‘A Week Of It’ has pinpointed Kiwi humour—but is it witty?

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 21

‘A Week Of It’ has pinpointed Kiwi humour—but is it witty?

Thousands of TV2 viewers watch “A Week Of It,” now a well established feature of New Zealand life.

Not so long ago television executives tut-tutted in their ivory towers at the mere suggestion of criticism of a public figure. Producers were told jokes must not be made about sex, religion, or politics. Now, “Jeeze Wayne” and like phrases are almost hackneyed. “A Week Of It” has spawned a recording (and cassette), cabaret appearances, and radio shows for David McPhail and John Gadsby.

There are posters, talk of a book, and a small company has been formed in Christchurch to distribute funds from sales.

It’s a kind of Fred Dagg craze all over again, though T-shirts have not yet appeared. But McPhail has won the supreme accolade of popular appeal—a cover story in “New Zealand’s Woman’s Weekly.” Is the show’s success a sign that New Zealanders can produce humour and laugh at public figures, institutions, and social customs? Is there a specific brand of Kiwi humour?

Is the TV programme really hard-hitting satire, or merely a regular collection of benign lampoonings and unfanny, rather childish gags? To discuss these and other questions, KEN COATES talked with the producer and actor, McPhail, and otheis associated with the show.

Swathed in a black overcoat — and naw ensconsed in a larger TV2 office — David McPhail was at pains to emphasise that he does not want to become known only as the guy who “does Muldoon.” And really whet can blame him?

He is planning a longer, 45-minute version of “A Week Of It” for next year, and says that the prime object, as before, will be to make people laugh. McPhail is conscious of public attitudes and maintains that many sketches are successful because they reflect widely held opinions.

He has a fear of writers becoming “a coterie of jokesters sitting on the sixth floor of the Manchester Unity building dreaming up laughs that bear no relation to their audience.” The McPahil formula aims to make jokes topical so that viewers can relate to recent events; he strives ta make them amusing; public figures are used, again so viewers can readily identify people they know: and he covers

areas not before covered on TV. He looks at the reason or purpose for a sketch, and with other writers regularly argues over which side should be lampooned. No Monty Python elements, which allow sketches for no reason at all, and other excesses are permitted.

David McPhail maintains “A Week of It” was never meant to be exclusive and should appeal to the widest passible audience. But he does see its satirical content as the show’s strength and shies away from the suggestion that next year’s series will be situation comedy. He wants to try new ideas and develop skills for other comedy programmes — anything new' for “A Week” will be in addition to existing features.

But the attempt of “A Week Of It” to be both a popular comedy show and a satirical programme means some non-achieve-» ment, according to journalist and satirical writer John Collins.

Emphasising that he is not sour-graping, but merely looking at what is

being done from a different perspective, Collins says there is a kind of agricultural obviousness about New Zealand humour.

He sees it as good humoured, well-meaning, but witless. It does not appeal to him as much as the English style, in which the best jokes are difficult, requiring cleverness and, usually, a victim, in terms of an attitude, group, individual, or leader. But then this, he says, is contrary to New Zealand tradition whereby “you must not upset or criticise.” So we end up with a kind of self-protec-tive, all-laughing-together “Jeeze Wayne” quality about our humour. Collins concedes that “A Week of It” is popular and that people laugh at. it, but he maintains that that does not necessarily make it as good as it could be.

He argues that it is possible to determine intrinsic cleverness and wit, and to produce a show that is very funny — irrespective of what the majority of viewers considers funny.

Incisive humour demands a rather exclusive audience and there is no way good satire can be produced that wi’.l be widely popular. Collins sees that kind -of show as ideally screening at 11.30 p.m. with a selective and appreciative audience.

Chris McVeigh, one of the writers and participants in “A Week Of It,” says the kind of humour used on the show is laid down by the producer and is of fairly wide appeal. When he wrote for the Merely Players he tried to be more esoteric and recalls a script based on Greek mythology. “You could hardly do that for TV because in New Zealand, with its three million population, it would get only a small audience. “Consequently, we have jokes about a woman’s bosom pricked like a bal-

loon and exploding, cheek by jowl with something on Sam Hunt’s poetry.” The extent to which satire can be sacrificed for an easy laugh has to be a matter of compromise, although, personally, McVeigh learns towards more satire. Alan Grant, well-known writer for the show, thinks it does not matter all that much if the show is not always amazingly witty. He considers it is more important to get people used to satire, even if it is of the “clod-hop-ping” .sort. He sees “A

Week Of It” as having “a popularisation or educative function.” There seems to be agreement that it is a myth that New Zealanders have been unable to laugh at themselves. The fact is that little was written that was funny. Then, according to McPhail, John Clark, with Fred Dagg, changed all that. And there was also the attitude that New Zealanders could not possibly produce comedy as good as an imported product. “Now we are regarded in the same frame of mind as overseas programmes,” he says.

