Students hoping funny business is a good start

TIME FOR A LAUGH: Josie Major, Storm McKenna and Lara Wishart are hopeful their comedy show, starring some of New Zealand's best comics, will at least break even. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

A group of Wairarapa College students are hoping their first business venture together - bringing a trio of celebrity comedians to the school - will at least break even while cracking smiles.

Linchpin spokeswoman Lara Wishart said the student company had been formed between a half-dozen 16-year-old Year 12 friends who were studying economics at the college, including Storm McKenna, Josie Major, Caitlin McNeil, Dacia Goble and Sophie Osborne.

The friends attended a Young Enterprise Trust seminar in the capital and had settled on the company name Linchpin, which originally was a joke drawn from history lessons for the friends, because the term "means to hold things together" and seemed appropriate for a company.

Ms Wishart said the group believed there was a desperate lack of professional comics visiting Wairarapa and struck upon the idea of bringing a comedy show to Masterton as their inaugural business enterprise.

"Comedians tend to skip over us and go to Wellington or Palmerston North and never come here. So we decided to bring them here ourselves," Ms Major said.

The group combed the country for agents and acts and, after contacting Notorious Comedy in Auckland, settled on the triple act of television comedians Dai Henwood, Guy Williams and Steve Wrigley as the most suitable blend of cost, celebrity and availability.

The Linchpin Comedy Showcase, hosted by Jarrod Baker, will be staged at the Wairarapa College school hall from 7pm this Friday and tickets, costing $30, have been on sale for the past month.

Ms Wishart said they had priced the tickets competitively to ensure fellow students could attend the R13 show and most had been sold at the school and online.

Ms McKenna said the group had been advised to expect a mass of door sales on the night and were yesterday confident they would break even and avoid a plummet in to the red by several thousands of dollars.

She said: "We're a little way off breaking even but we will do it again next year if our first show is successful."

Tickets for the Linchpin Comedy Showcase on Friday are available at Super Minx in Greytown, and at Food for Thought, Kuripuni Bookshop and the Wairarapa College office in Masterton, or online at linchpinyes.wordpress.com.