“Every time you ask someone that question you could emotionally scar them to a point where they’re going to snap and rip your head off one day and shit in your lung,” she says.
It’s not one of my questions she’s referring to, just to be clear. We’ve been talking about the many things she finds unacceptable – which is what her latest Melbourne International Comedy Festival Show is all about – and she’s delivered this punchline with the timing and precision of the professional she is. Since accidentally starting stand-up almost ten years ago (her friend Leon Fisk basically tricked her into an open mic spot saying it was a work thing she had to do) Carlson has been on the up and up.
Born in South Africa and now calling Auckland home, where she lives with her wife and two kids, she’s sold out every solo show she’s performed in New Zealand since 2009.
She’s also won Best Female Comedian at the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 NZ Comedy Guild Awards, as well as the coveted TV3 People’s Choice Award two years in a row at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. In Australia she’s equally as popular, selling out runs in festivals around the country.
“It’s weird,” says Carlson. “Every time I walk out on stage and people are sitting there I’m like, ‘For me?’” Her profile in Australia has certainly been helped by regular appearances on television shows such as Have You Been Paying Attention, Spicks and Specks and spots on Comedy Up Late and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Galas.
Which brings us back to her new Melbourne Comedy Festival Show, Unacceptable. “Unacceptable is such a powerful word. You can stop arguments with it,” she says. This time around, she’s tackling everything from the minutiae of everyday life through to bigger issues. “There are some big things that have happened in my life that I find unacceptable that I talk about, that effect everyone in the community and the world,” she says.
The show will touch on a few of the topics she also discusses in her recently released memoir Rolling with the Punchlines, such as having children. “In Unacceptable I talk about how we’ve got the two kids and we struggled to get to the point where we’ve got the two kids,” she says.
“There are so many pressures,” she says of the way social situations can get out of hand on the topic of parenting, especially with insensitive questions asked of childless couples. “It’s none of your damn business.” But if you persist with the unacceptable questions and someone shits in your lungs, well, Urzila Carlson did warn you.
By Joanne Brookfield
Venues: Melbourne Town Hall – Supper Room & Melbourne Town Hall – Main Hall
Dates: Thursday March 30 – Sunday April 23 (bar Mondays)
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: $25 – $35
