Full Description
From the Kiwi Concert Party to The Topp Twins, Billy T. James to Rose Matafeo, Fred Dagg to Flight of the Conchords, New Zealanders have made each other laugh in ways distinctive to these islands.
Funny As tells the story of comedy in this country through more than 300 pictures and an engaging text based on over 100 interviews with our best comedians. Published alongside a major Television New Zealand documentary series at a time when comedy has never been bigger, the book takes us inside the comedy clubs, cabarets and television studios where comedians work; it charts the rise of cartoons and skits, parody and stand-up; it introduces us to how New Zealand's funniest men and women have made sense (and nonsense) out of this country's changing culture and society.
Funny As is the authoritative, hilarious story of New Zealand comedy.
Contents
by Michele A'Court
Introduction
Chapter 1 Bloody laughter: war and the birth of New Zealand comedy
Chapter 2 Comedy and writers: blokes, bastards and outbreaks of beauty
Chapter 3 Lessons in comedy: universities and capping revues
Chapter 4 `Bold and blue': female impersonators, cabaret and variety
Chapter 5 Comedians and politicians: `stuff that doesn't really matter'
Chapter 6 Comedy and theatre: million-dollar ideas
Chapter 7 Directors on the edge: comedy on screen
Chapter 8 The start of it: TV comedy up to the 1980s
Chapter 9 John Clarke: the man from the audience
Chapter 10 Billy T. James: between two worlds
Chapter 11 The Topp Twins: only in New Zealand
Chapter 12 The Front Lawn: sons of the suburbs
Chapter 13 Live comedy in the 1980s and 1990s: looking for a place to stand (up)
Chapter 14 Breaking the rules: TV in the 1990s and beyond
Chapter 15 Naked in the house of spirits: Samoan comedy
Chapter 16 Live comedy in the twenty-first century: the new establishment
Chapter 17 Kin folk: Flight of the Conchords
Chapter 18 Taika Waititi: a Ma-ori in space
Chapter 19 Rose and other names: a new comedy generation
Bibliography
Notes
