It’s that time of year again; comedians from all over the world have descended upon the New Zealand Comedy Festival to bare their souls and make us laugh.

From the straight-up stand up routine, to naked poetry, improv and food fights, people with a shared love of laughter are brought together for three weeks of silliness.

But beyond the varying displays of weird and wonderful comedy, what lies behind the humour? To get up on stage and face a crowd of strangers is no mean feat. In fact, to many of us, it seems an unthinkable and daunting task.

When it comes down to it, what does it take to be a comedian and survive this ruthless world?

Well look no further, we’ve dug deep and found comedians willing to spill the beans.

“If you don’t try, you’ll never know”
While New Zealand’s comedy scene has grown year on year, it seems many of the nation’s successful comedians have one thing in common: it wasn’t a planned affair.

Brendon Green, the happy go lucky stand up comic who’s been on the scene for over eight years, suddenly woke up one day and couldn’t deny it anymore, comedy was his life: “I got into comedy the way I get into everything - by accident. I tend to just follow whatever decisions are made for me and that’s where I end up. It’s not a great way to go through life but this is how I’ve done it so far.”

Having spent a few years on stage as a casual guitar-playing sidekick to his comedian friend, Brendon one day found himself as a the main act.

“I spent many years being in self denial about it, thinking to myself, ‘What are you doing? You can’t do this as a job, it’s just a hobby!’ Until eventually one day I caved in and went ‘okay fine, I do actually really want to do this. Let’s take the plunge.’ So for the first few years I had a good healthy dose of lying to myself that it wasn’t important. I find that helps a lot, both in comedy and in life. 

Similarly, character comic Brynley Stent, whose show this year is a parody of sex education in schools, had never imagined being a comedian: “When I was at school, there was an improv competition and they needed more girls, so I was persuaded to give it a go. That was the start of my journey. I did improv and theatre for almost eight years before I did any other kind of comedy.”

Presentation is everything
Tarun Mohanbhai, who’s been on the comedy scene for over 20 years and has based this year’s show on life as an Uber driver, says confidence is key to success.

“Being naturally funny is a good thing for sure, that’s without a doubt. But it’s really about confidence. If you have confidence, you can almost get away with anything on stage.”

Tarun’s life in comedy has taken many twists and turns; having started as a shy 25-year-old who watched his local stand-up every Wednesday, he now tours the world with his own shows.

Tarun believes it’s not just confidence that matters, it’s also having a touch of blind faith: “I’ve been rehearsing this year’s show repeatedly for the last few days and I’m at the point where I don’t think one word of it is funny anymore. I’m gonna have this horrific realisation at 8:45 tonight that it isn't funny at all. But that’s the thing, you have to remember that although you’ve heard your own jokes a million times, it's the audience’s first time hearing them. So you have to have some self-belief and not lose heart.”

“You do you”
They say you have to stay true to yourself in life, and comedy is no different. For Brynley Stent, discovering the buzz she got from performing was the first step, but zoning in on her strengths was what came next.

“I tried stand-up for a while but I didn’t enjoy it because.. well, I just wasn’t good at it! You have to push through, take feedback and learn what your thing is.” Brynley soon realised that it was improv and character comedy that captured her creativity.

“You do have to start with what you actually love. It’s very easy to try and make what you think an audience wants to see, or do what everyone else is doing. That’s why I started doing stand-up - because I thought ‘everyone is doing this so I should do it too’. But then a friend asked why I wasn’t doing character comedy because that’s what I actually enjoyed. When it’s something you enjoy, it's so so much easier to write."

Leap of faith
There’s no doubt about it, comedy is definitely one of the oddest yet fascinating occupations in the world, but making people laugh for a living is still a job. And all jobs have a ‘first day in the office’.

Comedians tend to agree: the only way to start is to quite simply launch yourself on stage like a missile.

Comedians tend to agree: the only way to start is to quite simply launch yourself on stage like a missile. 

Jerome Chandrahasen, a well known face on the circuit who’s performed at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival since 2004, shared his one piece of golden advice: “Don’t worry about the first 20 gigs. The most important thing is just to get up there, stay on stage for five minutes, and then get off.

“It's always a weird mix of confidence and humility, you gotta be confident enough to get up there. But you still gotta know that the audience don’t have to laugh at everything you say.”

Perhaps it's a leap of blind faith that is the golden ticket to life as a comic.

As Brenden Green says, doing comedy for the first time is like ripping a bandaid off: “If you’ve ever had a thought about doing comedy, even just once - then just do it. Just seriously get up and do it. And if you enjoy it, just keep turning up. Don’t have any expectations, just keep turning up. What’s the worst that can happen.. People don’t laugh? I mean… it is bad when that happens. It is pretty, pretty bad. But it’s not THAT bad.”

For information about the comedy festival or to grab tickets for any of the comedians featured in this piece, visit www.comedyfestival.co.nz.