But seriously... Subverting politics’ funny business
A veteran TV prankster has scored some of his biggest guests yet for a new season of Late Night Big Breakfast. Chris Schulz wonders how he does it.
Judith Collins sits in a padded swivel chair in a mid-range Auckland furniture store enduring the strangest television interview of her career.
As the stony-faced leader of the National Party answers questions like, ‘‘What do you do to relax?’’, the sound of an electric drill threatens to drown her out.
A maintenance worker carrying a ladder blunders by, as customers shopping for coffee tables stop and stare.
As Collins is asked, ‘‘What keeps you up at night?’’, the pungent smell of a hot meat pie wafts overhead.
To make matters worse, the show’s hosts keep arguing in front of her. ‘‘ You’ve already asked that,’’ critiques one.
‘‘Are you working off the same script?’’ retorts the other, as he lowers and raises his chair, kicks over a glass of water, and attempts to connect to the show’s third co-host, who doesn’t reply.
For all of this co-ordinated chaos, we can thank Leigh Hart.
At 50, the crown prince of cringe Kiwi comedy is bringing back Late Night Big Breakfast, a cult favourite from his huge back catalogue of piss-take programming.
Featuring his long-time collaborator Jason Hoyte and a rotating cast of contributors, including Seven Sharp’s Jeremy Wells and Wellington Paranormal’s Mike Minogue, it’s the show’s first season in five years.
It returns tonight with a political special starring Hart and Hoyte’s biggest interviews yet: Collins and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
While it’s unlikely to influence the outcome of this week’s election, the appearance of two political heavyweights says something of the pulling power of Hart, who has spent decades sending up tried-and-true TV formats.
He’s skewered police reality shows in Speedo Cops, mocked celebrity food shows in Speed Cooking, and had a dig at travel shows with Mysterious Planet. Screaming Reels, Hart and Hoyte’s magnificent six-part fishing show from 2017, didn’t feature a single fish.
Despite a back catalogue that suggests otherwise, Hart denies any nefarious intent in the shows he decides to lampoon.
‘‘We’re not mocking them,’’ he says. ‘‘We’re trying to make them better.’’
Either way, Hart’s brand of TV – the DIY sets, rogue questions, random banter and quickfire editing – has earned him legions of fans across multiple formats, platforms, timeslots and brands.
He has snails to thank for getting him to this point.
Hart got his big break on SportsCafe, the pioneering Sky TV chat show that he signed up for spontaneously to play an Olympic snail-trainer. Hart’s performance was so good he became That Guy, a regular contributor filing bizarre interviews with sports stars, later helming the show’s in-house band.
These days, Hart’s brand has extended beyond TV thanks to a five- year stint alongside Hoyte hosting Hauraki’s drive radio show and the pair’s endless sexual innuendo for the Alternative Commentary Collective – when sport is allowed to be played.
He’s also set up his own streaming service, Moonflix, which hosts all of his projects, including his 2000s skit show Moon TV, his 2012 London Olympics masterpiece Olympico, and his wonky pet shop character study Hamsterman.
That’s not all: his lager Wakachangi, which started as a joke, is stocked in most supermarkets, alongside his accompanying range of potato crisps.
Many also know Hart as the meat man in Hellers and Kiwi
Bacon ads.
Hart has flirted primetime, but never become a mainstay.
That’s about to change: he’s just finished his level-4 survival series Leigh Hart’s Big Isolation Lockdown, and later this month he’ll have a starring role on the New Zealand adaptation of hit British game show Taskmaster.
Taskmaster is big, but it’s Late Night Big Breakfast that fans point to as the perfect combination of Hart’s shambolic brand of comedy.
While critics took a while to warm to it – ‘‘wrong-headed’’ and ‘‘ groansome’’ said some early reviews when it debuted in 2014 – it soon became clear there was something special about the mix of random musicians, ludicrous mistakes, crooked infomercials, bad health advice and absurd conversations.
