Rhys Mathewson At only 19 Rhys Mathewson is New Zealand’s youngest professional comedian. He’s been on the scene since he was 15 as part of Class Comedians, performed his first solo show last year called The Best $18 You’ll Ever Spend, and is back this year with his second offering, Rhyspect, a show promising arrogance, a whiteboard and possibly some Disney references. He’s also a student at the University of Auckland as well, and he has the Lion Red t-shirt and the uncut hairstyle to prove it. The show is based around “a quest for change” and fixing himself as a person, which he had started coming up with before last year’s festival had even taken place. “I think that a lot of people when they’re 17 to say 20 go through this period of saying ‘this is what I’m going to be like as a person. I like these things, but don’t like these things’. But then you get to a point where you go ‘OK, some of this hasn’t worked and I’m a bit of a dick’, and then you have to go around and kind of fix it. That’s kind of what the show’s about,” he says. So what is his favourite Disney movie? “Old school Robin Hood, because it’s not overdone. Most people say the Lion King and stuff like that but no, Robin Hood was my favourite.” Despite making a career out of telling jokes, he’s serious about what he does. He spends the day of his show re-reading his set list to make sure he doesn’t blank on stage, but let’s loose a few hours before the show he’ll have a Red Bull and do some air boxing to get himself pumped up. “It’s a bit spastic but it keeps me a bit more agile I think. I like to think
that, otherwise I’m just doing it for no reason.” Growing up on the comedy scene at a young age hasn’t affected him professionally at all, aside from the fact that he couldn’t drink after a show until 2 years ago and 80s references go over his head. Mathewson says the comedy scene in New Zealand is a good place to start out because it’s such a small industry that you get lots of support, advice and move on to better gigs at early stages. One such gig was a spot at the Edinburgh film festival, which he can’t stop raving about. “I cannot recommend Edinburgh enough to anyone reading. Definitely go over; it’s like a month long party with some really good comedy and good drama and music…happening at the same time.” While the downside to doing comedy in New Zealand is that the industry is too small for everyone to make a living solely off of comedy, Mathewson’s confident that in 10 years time, he’ll still be trying to make people laugh. “A lot of people would say ‘I want to get into movies’ or ‘I want to do TV or radio’, which I really don’t want to do at the moment because I don’t think I really have anything interesting to say. So at the moment, where I see myself is just standing on stage telling people some jokes. That’s what I want to do and I haven’t made plans after that.” Rhys Mathewson is playing at The Classic Studio from Wednesday May 12 - Saturday May 15 at 10pm. Check out www.comedyfestival.co.nz for more details.
Heidi O’Loughlin & Rose Matafeo Heidi O’Loughlin and Rose Matafeo sit on the balcony of Rakinos, surrounded by a pile of empty coffee cups, wearing matching tortoise-shell glasses. They talk in broken sentences, and whenever there’s a slight pause, the other one jumps in and finishes off the thought. They’re one of New Zealand’s youngest comedy duos (O’Loughlin is 21, while Matafeo is only 18), but they’ve both been on the scene since they were 15. Their road to comedy starts the same: they both started out in Class Comedians, where they “take small children and give them Chinese burns until they tell jokes”, according to O’Loughlin. They met at a RAW comedy gig where O’Loughlin forced Matafeo to be her friend (although Matafeo argues she had a bit to do with it as well) and their love of Arrested Development (before it was cool), old TV shows and generally anything awkward or “uncool” set them up with the ‘Heidi and Rose’ partnership. Their style is described by others as quirky, kitschy and twee, but they use words like country and rock n roll, just to be different. Looking at them at first glance, and listening to their conversation, you would be forgiven for thinking they were the same person, but they both insist they each have distinctive comedy styles. “It’s interesting because our writing styles and our material, it differs, but we do share the similarity in that we’re both self-deprecating and [have] got really awkward humour, but we’re completely different on stage,” says Matafeo. After the success of last year’s show, A Guide to the Uncool, they have branched out into their first solo shows. Matafeo – the taller, curly-haired half of the partnership – just wrapped up Life Lessons I’ve Learnt From The ‘60s (Based On Things I’ve Seen On The Television); which was based on exactly what the title says. You would think she would resent being a 90s baby, but she’s quick to point out that even though she’s currently obsessed with the 60s, she wouldn’t have wanted to grow up in it. “You sort of idolise decades. [In the] 60s you’re still fighting for women’s rights and racial equality.” When asked if she had to pick one decade other than now to grow up in, she settled on the 70s, because her hair “would have worked in the 70s”. O’Loughlin’s project, Life Without Michael: One Year On, is a lot more topical. She plays a life-long Michael Jackson fan, distraught by his death. It’s inspired by a story she heard over in the UK about a girl who had dedicated her whole life to Michael Jackson since leaving school at 15. “That really fascinated me because I was quite struck by his death but what if I had been the sort of fan who had dedicated my entire life… what would you do when he died? You’d have no prospects, you’d have no education.” “Quite struck” by his death is an understatement. She first heard the news issue 9 may 2010
when she woke up and saw 20 missed calls and 30 messages on her phone, which all started with ‘Michael Jackson’. She spent the day in her pajamas, glued to the TV and crying over the news. “I found myself being more devastated than I could have ever imagined. It was so bad. It was so embarrassing.” Both of them say their shows are for a niche audience, and while it is one of the first opportunities they’ve had to develop separate distinctive styles, they’re still directing each other’s shows and plan on resurrecting the duo in the future. “It’s different, but I think it’s always good to have that person you trust to run by what you’re doing. Because we’re both not big sharers and we’ve realised that we’re not very good at getting outside directors, just because we’re very self-conscious about our material. But because we’re so used to each other…we can honestly tell each other [what we think] and we don’t feel bad about it.” Aside from being some of the younger comedians in New Zealand’s comedy scene, they’re also fall under “female comedians”, a category that sends them off in a rapid-fire spiel, with the conversation jumping from one side of the table to the other. “Our whole thing is that we want to be funny comedians, not funny female comedians, but then that’s a problem because people have this whole thing over here where they’re like ‘well you better [show] extra support for the females’,” says O’Loughlin. “Saying ‘you’re funny for a girl’ is like saying ‘you’re funny for a Samoan,” adds Matafeo. “If you find me funny – good – but don’t find me funny because I’m a girl or I’m this culture or I’m this age…Judge it on the material and the jokes.” Heidi O’Loughlin’s Life Without Michael: One Year On is playing at The Basement this Saturday, May 15 at 5pm. Check out Heidi and Rose’s blog at http://heidiandrose.wordpress.com/ for updates, vlogs, YouTube favourites and comedic ramblings.
15