Collins is rather more caustic: New Zealand has 55 million sheep and 66 million sacred cows, he quips. But our egalitarian society, with its lack of threats, means our humour maintains this feeling.

He acknowledges New Zealanders have only just begun laughing at themselves and are “soaking it up.” But there has been enough self-indulgence, he says, and it is high time higher standards began to be applied. While we might have moved some way towards sending up public figures and institutions, in a mild sort of way, are there still sacred cows? John Gadsby names one. New Zealanders will make jokes about Maoris, but only in private, he says. “Jokes about Irishmen are made all the time, but

substitute Maoris and people say, ‘You can’t say that,’ and are aghast.” Obviously there are the bounds of good taste — “you wouldn’t poke fun at them just in the. same way as you would not poke fun at paraplegics because they are handicapped." But the tVorst thing that could be done to Maoris would be to make them into protected, sacred cows.

David McPhail says he has never shied off a particular subject because it might evoke an unfavourable response. Alan Grant says religion is another topic we don’t make jokes about. As for Maoris — perhaps it is fear of the race relations commissioner that conditions the attitude.

But he points out that the 8.8.C.’s “Till Death Do Us Part” made bigoted jokes in a bid to show up the prejudice of people. But he suspects that some viewers watched the show to enjoy the bigoted humour.

As to what makes Kiwis laugh, Grant considers it is something you can be specific about. “It’s more a question of style,” he says. “They seem to like fairly monosyllabic, tightlipped remarks — something putting someone down a bit.

“But we can’t be nasty about it; you can say a lot of quite serious things in satire, but if you make savage jokes, people would ston listening."

Politicians are fair game. And all indications are that they love exposure in “A Week Of It.” “Muldoon was at a cabaret in Auckland in August and I met him afterwards,” McPhail says.

“He pointed out that the famous dimple was on the wrong side. He was right of course — I just can’t do it on the other side. I don’t know if he was flattered, but he seemed to accept what I had done and to enjoy it.”

Chris McVeigh never ceases to be amazed by a politician’s propensity for absorbing publicity. He recounts how one new M.P. treated rather savagely on the show was surprisingly friendly later. He said he did not expect to be noticed so early when he had just been elected to Parliament.

As to the effect on politicians. McVeigh agrees that for the best part of this year, Mr Rowling was portrayed rather cruelly as a weak drip, while Mr Muldoon was shown as dominating and aggressive. But, in defence of the show, he says it just happens that Mr Rowling has a soft voice and mild manner, while Mr Muldoon has a grating voice and is portrayed as nasty and aggressive. The job of the programme is to highlight their dominant features.

Alan Grant, considers the ban by TV2 against lampooning politicians on

election night was absurd, and was cheered to read that Mr Muldoon liked the show. He then got to thinking: “Perhaps we are not doing it right if he likes it. “But at least Mr Muldoon’s comment indicates a tolerance that has been missing in the past."

The Prime Minister obviously comes in for more attention than other public figures. And John Collins says people in New Zealand society generally tend to have “a low profile.”

“What can you say about Bert Walker and Mick Connelly? Writers are forced back to Muldoon all the time — there is a struggle to find a victim.”

And when Chris McVeigh thinks about this sameness I hat makes for a paucity of well known characters to satirise, he says: “Take women. What can you do? There’s Pat Bartlett, one or two politicians’ wives, pop singers, id there you have it.” There seems to be agreement that good, bad, or indifferent, Kiwi humour on TV is off the ground, as it were. Somehow it has overcome the debunking of people with talent or abilities above the ordinary. “A Week of It" has come 10 to 15 years after a similar show in Britain. But as McVeigh observes: “In New Zealand we had the right people, like McPhail, in the right place at the right time.”