Dai Henwood is aware that one of these things is not like the other.
“My two zen places are sitting in complete silence by myself or trying to make 1000 people laugh on demand. I find that juxtaposition quite funny.”
The comedian, who has stage four cancer, finds a meditative peace in performing live.
“There are very few times these days in my life when I don’t think of cancer and one of them is when I’m doing comedy. I think I find a sort of zen in that chaos, because the crowd is there, but I’m almost isolated,” he says.
“There literally is only that moment. Five seconds can feel like an hour when you are trying to think of something to say ... and, for me, that takes my mind off cancer.”
That, and the comic relief of his stand-up travelling companions.
Henwood, alongside Jeremy Corbett, Hayley Sproull, Paul Ego, Josh Thomson, Ben Hurley and Justine Smith, is currently preparing to take 7 Days Live on its 13th national tour.
The 47-year-old has been with the comedy show since its television inception in 2009.
“What’s awesome is meeting kids who are now adults who watched it with their folks. What started off as a bit of late-night craziness became a show that people watched as a family, and then they’ve grown up and just to age us even more, some of them have had children.”
Currently in its 17th small screen season (surpassing a comedy television record held by Gliding On, which starred Henwood’s father Ray), the November 5-29 live tour will take in 11 venues from Auckland to Invercargill.
“Laughter is so good for you, and especially if you’re sharing it with other people,” says Henwood, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2020.
“Being happy and positive and optimistic is incredibly important. People who have those traits tend to have longer or better outcomes. I’ve had to cancel a lot of work over the last couple of months for surgeries and three hospitalisations I wasn’t expecting. It’s made me very aware of how important being able to do what I love is.”
7 Days Live is billed as a rule breaker – no cameras, censors or lawyers.
“TV is edited, edited, edited,” says Henwood. “This is so much looser ... and also we can really localise each show.”
You know you’re in Southland when there’s a cheese roll joke?
“That just triggered me,” Henwood says. “We were in Invercargill, it was a fun show, but we couldn’t figure out the audience. People were getting up, no one could focus ... there was a fight, actually, which had never happened before.
“Halfway through, we realised it had been Crate Day. That appalling New Zealand tradition of drinking 12 long-neck beers in 12 hours or whatever?”
Once, he says, the production team might have avoided scheduling a performance at the same time as an All Blacks test – but it had never occurred to anyone to check some audience members weren’t planning a night around a controversial day of binge drinking.
Henwood imagines a potential ticket-buying scenario: “Awesome. We will have had about 42 standard drinks each, we can just go and have a nightcap and watch some comedy ...”
The comedian, who quit drinking before his cancer diagnosis, says he’s always thought watching comedy is like playing pool.
“There’s that perfect number of drinks, which is around two to three. You’re a bit tiddly, but you can still dial in and focus. After that, you just start chatting to your mate and it all falls apart.”
The 7 Days Live format includes a short stand-up set from each of the comedians, followed by an hour-long version of the television show that turns the week’s news into laughs.
“I love presenting, doing comedy TV, doing more serious stuff,” says Henwood. “But live stand-up comedy, to me, is the most honest art form, and the most exciting. You can’t fake laughter. As a comic, you know whether you are doing good or bad, immediately.
“And with the 7 Days Live show, sharing an experience with hundreds of people all laughing at the same time, is amazing.”
Henwood was recently named an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to the entertainment industry and charitable fundraising. When he spoke to the Herald before the King’s Birthday Honours news, he was preparing for surgery to deal with a build-up of fluid around his heart and lungs.
“The surgery, by all accounts, has done what it needs to do and I’ve been back in chemotherapy and I’ve done a couple of rounds so far,” he said this week. “Compared to where I was a month, or two months ago, I’m feeling so much stronger and positive. May and June were a real downer.”
The November tour, with show dates concentrated around weekends, will allow Henwood to accommodate his current treatment regime but, he admits, “it’s not as fun when we’re all flying home and everyone’s going ‘oh yeah, I’m just gonna have a couple of days chilling’ and I’m just going to be doing chemo”.
Touring aligns with his personal mantra.
“I’m living with cancer. And the key is, I’m living with it and I want to live every day to the fullest... being on tour fills my bucket up and that makes me a better person, a better patient, a better husband, a better dad – all of those things.”
Catch the 7 Days Live tour: Tauranga, November 5 (Baycourt); Napier, November 6 (Municipal Theatre); Dunedin, November 7 (Regent Theatre); Invercargill, November 8 (Civic Theatre); Auckland, November 14 (Bruce Mason Centre); Rotorua, November 15 (Howard Morrison Theatre); Nelson, November 20 (Trafalgar Centre); Wellington, November 21 (Michael Fowler Centre); Palmerston North, November 22 (Regent on Broadway); Christchurch, November 28 (Town Hall); Hamilton, November 29 (Claudelands). Tickets at: 7days.co.nz