Jono, Ben set to serve up plate-load of comic relief
Broadcasters hope ‘to be a bit funny’ and lift Kiwis’ spirits in the midst of trying times with the coronavirus, Chris Reed writes
There’s much hoopla at the fancy studio where Jono Pryor and Ben Boyce are being photographed, filmed and interviewed ahead of the next chapter in their fine careers.
There’s a rack of clothes, a table laden with food and a couple of dozen people busying themselves with cameras, call sheets and coffee runs.
I’m barely through the door when Pryor is on me, asking how I’m doing, whether I want anything to eat, thanking me for coming. It’s about 12.40pm and I tell him I’m doing intermittent fasting and won’t eat till 1pm. After we finish our interview, he inquires if I’m ready for food and both ask how work’s going.
I’ve interviewed a decent number of famous people over the years and these two were among the most engaged and engaging. Dressed-down and spry, they were natural, genuine and as interested in me as I was in them. I liked them very much.
We met at that studio, on a quiet street in Grey Lynn, what feels like a lifetime ago. We were talking about their new breakfast show on The Hits network. It was due to start on Monday, but then came Covid-19 and a decision to postpone the early starts for three weeks. They’ll debut with an hour-long “pop-up” show, IsoLuncheon, instead.
New radio shows aren’t that uncommon in New Zealand, but this is a major play in the highly competitive commercial market dominated by two companies, MediaWorks and NZME.
The Hits is part of the NZME stable, which also includes the Herald. Luring Pryor and Boyce, arguably New Zealand’s best-known comedy broadcasters, from MediaWorks, is A Big Deal. Each had been with their former employer for many years.
We covered the virus in a video interview on Wednesday, the first day after a three-month restraint of trade period imposed by their previous employment deal.
Of course they were both at home. Separately, although such is their obvious bond that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find them in the same bubble.
“I don’t go out anyway, Chris. I’m a hermit,” says Pryor. “This is literally no change to my lifestyle whatsoever.”
They riff on our new, shared realities: Zoom meetings, going to the supermarket during lockdown, people looking at you like you’re sick when you’re out for a walk.
“Even though it’s a shocking event worldwide, there’s some great comedy to come out of this,” says Pryor. “Like trying to get my Dad on Zoom. It takes him literally three days.”
“We’re going to try and lift the spirits a bit and be funny,” says Boyce.
“Are you going to do that thing when they write and put the speech marks around funny?” Pryor asks me.
No, because they’ve been funny for a long time. In a notoriously fickle market, they’ve evolved and endured.
Both went to broadcasting school keen to do radio. They met 15 years ago and were mates before teaming up for stints with The Rock and then The Edge. Not to mention more than 200 episodes of TV over seven years, first late-night, then primetime.
Much of their comedy, particularly on TV, could be characterised as prank-based, certainly in the early years. Boyce had already mined that vein in Pulp Sport and Wanna-Ben, and Pryor with The Jono Project, before they teamed up.
While they’ve mellowed after getting married and having kids, there’s still an undercurrent of irreverence running through their humour.
I wondered if this was a reaction to childhood: Pryor had a private-school education at St Kentigern and a dad who ended up as a squadron leader in the Air Force; Boyce’s father was the headmaster of the school he went to in Masterton.
“I was literally in the dumbest class all the way through school,” recalls Pryor. “But I was one of those weird kids who knew what he wanted to do. I always wanted to do radio. But I think it did instil discipline in me in terms of maybe a work ethic, because, all jokes aside, we actually work our asses off.
“Although people are quite disappointed when we say we work hard,” says Boyce. “Oh, you work hard to do that?”
Pre-fame, Pryor, now 38, badgered
Robert Rakete into letting him on his Mai FM show; Boyce, a tad older, wrote ad jingles, including the Novus “Show us your crack” song.
Since celebrity status arrived, they’ve made a good fist of keeping their private lives just that and, by and large, staying out of trouble.
The notable exception came when Boyce planned a 2011 TV stunt at Auckland Airport: a former colleague posed as a pilot and attempted to gain access to a secure area. There were arrests and court appearances. Contrite, Boyce was discharged without conviction.
He brings this up unprompted when I ask whether, as fathers of young children — each has two primary-aged kids — they have an increased sense of responsibility as broadcasters.
Pryor starts: “My major thing is, don’t do anything that’s gonna embarrass the kids in the schoolyard and get them bullied. And I guess another thing from a family point of view is I’m like, don’t go out and get drunk and do something f ***** up that’s going to jeopardise the career or the income.”
Boyce continues: “Obviously I had the terrible airport experience which I learnt a hell of a lot from. I’ve probably been ultra-cautious, which I should be, since then. It was horrible and I put my family through a lot of stuff and it was no one else’s fault but my own.”
They spend a lot of time together. During the restraint of trade period, they probably spent more time with each other than with their families.
“I think our friendship and professional partnership works well because we both want the same thing,” says Pryor.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a serious argument,” says Boyce. “One time, we got into an argument about something.”
“I wanted to bring a stripper into the studio and he’s like, ‘no we can’t bring a stripper into the studio’,” says Pryor.
“I think it was something like that,” laughs Boyce.
“And on the way home, I was like, ‘you made the right call’,” says Pryor.
The best double acts — like the best partnerships in any walk of life — are a seamless fusion of two skillsets. I wanted to work out what each brought to the duo.
“I’m very boring,” says Pryor.