Comedy Fest Questionnaire: Terry Williams

Comedy Fest Questionnaire: Terry Williams

1) Tell us what your show is called this year?The Grin Reaper

2)  Why?Two reasons. Obviously, there’s the play on one of death’s nicknames being ‘The Grim Reaper. Change ‘grim’ to ‘grin’ and you’ve got comedy implied. Comedy about death - Or, more specifically, death avoidance.

3) Can you give us a few hints as to what broadly your festival show is about?The show was, in part, inspired by a book I read two Christmases’ ago called 'Blue Zones - Lessons For Living Longer From Those Who've Lived The Longest.' Scientists studied those places where people lived disproportionately long lives and quality lives. Hit a library. Check it out. It's not all monastic lifestyles, not by a long way. Friends, wine, laughter, oats and get off your arse. There's an online quizzy thing where you tell as much truth as you can and it estimates how long you'll live, gives you some advice, and how long you might add if you take their advice. You do the maths and you decide if it's worth it. My show looks at their nine secrets of adding 10 quality years to your life and extracts the funny from them.  Coincidentally, that year I also ended up being witness to three emergency dashes to hospital with friends and family. They all turned out OK but it did make me focus on how people deal with life in those circumstances – and humour is a very common outlet. There’s a lot of comedy in the machine that goes ping.

4) How much time have you spent crafting the show over the past 12 months since the end of the last festival?The past 12 months! (Your question very much implied the answer.) There’s a part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System. We’d all go crazy if we noticed everything all the time so it kindly filters out most everything and we can keep our noticeable universe down to about 10 things. Once you know what your show’s concept is, it provides a focus and you see the world giving you lots of inspiration for your show. That and the three pixies who live behind my left earlobe.

5) The comedy festival is turning 21 this year – it’s a big age 21 – what are your memories of being 21? Or if you’re not old enough yet, you lucky person, what are your hopes for being 21?I plan on doing a Benjamin Button thing where I’m ageing in reverse emotionally, so, based on my estimate of living to 100, I’ll be 21 emotionally in 2045. In a more traditional chronology, I was 21 in the 80s so, much like Ronald Reagan and Oliver North, I cannot recall.

6) The Comedy festival is one big party and catch-up for a month - is there anyone you’re looking forward to seeing over here either socially or on stage?Whilst I have no problem performing on stage in front of large crowds of people (or crowds of large people), I am abjectly terrified of catching up with anyone socially.Comedians tend to be quite distributed people. They’re all over the place geographically, demographically and chronologically. Gatherings like the festival enable us to put names to faces and, often, names to incriminating FaceBook photos.

7) What’s the comedy scene like at the moment? Who do you rate and why?Burgeoning and booming. There’s such a mass of newbies coming through and such a visible pathway to actually being a professional comedian in the dictionary sense of the word professional. Not just getting paid in beer but making a living and having a pathway of progression. The overseas and very visible success of the much publicised names, plus the local successes on TV here really attaches a validity to the pursuit rather than people seeing it at best as a hobby (“Don’t give up your day job”) or at worst and ironically, a joke. I rate anyone and everyone who has the guts to do it more than once. And I rate their friends and family for being supportive or, hopefully, at least tolerant.

8)  What’s the best piece of audience interaction you’ve had?I was doing the usual MC thing of asking a couple how they met and the woman responded loud and proud, “Oh he used to be my parole officer.” Pretty good basis for a relationship I thought. At least he’d be genuine in asking her what she got up to today. And listening intently to her talk about her friends.

9) What’s the most memorable part of performing for you within the last 12 months?Aside from pub and club stand-up comedy, most of my comedy is for corporates, conferences and events. I recently MC’d the NZ Dairy Awards for the second year. Great to be witness to our country’s most successful industry on nights of celebration and me making them laugh helping them celebrate. In fact, the drought broke during me hosting the Taranaki awards. Best applause I’ve ever got as their desperate need for rain synched with my desperate need for approval.

10) When we say New Zealand International Comedy Festival to you, what’s the first thing you think of?New. It’s the first word of the phrase ‘New Zealand International Comedy Festival’ and it implies what the festival should be about – newness, novelty, innovation, looking at the world and its temporary inhabitants in new and different ways.

11) How would you persuade people to come and see your show?Patience, logical argument and diplomacy. This same approach has been tried with the global financial crisis, climate change and the Syrian Civil War. We’ll see how it goes. As a back-up plan, I’ve banged out a few posters, a FaceBook event and every ticket bought to my show goes in the draw for a box of six bottles of Oyster Bay Sparkling Cuvee Brut. And I gift 2 bottles a night to audience members. (This is totally in line with the show’s theme of adding 10 more quality years to your life. Drinking is fine if you’re drinking socially with true friends and comedians.)