Comics find laughs in lockdown
Four performers have holed up together in Whitianga for the lockdown with the sole aim of making us laugh. Alison Mau catches up with them.
There’s comedy in everything – including a month-long nationwide pandemic lockdown. So says a group of comedians, actors and writers who’ve chosen each other over their families for New Zealand’s alert level four coronavirus lockdown.
Holed up together in a Whitianga beach house, the quartet are aiming to have a 10-part comedy sketch series filmed and edited by the time the lockdown’s lifted.
And for Jamie Patterson, Jess Joy, Adela Wypych, and Connor Van Vuuren – some of whom only met each other on arrival in Whitianga – it’s a case of so far, so good.
‘‘We’re all getting along. And it’s better to be caged up in a place with a bunch of funny people,’’ said Patterson.
All four have lost work as a result of the pandemic – Patterson was supposed to be performing at the Melbourne Comedy Festival this month, before it was cancelled along with all public gatherings.
Looking for a way to stay creative, he called on his sketch comedy co-writer Wypych.
‘‘Why don’t we just grab a couple of people and all the camera gear we can beg or borrow, and lockdown somewhere?’’
Comic writer and stand-up Van Vuuren, who has worked with Patterson before, and Joy, an actor, said yes immediately, and all four left flatmates and family in Auckland to get to a rented house in the Coromandel beach town, before the lockdown began.
Along with a My Kitchen Rules-style cooking arrangement to make sure the chores are equally shared, the quartet have spent their days writing sketches and nights brainstorming concepts for a sticky-note ‘‘ideas wall’’. After a week’s writing, they’re now into the filming and editing stage.
The result will be Bubble Buddies – a series of loosely linked, 10-minute sketches. The subject matter will be inspired by lockdown living.
They are embracing the challenges they’re facing making films while confined to a small house.
‘‘There are luxury items you might have when you’re making a film – but really all you need is a camera and some lights and some microphones,’’ says Patterson.
It’s likely props and costumes will come from the local supermarket. ‘‘We’re embracing the limitations and it feels like a good funnel for our creativity.’’
Asked how much comedy there really is in such a bleak global outlook, Patterson harks back to the days after the mosque shootings in Christchurch last year. Distraught and seeking relief, he went to a standup comedy show at The Classic in Auckland. ‘‘There were a hundred people in a room, having an opportunity to laugh and feel happy and relaxed, laughing at a guy on stage, he was talking about his problems in his marriage. That’s kind of beautiful.’’
‘‘We can’t really help in a tangible way,’’ says Van Vuuren, ‘‘but you can distract people from their own problems with your problems. It’s a way of sharing some laughs.’’