No joke getting gigs for gags

By MARK STORY


You may not need to be young, good-looking or educated to break into comedy but you do need a comic perspective of the world in your soul.

The fact that TVNZ deems it necessary to mail one-line rejection letters to the author who penned one of its current hit shows seems a trifle condescending. TV scriptwriter James Griffin - who single-handedly wrote the sitcom Serial Killers - objects to being dealt with so impersonally. But he says it's yet another wake-up call that writing local comedy is no laughing matter.

Griffin says if he had to rely on the income he earned from comedy writing alone, he'd be in deep doo.

But if the sell-out season at the recent NZ International Comedy Festival is any indication, Kiwi humour is alive and kicking. It's a huge vote of confidence, says Scott Blank, director of stand-up venue the Classic, that local comedians are funny.

While Griffin admits there's never been a better time to write local comedy, he warns it's still underpaid - compared to overseas - and extremely unpredictable. To him TVNZ's rejection letters are a sobering reminder that the industry's gatekeepers are few, and what's considered funny changes with fashion.

So if you're interested in writing comedy, and can stomach low pay and lots of rejection, where do you start? Some high schools have been given a taste of stand-up comedy through the Class Comedians programme. Developed by the NZ Comedy Trust, Class Comedians has charged stand-up professionals with running comedy workshops within schools over the past three years. Standout students from each workshop are selected for further training in writing and performing their work.

Beyond other comedy workshops put on by Creative NZ and the NZ Comedy Guild, there's little formal training available. Dedicated comedy courses are rare, but the Auckland Performing Arts Centre offers a six-week course exploring numerous comic forms, including stand-up. While still under development, a comedy writing course that Blank's been collaborating on should be available via the Music and Audio Institute of NZ next year.

Unlike serial comedy for TV, local stand-up comedians typically perform their own work. If this is more your scene, Blank says why not just give it a crack? Raw comedy nights available at the Classic and Wellington's Indigo Bar let new faces do short stints. Other venues also have 'open mic' nights.

This is how former journalist and TV personality Michele A'Court started in the business when she was 32. A'Court is one of 29 (of the NZ Comedy Guild's 85 members), including evergreens such as Mike King, Radar and Ewen Gilmour, who make all or most of their living doing stand-up. While stand-up comedians don't have to be young, pretty or educated, she says they do need to be clever.

"The trick is to absorb what's going on in the world then reprocess it humorously," says A'Court, the Guild's president.

With the pay-stakes infinitely better than a decade ago, A'Court says making comedy writing a career is much more do-able. Since the early 1990s she's witnessed pay soar from $40 to (potentially) several thousand for a 20-minute slot. Based on past experience with a TVNZ sketch comedy team, she says pay for serial comedy writing - at around $1500 a week - is comparable to scripting for dramas such as Shortland Street.

So who are the gatekeepers of comedy you must convince to give you a shot? When it comes to TV, Griffin says the buck stops with the commissioning editors such as TVNZ's Tony Holden, former producer of comedies including Gliding On, and Spin Doctors. Beyond the stand-up comedy clubs, the only other avenues for comedy material are theatre companies and some radio.

But owing to the sheer volume of "product", Writers' Guild head Dominic Sheehan, says most bread and butter comedy work is in TV. In addition to The Insiders Guide to Happiness, The Mike King Comedy/Chat Show and Serial Killers, TVNZ is about to move into a sketch series, Face Lift, with the Gibson Group. TV2 is expected to run an eighth series of Pulp Comedy next year.

Established writers, such as Griffin, Roger Hall, Tom Scott or Dave Armstrong, usually pair up with producers to develop new TV comedies. Holden's always on the lookout for hot new writing talent. Beyond TV, A'Court says the guild is always keen to help people to get started and urges new talent to write a show for next year's festival.

"The amount of money you'll earn depends on how hungry you are. Treat comedy like a hobby and it'll stay that way. If you need to pay the rent, you'll start knocking on doors, produce your own gigs and pursue all avenues possible."

10 TIPS TO SUCCESS

* Don't give up your day job.

* Find out what people want.

* Be prepared to write on spec.

* Find every outlet for your work.

* Go see lots of comedy.

* Ask yourself, why am I funny?

* Start writing down your funny ideas.

* Do a raw comedy gig.

* Don't steal other people's material.

* Allow yourself time to evolve.

ON THE WEB

NZ Comedy Guild

Performing Arts School