Rose Matafeo on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
I’m a Kiwi comedian and I reckon I can help improve New Zealand’s GDP. We need to think beyond dairy and beef and export-quality fleece. Sure, those things are great, but they’re not always the most sustainable.
You know what is a sustainable export? Comedy. And Aotearoa is brimming with comedic talent that’s ready to make a splash on the world stage. And I would know, I’m currently one of those people splashing around here in Toronto, Canada.
But in order to capitalise on this talent, it needs a boost.
There are three main things a comic needs to get better: Quality stage time, long-term paid opportunities and access to funding. And we’re lucky enough to have one of these in droves.
Spoilers: It’s not the last two.
Having travelled all over the world doing comedy, I understand we are in a unique position. Because of our small population, there is less competition. And we also have access to performing quality gigs. In Auckland, it’s perfectly doable for your first gig to be at The Classic in front of a packed audience of 120 on a Monday open mic.
This would be a pipe-dream in a lot of the larger cities I’ve travelled to. In New York, people pay money to do three minutes in front of 10 people. Here in Toronto, rookies put their names into a bucket with 20 other names, and wait three hours to get drawn so they can do three minutes to an audience of five tired punters.
This is one of the reasons our country punches above its weight when it comes to comedy. Our comics get good at home then go on to crush it overseas.
But how do we set ourselves up to keep making more great comedy exports?
It’s simple. Fund comedy.
The reality of being a comedian in New Zealand means that to make a living telling jokes, you have to be good at something else that can make you money. Only a handful of comedians can upskill themselves on the job and make money doing comedy sustainably. We have a big talent pool fighting for a small amount of paid opportunities.
I’ve had countless conversations with friends and colleagues in the comedy industry who all thought about calling it quits because of the grind, despite being crowd-favourites.
It doesn’t have to be like that.
It starts with how we fund and invest into live comedy in Aotearoa.
Live comedy is seen as the stepchild of the arts in New Zealand. It doesn’t get the same amount of love as the opera or theatre. Yes, The NZ Comedy Trust and other local comedy trusts receive funding, but nowhere near as much.
Why do you think our country’s biggest comedy event is officially called “The NZ International Comedy Festival with Best Foods Mayo”? As much as we’re grateful for our mayo overlords (and if you’re reading this mayo gods, we love you) it would be a dream to see the festival be supported more by funding bodies, across multiple years. The festival has earned it, especially for how much talent it’s produced at a global level.
I wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for the Trust’s class comedians programme. You know who else got their start there? Rose Matafeo. You know, winner of the most prestigious comedy prize in the world in 2018? We could be making the next Rose Matafeo if we invested in that programme more! But instead, the trust has had to strip the programme back due to lack of resources.
I experienced this funding conundrum myself when I filmed my first comedy special Boy Mestizo. We got bounced between funding bodies because the work fell into this funding wasteland: not a film, not a live performance. I ended up financing it through a Boosted campaign and my own savings.
Our sense of humour is one of our greatest strengths. Kiwi comedy has a long and storied history and now there is a new generation hungry to show it to a world stage.
The rest of the world is hungry for us too! Urzila Carlson sells out worldwide tours. Rhys Darby hosted the International Emmys. Rose has her sitcom in the UK. Taika Waititi is crushing it in America. Melanie Bracewell hosts The Cheap Seats in Australia. Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt’s podcast Worst Idea of All Time is beloved in the States. My boy Pax Assadi’s show, Raised by Refugees, is in Australia.
This year I was picked to be one of the New Faces at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal – one of the most prestigious comedy festivals in the world. Did I write this article just to tell everyone back home about this achievement? No! Shut up, not even!
New Zealand comedy is the strongest it’s ever been. The comedy commodity is valuable and should be seen for its export potential. It’s already punching above its weight, imagine how much harder it would hit if it were properly recognised by funders as an art form in its own right.
I urge the incoming Government to take note, and help the comedy sector realise its potential, for the benefit of all Kiwis.
James Roque is an Auckland-based comedian, writer and multimedia content creator.