Will Johnston: head to head with Ben Hurley

Comedian Ben Hurley making his points at the Epic Te Puke Comedy Debate

Standing in front of a couple of hundred people and being expected to be funny, for 10 minutes, is the definition of 'my greatest fear' for a lot of people.

But I stupidly like a challenge and have this weird overestimation of my ability.

So I did the Great Comedy Debate for Epic Te Puke again this year.

The moot: Australia is our friend.

My team was the negative. So we're saying Australians aren't our friends. How hard could this possibly be, right? Wrong.

Okay, so we had a strong team. Justine Smith was our professional comedian and is the funniest woman I've ever seen on stage. She is a genius at reading a crowd and then blowing them away with a little bit of a dirty mind really playing on 'you know you were thinking it'.

Then me, a guy who thinks he's funny.

Then the Te Puke town crier. In a kiwifruit vest. He was our secret weapon. We assumed he'd know everyone in the crowd and would've bribed them before it even began? Turns out not. Damn it!

We were against Ben Hurley (the Billy T winner, world travelling comedian and 7 Days regular), Todd McClay MP — a guy who debates for a living — and Fairhaven School's principal, who I imagine has had his fair share of 'convincing people that this is the right idea' in his life.

We lost. McClay promised the judges (two other high school principals) more leave, or more money, or just some respect from their students, or something.
Justine and Ben were just brilliant. Why don't comedians get paid more in this country? I guess it's an audience size thing. But sitting up on stage and watching them have such a command of a crowd was kind of like watching the comedy version of finally understanding how a game of chess actually works.

You have to actually think forward to where you're going and be a couple of steps ahead of the laughs you know are coming.

I know it sounds ridiculous coming from someone who speaks into a mic for a living and understands how to MC stuff, but comedy is one of the most under-respected arts there is. It's kind of beautiful to watch.

But most importantly we were all part of a team of people making other people laugh, raising a little money for good things out in Te Puke and ...

We know we SHOULD have won.

— Will Johnston is the local 9am-3pm host for The Hits Bay of Plenty 95FM. He's also a celebrant and MC. Follow Will on Instagram on @radiowill