Young body,old soul

"What a mission!" Rose Matafeo says of the hairdressing effort behind the bouffant she sports on the fliers promoting her show at the comedy festival.

Naturally, the 18-year-old of half-Samoan, quarter-Dalmatian and quarter-Scottish descent has curls wound tighter than the wool of the very 70s geometric jumper she is wearing.

The jumper was her dad's, she found it in the back of a closet recently and claimed it as her own. See, Matafeo's passport may say that she is only just of voting age, but secretly she is a 72-year-old nana.

She says it's her way of upstaging her rebellious parents. They have dreadlocks and listen to drum 'n' bass and house, so to rebel against that is to listen to Coast FM.

"I am really out-of-date with some things. If anyone looks at my iPod they will think I am the biggest freak ever," she says.

She has "normal" music - Lady Gaga and the like - juxtaposed with Doris Day and the Bee Gees and Burt Bacharach. She was so upset when he postponed his New Zealand show.

Matafeo's interest in all things out-dated influenced the show she performed with fellow young comedian Heidi O'Loughlin at last year's comedy festival called Guide to the Uncool. This year they are doing their own shows and Matafeo says her Life Lessons I've Learnt From the 60s (Based on Things I've Seen On The Television) is loosely made up of her stand-up routines, but is really an excuse to wear a lot of liquid eyeliner and her hair in a bouffant.

Matafeo is not really what you would expect of a comedian, or comedienne (but she prefers not to go by the latter as she says it evokes comedy about periods and makeup).

She was head girl of Auckland Girls' Grammar last year and she doesn't spill one swear word across our coffee cups. Between writing gags, she writes university assignments about philosophy, English and film and television, as well as practising the mandolin and baking biscuits. She got into comedy when she was 15 and looking for an extra-curricular activity to sit alongside her excessive TV viewing, and was one of two at her all-girls school who took interest in Class Comedians, the two-week comedy course for teens.

Comedy's not really the done thing among young ladies, especially when they are obsessed with appearing attractive to the opposite sex: "A sense of humour is quite threatening to guys," Matafeo explains.

But her stand-up sets are very clean - a hangover from the teenage training. The odd bit of cussing may creep in these days but she's not going on about R18 human mating rituals or anything.

"I think it's good I don't have to rely on dirty stuff to be funny. At the core of it you want it to be a good joke, and when you rely so heavily on swear words or innuendo then it's not really a good joke," she says.

As one of Auckland's youngest performers, Matafeo says she was star-struck when she found herself next to all the old-hat comedians, but now the local scenesters are like aunties and uncles.

"It's really nice because you go to the Classic and it's like performing in front of your family," she says.

And yeah, it probably feels right to keep it clean when your family - including your very proud parents - are guaranteed to be in the audience.

LOWDOWN

Who: Rose Matafeo
What: 18-year-old local comedian
Latest: Life Lessons I've Learned From the 60s (Based On Things I've Seen On The Television) playing at The Basement Saturday April 24 and Apr 27-May 1.