Carlson bringing solo show to Whanganui

Urzila Carlson will bring her latest comedy show to the Royal Wanganui Opera House next month.

The voice on the phone sounds softer than the stage voice but I know I am talking to Urzila Carlson when she tells me about the theme of her show Studies Have Shown.

"You hear it most on the radio and the studies are always about something stupid so they come up with findings like most people would rather have a bottle of wine than a fork in their eye," she says.

"I wish they would conduct studies that produce helpful information about stuff we need to know.

"I've got a few ideas for study subjects and I'll be sharing those on the tour."

As a taster, she has suggested funding scientists to "come up with a way to eradicate the unibrow, or those weird thin white hairs you occasionally find attached to your face."

Carlson's memoir Rolling With the Punchlines, published last October introduced Kiwi audiences to the woman behind her comic persona.

Each chapter reads like one of her stand-up stories but this funny woman has lived through some tough times.

Carlson had a tough start to life in her native South Africa, largely due to her father's alcoholism and violence.

Despite the difficult early relationship with her dad, she grieved deeply when he died a year ago.

The loving relationships she shared with the rest of her family and the sense of humour they shared gave her resilience to explore the world and excel in a range occupations before she found comedy.

After a co-worker dared her to participate in an open mic' night in 2008, she found her calling as well as a happy "lesbyterian" marriage with wife Julie.

The couple have two children and Carlson says her family will be nearby while she is on tour for the month of June.

"My wife is from Feilding so she will stay with family there while I'm touring in the lower North Island and I can take short breaks there too," says Carlson.

Asked if she finds it hard to go on stage and be funny all the time, the comedy star says it is a case of putting a part of herself aside.

"I had to go on stage just after my father died last year and I didn't think I could do it but somehow I found I could put my grieving persona aside and bring my comedic one forward until I got off stage."

Carlson said the strategy also worked when she had food poisoning and she managed to stop throwing up long enough to do her show.

"There is a saying in the business that there's no healer like stage fright and I think it is true," she says.

Urzila Carlson will present her Studies Have Shown show at the Royal Wanganui Opera House on June 24.