Comedian Urzila Carlson is a regular panelist on TV3's 7 Days. She and her partner Julie are getting married in November. The brides will wear jandals. Photo / Dean Purcell
Comedian Urzila Carlson is a regular panelist on TV3's 7 Days. She and her partner Julie are getting married in November. The brides will wear jandals. Photo / Dean Purcell
Bringing you our favourite features from 2014. If you missed them the first time around, now’s the perfect time to catch up. And remember to come back tomorrow for the next instalment.
"I think," said the comedian Urzila Carlson, "I'm girlier than most girls ... in my situation." Giggle, giggle, she went. Giggle, giggle, I went. Quite a bit of this girly giggling went on. She has a terribly contagious giggle which must have been hell for her teachers, but it isuseful for a comedian - it spreads the laughs.
She is a comfortable sort of comedian; cosy rather than confrontational, you think when you see her. She is more likely to "take the piss" out of herself than to pick on you in the audience. She hardly ever gets heckled and this is partly, probably, because she looks so friendly. But also, I reckon, you'd heckle her at your peril. She has a pretty giggle, and face, but she also has a pointed tongue which she pointed at me, once or twice.
She is ferociously protective of her private life, at least the details relating to her fiancee and their daughter, who is 16 months old and whose name she won't share.
She did do a story for a women's mag about having a baby, but she told me off for saying that she had sold that story. She most certainly did not, she said, she did it to promote her comedy show and: "If you read it, it said nothing."
I had and it did say almost nothing. So of course I thought, oh hell, she's going to be one of those difficult, miserable comedians who tell you nothing and are deliberately unfunny - because what's the point in giving jokes away to an audience of one?
But, nah, as she often says, she's not a bit tricky and she is funny. Aside from the baby's name and her partner Julie's last name, she'll tell you anything. She's the sort of girl, even at "48-and-a-half" you know you'd have wanted to hang out with at school. She's good fun, and cheeky.
She grew up in South Africa, in Benoni, and went to boarding school, which she loved, because she's out-going and pretty laid back and, I'd imagine, liked having her first captive audience. She emigrated to New Zealand seven years ago, with another partner and her son, because she got fed up with " looking over my shoulder the whole time". The moment when she decided to leave came when her then partner's 6-year-old son came home from school with instructions on what not to do at school: Don't bring guns. Don't rape your classmates. So she thought, stuff this, I'm off and so here she is. ...
