Beyond 'doing great': Bailey Poching heals loss with laughter

A Pacific comedian and actor says unpacking why men reflexively lie about their wellbeing opens up important discussions around grief and mental health in Pacific communities.

Bailey Poching, an award-winning Sāmoan-Māori comedian and actor, takes the stage at the Nelson Arts Festival tonight, performing his acclaimed solo show Doing Great.

Fresh from starring in the international Netflix comedy series North of North and local television favourites like Seven Days, Poching centres his stage work on the deep personal ache of losing his paternal grandmother, Florence, who passed away in 2022.

The production confronts the automatic instinct to tell people everything is fine when life actually feels completely unmoored.

“When mama passed away, everyone would ask me how I was doing and I would tell them I was ‘doing great’. The show is me trying to answer that question honestly. So, the journey of the show is me unpacking, first of all, why do we lie? Why is it our impulse to lie?

“A lot of that's connected to mental health, feeling scared and particularly in our Pasifika communities with our men, not feeling like we have space to talk about our feelings. It just became this kind of rabbit hole of exploring things I really wanted to talk about.”

Rather than descending into gloom, the production mines the rich tradition of humour that sustains Pacific families through bereavement.

Poching recalls the immediate days following the death of his grandmother, when sorrow mixed with unexpected joy among relatives.

“When mama passed away, I think about the week after and the way our families and communities rally behind us. I don't think I've laughed more than I did in that week with my cousins, aunties and uncles. There was so much laughter.

“It's this kind of thing where we forget that it is a medicine. When I decided I'm going to write a comedy show about losing my grandmother, I got so scared of it not being a comedy show anymore.

“But there is so much humour to be mined from the pain that we're all carrying together. To be able to laugh at something that we are secretly all sharing, it feels like a release valve.”

Watch Bailey Poching’s full interview below.

Poching grew up in the north of England after his father Willie Poching, a former Sāmoan rugby league international and coach, moved the family to Wakefield. He returned home to Aotearoa New Zealand at 19 and began an ongoing journey of cultural reconnection.

“I kind of talk about this in the show, actually. My father is Sāmoan and my mother is Māori. My father was a rugby league player and so because of his career, me and my brothers grew up in the north of England.

“I came home and I spent a lot of time reconnecting with my whakapapa and with my Samoan family and learning more about where mum’s whānau comes from.”

Bailey Poching performs Doing Great tonight, 29 October, at The Boathouse from 6.30pm as part of the Nelson Arts Festival. For more information, click here.