Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Comedian Russell Howard is back in New Zealand!

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

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The Hits, with the Jono and Ben podcast. Cheers to Dilma, making the world a better tea. Russell Howard is in the country right now. It's really nice to see you, because I think we've spoken before a couple of times at one, during your time you were locked in New Zealand, where you came and you were at MIQ. Yes.

And one of the first comedians, I think the first to tour New Zealand after lockdown. Yeah, yeah. I remember your dulcet tones. Yeah, I needed you guys i think we got quite emotional actually i think we did but it was um yeah it was just nice to have company sorry sorry about that sorry we locked you in the hotel apologies to mate you don't have to apologize it's sort of all i had to do was sit in a room for two weeks write some

jokes and then suddenly i had two months gigging which nobody could do in the world so it was like there was one day where i was the only performer in the world doing anything well it was a monday but but it was just still that thing of like you can't like how am i so lucky to be able to do this so yeah i didn't mind doing two weeks it was really cool you toured around a lot of the country i know when you were here you filmed as well you even got uh drunk with sam neill it was incredible yeah so we hung out on his um his farm like vineyard he's like he's got all kinds of animals that are named after people he's worked with yeah so we were kind of getting drunk and then these animals are sort of walking around it's just this brilliant thing of seeing sam just go oh kylie jesus kylie jumping over the fence oh Kylie. Oh, Britney. It was like this weird Dr. Doolittle vibe.

Massage the pig. Have you ever done that? Massage a pig? Oh, my God. So you basically, you sort of like properly rub it. What a nice smell as well if you get a bit of fringing there. But, and you can, they make a noise when they're really enjoying it. And it, honestly, it felt great.

You know, Sam was like, all right, I think we've. Stick away from my pig. Yeah, we've russell howard with us hey i'm looking at your uh your tour poster which i love five star reviews you've got a list of all of the media outlets who have done five star reviews you got mail on sunday metro chortle then you include the four star ones which go to times independent telegraph is that where you stop yeah in terms of stars advertising the stars yeah like sometimes some people do that where you get like a five four three two one and then sort of leave it up to the audience you know what i mean so but also in the uk i start at a one and then have to kind of get up to a four because it's kind of comment right yep you're good like prove it so you think it's potentially harder now that people know you

in the uk yeah absolutely america audience they're the uk judge it's like mate it's like gigging in mordor like i love it but you realize you go to america and you get a stand innovation as you walk on i remember seeing in the uh in a comedy festival this American comic saying that he'd been married for 20 years and the crowd were like kind of applauding. If you imagine that in a UK, like just some guy at a comedy club, yeah I've been married for 20 years, the crowd be like, have you? Have you got any stories about how much you hate each other? We didn't come here for happiness. I don't know if Kiwis are the same, like you've got a reputation from comics that I've spoke to over here as being quite a tough nut to crack

I think we're quite internal like you sit there and you might be enjoying it but you're like yeah afterwards you go that was great and you're like well you didn't laugh once

but a lot of the time yeah well you got propositioned on the street of Tauranga didn't you by someone right their wife was a huge fan yeah

I was just walking along and I look in case anyone for the benefit the listeners i've got the look of i'd say a small german boy so i was kind of walking along with my coffee minding my business and um yeah this guy pulled up in a truck and was like uh yeah you're my wife's weird crush what do you reckon and that was the phrase what do you reckon i was like going i was very yeah i was very scared i didn't know what to do because it's nice it put a spring in my step is it nice though i feel like the approach could have been better than weird crush it could be like

pass card yeah it's funny isn't it it's like do you get heat magazine here oh no i don't think we do but yeah i've heard of heat magazine so it's like this bit it's not as big as it used to be but it used to be this massive magazine in the uk and i was voted the heat magazine's weird crush of the year so again it's that thing where you know i was essentially the nation's pity show was the guy that was the guy on the track gonna take you to his wife with the what are you never got that far but but it felt like it would have been, yeah, sort of low budget. Do you know what I mean? It would have been filmed for sure.

You wouldn't have known it was being filmed though. No. I believe gonzo is the phrase. We've got Russell Howard with us. You've got to go see him. Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Parby North, Onganoi, Tauranga, Hamilton, Auckland, all over the South Island and the North Island.

Oh, Russell, well, thank you for coming back to New Zealand. It's lovely to see you again.