Why doesn't the South Island get the comedy festival?

Our national comedy festival barely crosses the Cook Strait. Alex Casey tries to find out why.
I've lived in Ōtautahi for two and a half years now, and I can tell you one thing for free: this city bloody loves a laugh. For example, I once saw a man in a curly blue clown wig driving a Suzuki Swift around and around the roundabout in St Martins. I've seen, on multiple occasions, a parody bumper sticker of Jim's Mowing that simply reads Jim's Pubic Trims. I've seen a chihuahua on Cashel Street wearing a straw hat and a tutu. All strong signifiers of a crack-up city.
I've also been in extremely packed and buzzing rooms to see tonnes of stand up comedy, be it a shambolic work in progress show at Little Andromeda, experimental goings-on at Dark Room and Space Academy or a sold out night at James Hay with prodigal sons like Chris Parker and Guy Montgomery. Good Times Comedy Club has heaps on every week, and improv institution Scared Scriptless has just moved to its new home at the swanky Court Theatre in town.
Why then, is Christchurch currently being plagued by posters for New Zealand International Comedy Festival shows in Wellington? Why are there just a handful of offerings daring to cross the Cook Strait to the South Island at all? And is Christchurch being overlooked as the next big comedy city?
James Mustapic is one of those few brave comedians bringing his show south over the festival, and he explains his working simply: 'I like doing shows there, I get pretty good crowds, and I've got nothing else to do.' Coming down relatively often to visit his family in Christchurch, Mustapic started gigging here in 2019. He will often bring his work in progress shows to test out at Little Andromeda, before jumping on a line-up show across town at Good Times.
'Even if they don't have the biggest rooms, the audiences are always really nice,' he says. 'Sometimes in Auckland they just won't laugh unless there's a big audience, so I really enjoy it.' Mustapic also mentions Little Andromeda's All You Can Eat offering, in which people buy a $60 ticket to see as many shows as they like in a month. 'I think that really encourages people to get out and see lots of different things that they might not usually want to go see,' he says.
Michael Bell runs Little Andromeda Theatre, which has been open on the Terrace since 2020 and programmes a mix of theatre and stand-up. 'I think stand up comedy is well attended in general in Christchurch,' he says. 'We've got really good venues that look after artists and make it an easy place to come and try out new material. So many of New Zealand's famous comedians are also from Christchurch, so we'll see them come home and try things out.'
Because of these work in progress shows, Bell says Christchurch is already hosting an unofficial comedy festival of sorts. 'It's just that we get it a month or two early,' he laughs. 'That's why I'm not as up in arms about it, because I literally see the North Island comedy festival at Little Andromeda every year.'
Pip Taylor, the owner of Good Times Comedy Club is slightly more emphatic about the absence of the comedy festival in the south. 'They say it is our national comedy festival, but it is really just a North Island comedy festival,' she says. 'We're the second biggest city in this country, so hopefully they'll come to the party soon.' Having been involved with the comedy club since it opened in 2020, Taylor echoes that things are 'thriving' in the local comedy scene.
By way of example, she mentions a headline-grabbing mishap with her paperwork earlier this year that could have been disastrous. 'So I was a day late in getting my liquor license renewed, and I lost it for 25 days. But while I bled money over the bar, the audience was still turning up for comedy,' she says. 'I think that is such a strong indicator of how people feel about comedy here in Christchurch – they're still showing up for it, even when they can't get drunk.'
This stone cold sober love for comedy not gone unnoticed by Lauren Whitney, director of The New Zealand International Comedy Festival. While Christchurch has previously been used as an occasional satellite location for the odd touring act or gala over the years, she says that there are plans to explore a closer relationship with the city, and soon. 'It's not about a lack of interest in Christchurch, it is really just about capacity and resource at this stage.'
Whitney explains that the core funding for the festival comes from commercial sponsors like Best Foods Mayonnaise, and the rest is from Auckland and Wellington city councils (funding from Creative New Zealand is inconsistent, and they didn't get any this year). 'Because we're not getting long term consistent funding, it's very hard for us to future plan, because generally, by the time we finish a festival, we're then going out and seeking funding all over again,' she says.
There's also the issue of timing. The schedule creep of comedy festivals in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Brisbane overlapping with New Zealand has meant that availability of talent is becoming an issue as it is. 'Currently we have about 650 performances across three and a half weeks in Auckland and Wellington, and so scheduling another city on top of that would produce some logistical challenges,' she says. 'Nothing we can't work out, of course.'
So while I might be whinging down here in the south for the moment, scavenging for errant laughs wherever I can find them (Jim's Pubic Trims), Whitney assures me that momentum is building. 'The dream is to grow Christchurch as a market, not only for the work that we're doing, but also for the wider ecosystem so that comedians can perform with or without us,' she says. 'The long term aim is definitely to do more and more and bring stuff consistently.'
In the meantime, South Islanders can check out a smattering of comedy festival shows here

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