The May Script to Screen Writer’s Room offered up a hilarious evening of quips, clips and quick witted conversation when comedy divas Jaquie Brown (The Jaquie Brown Diaries) and Madeleine Sami (Super City) sat down with guest MC Raybon Kan to chew the fat and talk about how they create comedy, characters and stories that stay with us long after the final credits.

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“I’m so excited all my buttons just burst off my top,” said Jaquie as she and Madeleine settled in to answer Raybon’s first “provocative” question … do these talented women consider themselves to be ‘female comedians?’

“I look at comedians or people that make funniness on a case by case basis,” said Jaquie, “and gender doesn’t matter.” Madeleine agreed. “I laugh at a lot of comedians, male and female, but in many of the shows coming out of the US, the female comedians are streaks ahead of the men.  All we’ve been exposed to for years is blokes. My two favourite comedians would have to be Tina Fey … and Jaquie Brown, of course!”

Madeleine and Jaquie met and became good friends on the set of the hit TV show The Jaquie Brown Diaries. The audience enjoyed a clip from the series and Raybon asked Jaquie how she made the transition from being the real celebrity-interviewing Jaquie Brown to the almost identical sitcom character.

The show was written by Gerard Johnston “… and I was his muse. The change from being a journalist-type person to being an actor was not too difficult. You are performing to a degree but what you are saying has been written for you. Perhaps the hardest thing was coming to terms with the public perception of the character.  A narcissist will stop at nothing to get to the top and I’m not like that. Occasionally I’d meet someone in the street and they’d ask, “Are you really like that?” and I’d say, “No, I’m really nice!” So I struggled with that personally.”

Madeleine playfully recalled how Jaquie would walk around the set in a “bubble of niceness” serving food to cast and crew “… so we wouldn’t think she was really like that.”

The Jaquie Brown Diaries came about when both Jaquie and Gerard wanted to do something different. “We got drunk and brainstormed,” said Jaquie. “I had just done this interview with the rapper, Xzibit and it had been a total disaster. I thought my career was over and Gerard and I thought we could make a comedy out of that – indeed everything that happened to me we could use for this show. Comedy can be funny if it’s real, turning everyday experiences into humour.”

It wasn’t easy to persuade producers that a newsperson/journalist could act and deliver dialogue. “I had to do a full on pitch,” said Jaquie,” to convince them the idea was strong and it would rate. And the pitch was major. Six episodes had been written, plus a detailed outline of how each episode would unfold along with a comprehensive and realistic budget. You have to go in as if you are going to do it.”

She had some high-octane help in the form of US comic great Will Ferrell. A Sydney interview with Ferrell about Talladega Nights had gone so well that when they were finished, she asked if he would film a Jaquie Brown pitch for NZ On Air, which he did, urging them to give her a shot.

Discussion moved on to the popular series Super City, co-written by Madeleine with Thomas Sainsbury. Madeleine explained how the show had come about. “I had a meeting with Caterina de Nave back in 2008, when she worked at TV3. She’d seen me in No 2 and wanted to make a TV show with me.” Madeleine envisioned a show featuring multiple characters, all of which she would play. A year went by and a producer friend suggested she put together a trailer and present it to TV3. They liked it.

“The opportunity sits there for a while,” said Madeleine, “and the characters come about. One came out of rehearsals for a play I was doing. I created a homeless girl who lived in Myers Park. I became her in the rehearsal – it was an improvised show – and there was a great response from the cast. I gathered all of this into the trailer we did.”

Jaquie said the reality of making trailers usually means self-funding but if you have a great idea and commitment, go for it. “The difference between Madeleine and I is that she is constantly on the go with characters. She’s a true actor/creator/comedian/innovator whereas I’m just lucky. I did presenting and talked about ballooning and cheese and shit and made it funny so I made myself into an actor that way.”

Raybon asked where the ideas for characters and stories come from. Both women admitted to sharing the same sense of humour, a tendency for even subconscious ideas to surface in their work and to picking up things along the way. Jaquie observes people, their traits, “bits and bobs”, and absorbs them. Madeleine said, “I keep making characters.”

