutes each, up to 50 are expected to audition, then whittled down to eight.
Neil Thornton, who cut his teeth on the New York City comedy circuit and started the New Zealand Comedy School, will be in Whangārei to work with the finalists.
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''The determination of who gets past the auditions is not mine,'' Scripps said in his elegant, olde-world manner.
''The aim is to get these contestants before the professionals and then before the audience.
''What I try to do, with Naughty North and now Rangatahi Raw, is create the best whole show. I have to keep my eye on the end game which is that the audience is entertained.''
Next year he hopes to take the school stand-up comp ''to the region'' and possibly expand the age range. The six invitation schools in this first year are Whangārei Boys', Whangārei Girls', Dargaville, Kerikeri, Tikipunga and Kamo High Schools, who have to get the kids lined up. Scripps feels guilty about giving more work to schools.
''I am crushingly aware of how overworked teachers are.''
He's also aware of other impediments to some entrants getting on board.
''If there is a dollar sign between participation and non-participation, we'll see if we can help them.''
There will be four cash prizes.
''We are saying to these young comedians 'what's in your head has value, here's some of that value. Look, 400 people are laughing, that is also value'.''
Creative Northland's enthusiastic backing has been ''amazing''. Also amazing has been the timing of Rangatahi Raw, just after the TV series Funny As, about New Zealand's comedy scene.
''We started doing the funding run months and months ago and unbeknownst to me, Funny As was about to screen. I hope it inspired a few people to see comedy as a profession,'' Scripps said.
North comedy circuit
The Naughty North Comedy Club stands up once a month in a Whangārei bar.
As well as getting Northlanders on stage regularly, has attracted comics from New Zealand's professional circuit. Sixty of them so far.
''I walked into the Butter Factory and said I'd like to start up a comedy gig. We had full houses right up until we put the entry up $5. It instantly went from 100 people a night to 30. We obviously increased the price presumptuously early.''
People in Whangārei, eh? Some won't pay a fair price, some just can't.
Scripps believes the region could carry a professional circuit of around 30 working comics.
''Northland already acts as a professional training stage. We'll lose them, but more will come into the light and we'll sustain the industry.''
He toured Naughty North earlier this year, to Kerikeri and Kaitaia. Next, he might tour big visiting names to summer hotspots, proving to the artists that Northland has an audience.
It can be a fairly conservative one, though: ''When we get people who curse black and blue, we get a bit of audience drawback.''
On one such night, two conservative looking, older women quite visibly didn't respond positively to one comedian. However, his closing routine, which could have been seen as offensive, involved him ripping off his pants and undies - and the two women screamed with laughter, split their sides. Scripps found that remarkably funny.
You can try to talk-up what comedy 'is'; whether it's a light art form, a dark one or, as Scripps puts it, ''the elusive dark horse of the arts''. It can be like a rousing gospel service, ''full of hallelujahs''. It's about comparing versions of reality, every day trivialities, nuances and subtleties that are unique and familiar in life, yadda yadda yadda.
Yet we don't all laugh at the same thing, shared experience or not.
''What comedy is to me,'' Scripps said, ''is that common thread we all have, before the comic takes it in another direction.''
