Urzila Carlson is coming to New Plymouth next month.
"I've hung out with some young farmers in Stratford before."
Stand up comedian Urzila Carlson says everytime she has been to the town, "it's been cold. I hope your summers are better than your winters."
She has enjoyed her times in Stratford in the past, she says, describing rural audiences as being like family.
"Rural audiences are a bit more accepting compared to ones in the bigger cities. It's like talking with your family, rather than work colleagues. Both are good, but you can relax a bit more with family, and that's Stratford and the Taranaki region as a whole."
Urzila will be in Taranaki next month for one night, bringing her new Studies Have Shown tour to the region.
She says the show contains a lot of facts and studies, some real and "some I made up myself, like fake news, I'm Donald Trump's nightmare".
Hours of research has gone into the show, she says, "none of it's mine, I just google stuff", and the title comes from the fact the words "studies have shown" normally precede some random fact from a weird study such as if dogs are happier than cats.
Urzila says she also reads the local paper before going on stage in any town. "It's great, you can always fnd something funny, something humorous that will have the audience all nodding."
Urzila says she writes ideas down all year and then a few weeks out from a tour or the comedy festival, she starts putting it all together.
One thing she doesn't do when she is preparing for a show, is test her jokes on her wife Julie.
"She's from Feilding. Seriously, she's an overthinker. So I'll make a joke and she'll go 'oh I see why that is funny, but statistically ... ' she's really clever and puts more thought into it, so I thought I wasn't funny, then I tried the jokes on an audience and they all loved them, so now, I just don't test them out at home."
While Urzila doesn't test her jokes out at home, she does credit her mother for her very first joke.
"It was back in the 80s, in small town South Africa, where no one got divorced, it wasn't something that happened. And my parents were getting a divorce. It was the big topic at my school when I was 7 or 8. My teachers would ask, 'are your parents divorced' and teachers from other classes would ask too. One day I told my mum, and said everyone asked why they were divorced. She told me to tell them it was because my mum really wanted to be a widow, but my dad wouldn't drink the poison so she divorced him instead. The next time a teacher asked me, I went, oh it's because my mum wanted to be a widow, etc, and she laughed, and got me to say it again to other teachers, and that was the first time I experienced saying something that got a laugh, and I liked it."
Her mum is still funny, says Urzila. "When people say women aren't normally funny, I think wow, I wonder what goes on in their family, because in mine, it is the women who are funny, the mothers, grandmothers, they are the ones making the jokes and laughing."
• Urzila Carlson in Studies Have Shown: TSB Theatre, New Plymouth -- Saturday, June 10. For full ticket and tour information, visit: livenation.co.nz.
The Stratford Press has a double pass to this great show to give away to one lucky reader. To be in to win, simply email or call us with your name and contact details. Competition closes at noon on Wednesday, June 7 and the winner will be contacted that afternoon. Please put Urzila in the subject line if you email us.
email: editor@stratfordpress.co.nz or call us on 06 765 5471