A funny thing happened to Louise Beuvink while at the University of Otago, she tells Tom McKinlay.
Comedian Louise Beuvink has not had a particularly amusing start to the day. Forty-five minutes on the tarmac at Auckland Airport while technicians tried to sort out some sort of water problem to do with toilets. Or something.
But she doesn't appear overly concerned, she had her e-reader. And there's an indefatigable streak running through the Beuvink backstory that suggests it would take a far bigger bump in the road to upset her apple cart.
This is, after all, ‘‘the future of New Zealand comedy''. Well, that's what her press release says, quoting hirsute humorist Ben Hurley.
If that is indeed her future, it will be one she's fashioned herself from hard work and determination, and a fair measure of self-belief, discovered first in Dunedin. It was here in the South, while studying marketing at the University of Otago, that she first started to tell jokes in earnest.
If you saw her back then, she may not have been that funny, she concedes, her one-liners clanging like a cymbal while her anecdotes crawled off to hide.
But not now. That press release again: ‘‘In 2014, she was a national finalist in the Raw Comedy Quest and was also nominated for Best Female Comedian and Most Improved Comedian at the NZ Comedy Guild Awards''. You have to be funny to do that.
When we talk she's in Dunedin as part of the entertainment for this week's University of Otago convocation ceremony.
‘‘So, yeah, I've got to do crowd control on four and a-half thousand freshers, so that will be interesting,'' she says, without a hint of nerves.
Beuvink (25) got the job by putting herself forward, dropping the university an email that highlighted both her alumni status and professional credentials.
It's a triumphant return, inasmuch as Beuvink first got up on stage to be funny in a capping show, after which she was ‘‘peer-pressured into doing a stand-up comedy show'', back in 2009. That led on to Dunedin's open-mike circuit: Re:Fuel, the Bog, the Church, as it was then known, in Dundas St. So passed her Dunedin years: jokes, marketing, some theatre studies papers.
Then she was back home in Auckland, putting her marketing degree to work in an advertising job. It turned out that was as much fun as it sounds. The open-mike circuit beckoned, this time in the big smoke.
‘‘My goal was to have at least one gig a week, go around open-mikes and get as much stage time as I could and write as many jokes as I could. Then about a year later I got my first paid gig,'' Beuvink says, still proud as punch.
Six months after that, she threw in the towel at the full-time job. She was to be a comedian.
It sounds like a big call, even with a part-time marketing job lined up to ensure the bills are paid.
They say comedy is all about timing, and Beuvink's might have been pretty good. She agrees that New Zealand comedy appears to be in a bit of a purple patch.
‘‘I think New Zealanders are over the cultural cringe of New Zealand comedy. There are still some people who like to bag it, but with things like 7 Days being so popular and the New Zealand International Comedy Festival being such a big event in the year ... now it is a mainstream form of entertainment.''
And the popularity of topical panel show 7 Days has helped in a fairly direct way too. She's on the writing roster, going in once every two or three weeks to pen gags for host Jeremy Corbett.
Maybe, in the next couple of years, she'll make the panel, in what would be something of a ‘‘rite of passage'', she says. It would certainly be some distance from amateur nights in Dundas St, literally and otherwise.
It's a been journey of self-discovery, she says - finding what's funny about you, who finds you funny - sounding a little serious for a comedian, which she acknowledges.
‘‘I know. Comedians make it look easy but it is mentally quite challenging to put yourself out there and to take that risk.''
She talks about a very focused process of refining and improving an act to finesse the funny and drop the dull. Like taxi drivers.
‘‘I have a particular dislike for taxi drivers due to some bad experiences. I've tried to write about it but I just can't get it to work, so I've abandoned it. Which is just another reason I dislike them!''
Lots of lessons learned then. Some of them will be on display during her Fringe show, Quarter-life Crisis.
‘‘It's about the challenges young adults have when they first become independent and they are no longer children and have to make big decisions about their life.''
It's about getting up on stage and using the audience as my group therapy session, she says. But she's joking. It will be funny, she says.
That press release, again, which describes her ‘‘trademark delightfully dry and dark style of humour''. ‘‘I promise not to cry!'' it says.
• The show
Quarter-life Crisis plays at Taste Merchants, 36 Stuart St, as part of the Dunedin Fringe Festival, Thursday-Saturday, March 3-5.
FUNNY PEOPLE
Louise Beuvink's picks of rising comedic talent.
The Fan Brigade
A two-woman, one-ukulele musical duo who are smashing through the comedy scene with their raunchy, dark and hilarious act.
David Correos
David's uniquely manic, physical comedy is such a joy to watch and makes him a standout on the New Zealand comedy scene.
Freya Desmarais
I'm in constant awe of how masterfully Freya tackles social issues in her comedy, while still delivering non-stop laughs. She's been touring a show called Live Orgy that deals with the failings of sex education.
Matt Stellingwerf
Matt has mastered the art of making you feel like you're just a couple of mates sharing some banter at the pub. See him in the Fringe, at Inch Bar.
Angella Dravid
Angella is unlike any act I've seen before. The stark contrast of her sweet demeanour and dark subject matter, along with her deadpan delivery, has me laughing uncontrollably every time I see her.