The characters created in Super City may be comedic but there are strong elements of drama, tragedy, and unexpected realism thrown into the mix as well. “We wanted to confuse the audience a bit,” said Madeleine. “For example, there’s Pasha. She’s Indian but doing everything she can to not appear so. She bleaches her hair and wears blue contacts. Georgie (the homeless girl) is a confusing character in many ways and yet she is one of the most endearing. Many of us have a preconceived idea about what a homeless person might be like and Georgie probably isn’t it. We are inviting people to think a little more about their world and the people in it.”

TV shows can be vehicles for known talent but both Jaquie and Madeleine promote the fostering of new, up and coming talent, refuting the oft heard belief that a writer who has an idea for a sitcom must attach it to someone who is ‘known.’

“We were lucky with our timing and the people around us,” said Jaquie. “It’s important to seek out new talent and foster it. For example, Caterina de Nave knew for years that Madeleine was a talent. She needed to get her onscreen. It just took a long time. I agreed with her that Madeleine was underutilised in our show at first and Gerard did too so in the next season, we used her more.”

Madeleine pointed out that from a production perspective, having a known talent on board can increase the chances of the show being made. “We have a small production company and then you have South Pacific Pictures who pump out shows one after another. That’s how shows really get made here in New Zealand. They are attached to a big studio or production company. I often think it’s amazing that we’ve managed to make our shows. It just doesn’t happen that often because producers are reluctant to take on people who do not have track records.”

Both Jaquie and Madeleine commended TV3 for their support and determination to take risks on ‘newbies’ and to build local comedy. “It was brave of them to take a chance on us,” said Jaquie. “Taking the risks is how we grow and thrive.”

Writing, producing and starring in your own TV show can be exhausting, taking a toll on even the toughest campaigners. “I stopped because I got pregnant,” said Jaquie. “When you have your own production company, you’re running everything. It’s full on and every decision rests on your shoulders.  It kills you. Gerard and I were absolutely drained. We were in tatters. It’s tough. But if you love something enough, you’ll do it.”

With all of the stresses and strains, being friends with the people you work with offers a greater freedom of expression and the productive and honest sharing of ideas, challenges, the good times and bad. Madeleine was friends with her writing partner, Thomas Sainsbury, before they started working together.  “I loved the sense of humour I saw in his plays and I knew we would work well together. I had ideas for some characters and he would interview me, in character and the characters would develop like that.  We would sit in a room for a long time, come up with the story. The dialogue was always easy then we’d work out scenes and these would inform the structure.”

A number of questions were posed from the audience to the panel. The first asked the women if they felt it difficult to assert their points of view in shows written by men.

“Gender is irrelevant,” said Jaquie. “It’s all about your skill and how well you get on with the person in charge.”

Another queried whether there was ever a ‘cringe moment’ when a second look at something originally thought to be funny, actually wasn’t.

“We completely re-did a storyline for Super City in pre-production,” said Madeleine, “and there would be days when we would do a scene as written and think “this sucks, we want to make this funny!” We intended the script to be a springboard for improvisation.”

Jacquie said her show is so scripted that much of the comedy depends on the skill of the actor and editor. “You read it and think it’s great and then you act it and it falls flat. There is so much skill needed in the editing process, the timing. You think it’s good … but then there’s that terrifying moment when you know it’s going out to the New Zealand public.”

And how important to the success of a show is the team behind it? Madeleine brought up the example of South Pacific Pictures. “They have people who write for the style of shows they make. It took them a while to develop that but now it’s a winning formula.”

Comedian Tina Fey would never hire anyone to work with her that she didn’t want to see in a corridor at 3am and Jaquie emphasised how integral the ‘behind-the-scenes’ relationships are to the overall success of a show.

So what is next on the agenda? Madeleine is releasing an album with her sisters in July, talking to TV3 about series two of Super City and filming Sione’s Wedding 2 (planned for January 2012 release).  Jaquie is taking “a bit of a detour” from comedy for a while as she takes time to film a TV series (“more of a documentary really”) about being a new Mum, pairing this with a book she is writing about motherhood.

There is never a dull moment for these two. “If you are an individual, can observe people and you are funny, that is what drives you,” said Jaquie. “You’re this unique little creature … “

“… and no one can bring to the world what you can,” said Madeleine.

Written for Script to Screen by Jane Bissell