By splitting her time between her native New Zealand and Australia, South African-born Urzila Carlson knows all about what it’s like to be both a big fish in a little pond and a little fish in a big pond. Her upcoming tour of her new hour, Studies Have Shown, will see her run rings around her homeland’s festival circuit – such is the nature of the beast.
“It’s funny… I’ve already performed this show at festivals in New Zealand, but all that really means is that I’ve done the show eight times,” says Carlson. “What a lot of comics would use as their trial shows, that’s our entire festival run – just because our comedy festivals are nowhere near as big.”
Rest assured, however, Carlson has come prepared. As the title of the show suggests, Studies Have Shown is Carlson’s reflection on some of the more fascinating experiments and research initiatives that have reflected on both human and animal-kind alike. It’s changing all the time, too: “The beauty of this show is that there are new studies coming out pretty much every week,” says Carlson. “When I started performing it originally, I’d heard about a study that was yet to come out – the effect of cocaine on bees. That’s in the show now! I’m always learning something new.”
Carlson originally conceived the idea for Studies Have Shown after growing bored with the usual small-talk that filtered through chats with acquaintances and friends. “I listen to small talk and I see what we have in common,” she says. “It’s all the same sort of stuff – work, what’s for dinner, kids, partners, that kind of stuff.”
“There’s all this stuff though – even on the surface – that we’re all aware of but never talk about.” A one-off conversation at a barbeque ended up as the moment of epiphany. “I don’t even remember how it came up, but I mentioned that I’d read an article about a study that found the average house pet could understand 20 different languages. Someone else there was like, ‘Oh yeah, I heard that too.’ Somehow we all knew! Why weren’t we talking about it?”
Outside of performing Studies Have Shown, Carlson has been busy with other work. Recently, she found herself in Sydney to report on the Mardi Gras for SBS. It was there the openly queer Carlson had a true gay pipe dream of interacting with the guest of honour herself, Cher.
“She was going to walk in with all the other Cher impersonators, but she got there like 20 minutes before them,” says Carlson excitedly. “When I turned around, she was right there. Holly, who was working the camera, said to me that she would keep filming. ‘Just go,’ she tells me. I stood right by the guard rail and started talking. She could hear me, and she just locked eyes with me – we were in! She was just so lovely – I could have gone home then! How could things get any fucking better?”
