Melanie Bracewell is an accomplished stand-up comedian.
Melanie Bracewell is an accomplished stand-up comedian.
Melanie Bracewell is on track to become one of New Zealand’s great comedy success stories – but her start in the industry is vastly at odds with that of many of her contemporaries.
The 28-year-old won the Billy T Award in 2018 on the way to becoming amainstay on TV screens here and across the ditch, but her career really took off as a teenager on the internet.
In an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan that aired on Sunday night, Auckland-raised Bracewell recounted her unlikely rise to stardom on the social media site Tumblr.
“I would just write jokes online, which sometimes circulate now as memes, and it will be what I wrote as a 15 or 16-year-old – which is quite surreal,” she said.
“When I was 19, there was a competition for [Three comedy show] 7 Days and they were trying to find a comedy apprentice, and I was egged on by my followers. They were like, ‘Oh, this seems like you. You could just say some jokes into a camera – you’ve already written them for Tumblr anyway’.
“I did that, and it was a public vote, which does help when you have a big following on a Tumblr blog. They voted for me and I got on for about five minutes.”
It was those five minutes that launched a career that has since had Bracewell writing for TV programmes The Project and Wellington Paranormal, and starring in comedy shows like Have You Been Paying Attention?, Patriot Brains and Australia’s The Cheap Seats.
She’s also become an accomplished stand-up comedian, performing to large audiences on both sides of the ditch – last week she drew a crowd of 1600 at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney.
But, despite the 7 Days appearance catapulting her to fame, her first stint in live comedy has become something of a bittersweet memory for Bracewell.
“I was actually reminiscing about it the other day, and it made me quite sad because it was with Cal Wilson,” she told Cowan.
Wilson, who like Bracewell was raised in New Zealand before taking her comedy career to Australia, died last year after a secret battle with cancer.
“She was one of the first people that sat me down and talked me through comedy and what it’s like,” said Bracewell. “She was just one of the best people ever to talk to. I miss her a lot.”
TV host and comedian Melanie Bracewell.
Bracewell says despite all she’s accomplished, she still struggles with impostor syndrome: “It’s impossible to not.”
“What are the chances that every single [career success] was a fluke? That’s astronomical statistics for that to happen, but you still think that in your mind. You always count everything down to luck, but there is a lot of hard work that goes into it,” she said.
“At the same time, you don’t want to sit here and go, ‘I’ve built this empire from the ground up, and no one helped me along the way’. So many people helped me along the way.
“So I never think this is all me, and I try not to think this is all luck and not me at all – you’ve just got to find that balance.”
Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7.30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.