Award-winning local TV critic Diana Wichtel believes it’s Hart’s best creation.
‘‘I’ve always been a fan of his audacity. It’s quite brave... to have that high an embarrassment threshold. I’m full of admiration for him being able to be that awkward and excruciating and not to curl up and die. I don’t know how he does it.’’
Ask Hart that question and you’re unlikely to get a serious reply. That’s because he’s almost with quite always in character – especially if Hoyte is nearby.
‘‘ It’s a nocturnal breakfast show,’’ says Hart when asked if he’s made any changes this season.
‘‘It’s very hard to change that format – short of putting it on at lunchtime.’’
Hoyte points to a issues’’ segment as addition.
‘‘It’s quite brave ... to have that high an embarrassment threshold. I’m full of admiration for him being able to be that awkward and excruciating and not to curl up and die.’’ Diana Wichtel
‘‘women’s one new
‘‘ It’s an all-men panel,’’ declares Hoyte, deadpan. ‘‘ It wouldn’t work otherwise.’’
What fans can expect bonkers-level absurdity.
The first season included regular appearances by a Mongolian throat singer, while an entire episode dedicated to Lorde barely mentioned the pop star.
Another was interrupted by a ‘‘tiny horse’’ wandering through is
Target.
A recurring segment called ‘‘Bookshelf’s’’ often featured Hart and Joe Bennett arguing how to pronounce ‘‘ bookshelf’s’’ correctly.
Meanwhile, Hoyte periodically promoted Rectusol, a fake haemorrhoid cream, over smooth jazz.
The show’s hosts regularly seemed baffled by their duties, with interviews overrun with arguments about who should be asking questions, and when they should ask them.
It might look stupid, but Wichtel says there’s serious smarts behind the show.
‘‘ It takes a lot of work to be that random,’’ she says. ‘‘It looks voraciously dumb, but it’s smarter than it looks’’.
Wichtel believes Hart’s influence is obvious. She points to the casual interview style favoured by news journalists these days, and the inclusion of comics like Wells and Laura Daniel on Seven Sharp, as examples.
‘‘You even see it on things like The Project,’’ she says.
‘‘ That type of show was usually awful when it was done in previous decades. Finally, there’s a whole generation that can handle that kind of casualness.’’
Casual is how Hart likes it, and it extends to his co-stars, who aren’t given scripts when they arrive on set.
‘‘No-one really knows what’s going on because it’s all in Leigh’s head,’’ says Josh Thomson, who plays an inept intern on Late Night Big Breakfast.
‘‘ He’s like a jazz musician – but with comedy. When you’re new it’s kind of freaky. You’ll walk in and he’ll go, ‘We’ll go over here and do stuff’.
‘‘ It just kind of starts, then it finishes, and you’re like, ‘ What the hell happened?’’’
There is method to Hart’s madness. Ange Hart, Hart’s wife, with whom he has two children, confirms he takes his television creation incredibly seriously.
She always knows when he’s got a shoot coming up because there’ll be ‘‘ notes all over the house ... in the car, in the drawers, in the bathroom, in the bed’’.
For Collins and Ardern, Ange reveals Hart was up at 4am, perfecting his gags to make sure they’d work.
A few hours after a grinning Collins leaves her swivel chair, we get to see if they do.
The Prime Minister, Hart and Hoyte’s next interview for Late Night Big Breakfast, walks through the back door of the Auckland furniture store accompanied by a single security guard.
Lights blaze around two couches and a coffee table. A guitar leans against a couch. A giant drone sits on the floor. A packet of sushi is stuffed under a pillow.
All of these are potential gags to be used during their interview.
Ardern, fatigued by a day of back-to-back interviews on the campaign trail, sizes all of this up, grins and says: ‘‘I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing.’’
Hoyte’s reply is instant: ‘‘Neither do we.’’
Late Night Big Breakfast airs on Duke tonight at 8.30pm, and will be available to stream via TVNZ OnDemand.