‘Coming home’ to the Best Comedy Show on Earth

A trio of comedy specials ready to make bellies ache in Auckland next week will feature some of New Zealand’s freshest funny faces, including Sāmoa-Māori comedian Bailey Poching (Ngāti Whatua ki Kaipara, Sāmoa).

Following the New Zealand International Comedy Festival (NZICF) that drew in 70,000 people, organisers announced its Winter Special would host three nights of hilarity at the ASB Waterfront Theatre.

Kicking off the Special is the Best Comedy Show on Earth with Judith Collins’ impersonator Tom Sainsbury as host and the evening will feature Poching alongside a stellar lineup of improv actors and writers.

“I’ve been talking a lot recently, in my comedy, about digging more deeply into my experience of coming back to my home, my whenua, and my family.

“But in the context of having no context of what it’s like being in New Zealand,” Poching told Ma’a Brian Sagala on Pacific Days.

Watch the full interview with Bailey Poching on Pacific Days below.

He says his set includes an ironic perspective of an indigenous person returning to their home.

“Growing up I didn’t know there were Pākehā people in New Zealand really,” he laughs, saying his only reference to what life in Aotearoa was like was from watching films Boy and Sione’s Wedding.

“I was like this place is cool as, it’s mischievous, it’s funny. And then I came back and I was like ‘oh! There’s a lot of backpackers’.”

Among his many incredible talents Poching is also a wildly quick-witted improviser and is part of the country’s most successful improv group Snort. He gained recognition for his performances on 7 Days and won "Best Debut" at the 2023 NZICF for his duo show Hot, Filthy Garbage with Anthony Crum.

Poching, who has appeared in multiple hit NZ comedy shows, including Kid Sister, Raised by Refugees, and My Favourite Dead Person, will join 2024 Best Newcomer award winner Courtney Dawson, Billy T award winner David Correos, Taskmaster NZ star Angella Dravid, Raw Comedy National Grand Final winner and 2022 Comedian of the Year Hoani Hotene, and more for the opening show of the Winter Special.

Followed by Chris Parker and his encore performance of Give Me One Good Reason Why I Shouldn’t Throw My Phone Off This Bridge and closing the event out will be Kura Forrester’s Here If You Need.

Poching says creative processes as a comedian cannot be circumscribed, and while he has his plan prior to taking the stage his improv background and his brown humour culminate together to what the crowd reacts to.

“As a baseline I like to have a structure and I like to know that it works but you can get very bored of that.

“Keeping it interesting for myself… I like to remind myself, ‘how can I make this specific room laugh, what is it about this audience in particular that I’m going to have to focus on?’

“There’s no step one, step two, step three. There’s a few things that I care about in the things that I talk about on stage.

“Is it true to me? Is it an experience that people can empathise with? And is it funny? (That’s obviously the biggest thing.”

Following the Winter Special Bailey Poching begins preparations for another show in October. Photo/Auckland Actors

For him, working within these parameters and corroborating it with his own unique factors of comedic deliverance works best but ultimately it comes down to “trial and error”.

“You go on stage and say it, if it’s not funny you take it back and rewrite it.”

As a writer, filmmaker, and with no sign of slowing down, Poching is fast becoming a fixture in the NZ comedy scene.

NZICF Winter Special starts Thursday, 22 August. Tickets for the three shows are available here.

Please note: all Comedy Fest Winter Special shows will be filmed. Attendance constitutes consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded as audience members.