The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is taking place in Auckland and Wellington this month. Over the next three weeks, the NZ Herald will be reviewing some of the top local and international shows from throughout the festival, so check back here for all the latest reviews.
Takashi Wakasugi - Comedy Samurai
Takashi Wakasugi speaks occasional profound truths in his hour up on the stand-up stage.
One is that he has a really cool name. Try saying it with flair and you’ll see what he means.
Try martial arts hand movements as well. It becomes even clearer.
“Thanks Mum,” he says, before moving on to the kind of observational stand-up routine that makes an entertaining hour, is occasionally in slightly questionable taste, and ultimately good for a few serious laughs on the way.
But with one extraordinary difference. This guy is Japanese, has lived in Australia for six years, and his English is heavily accented and idiosyncratic.
His idiomatic surprises are often at the core of his best humour.
He veers occasionally into unnecessary unpatriotic self-deprecation, for example, his opening schtick about how the Japanese never invented anything, they just improved it.
While he is Japanese and we are New Zealanders, so unpatriotic self-deprecation is a shared national trait, Wakasugi is funnier when he talks about the importance of “being samurai”: take a road and do not stray from it. Total commitment!
This yields unexpectedly welcome advice for people who keep recommending their favourite podcast. No spoilers. You’ll have to see the show to find out what that’s about. Same goes for air fryers. Slyly funny stuff.
Maybe I’m getting old. Even though the lines are delivered with some panache – he got a good laugh for describing masturbation as important personal “happy time” – sometimes enough with the porn and the shampoo. The line between humour and cheap scatology is very thin.
And as the comic himself would say: “don’t be on the line”.
Choose one side or the other. Be amused. Be samurai.
Takashi Wakasugi - Comedy Samurai is on in Wellington at The Fringe Bar until May 10th, and in Auckland at The Basement Theatre May 13th - 17th. Reviewed by Pattrick Smellie.
New Zealand comic Henry Yan. Photo / Supplied
Henry Yan – Dancing is Just Physical Talking, So Let’s Make a Podcast
Before an award-winning performance at Australia’s national comedy competition in Melbourne, Henry Yan hadn’t ever told his parents he loved them. So, knowing they weren’t in the audience, he told them through his show. Back home he watched the televised performance with his friends and family, including his parents - maybe the more awkward way to say those words for the first time.
But awkwardness might just be the through line of Yan’s life, and work.
“I recently found out I’m awkward,” Yan said not long after taking to the stage in the opening night of his ‘Dancing is Just Physical Talking, So Let’s Make a Podcast’ at Auckland’s Basement Theatre.
He entered shyly, although grinning incessantly. You quickly learn this is part of his comedic persona, but if you didn’t know he was an award-winning comedian, you might think he’s lost a bet. He’s the friend with the perplexingly good one-liners, delivering them like the one who cracks a joke in tragic situations.
Except it’s all too sharp to be an accident. Seamlessly, Yan takes the show through some of life’s inherently uncomfortable moments.
He leans on self-deprecation and a dry, quick humour when recounting his experiences with dating, unemployment and getting older. The audience is held in a space that feels casual and friendly, a feeling helped by his natural interaction with the crowd and likely built by shaking the hands – awkwardly – of the front row when he came on.
One day, you’re 17 and Alphaville’s Forever Young is a romantic celebration of where you are. The next, you’re closer to 30 and it’s a desperate plea.
Yan is able to merge the insecurities that come with getting older, with down-to-earth, stripped-back comedy. His touching expression of how comedy ends up connecting him with his parents is the perfect way to round off a show that highlights the disappointing moments we’ve all come across as we age.
Henry Yan – Dancing is Just Physical Talking, So Let’s Make a Podcast is in Auckland at The Basement Theatre until May 10th, and in Wellington at Te Auaha May 15th - 17th. Reviewed by Mary O’Sullivan.
