It's safe to say that Kiwi comedian Guy Montgomery's been having a successful time across the Tasman.
He found fame in New Zealand through hit shows like Have You Been Paying Attention and Thank God You're Here - but across the ditch, Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee has been picked up for another season and he's been nominated for a Logie at the Australian Television awards.
Montgomery says it's all 'unbelievable'.
"The amount of shows or opportunities for young comedians to be blighted on TV and introduced to that audience are less...so for the live comedy industry to be able to platform new voices and have this show take off, for me to be part of that is also great."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks ed b Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well, he has been known and loved by all of
us for a very long time now, but thanks to
the crazy success of his Lockdown Spelling Bee creation, Guy
Montgomery is a rising new talent of TV in Australia.
He's been nominated for a LOKI. He's up for the
Graham Kennedy Award for the Most Popular New Talent at
the prestigious Australian TV Awards. It's not all about Australia though.
(00:35):
The Australian version of Guy mont Spelling Bee is coming
to our screens soon on three and Guy is back
here soon with his stand up show to run us
through it all. He's with me now, Guy Montgomery, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, well, you've done a very good job of running
us through it all already, live for me to get
into it.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well. Congratulations nominee for Graham Kennedy Award for Most Popular
New Talent at the logis Did you see that one coming?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
No, I because you don't. I don't know how it works,
but the networks choose who they put forward from there.
I suppose stable of shows, and so I had no
idea I was in the conversation. I had no idea,
respectfully that I was new I you know, I always
(01:24):
dreamed of being acknowledged as an exciting newcomer before I
was bolding. But you don't have agency over these things,
so it's very exciting. But it was certainly a surprise.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I think it's quite encouraging to know that you can
be new talent at thirty six years old.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, I guess that's another way of looking at it.
I think, yeah, I honestly don't know what the criteria is,
but it was I was stoked because the logis are
you know, like it's a weird name for an award.
It stays in their head. And my partner, Chelsea Preston
Crayford has this same LOGI in our house. She won
(01:59):
it in like twenty eleven for Underbelly Raiser, and I
really want to get one of my own.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You're never going to hear the end of the day,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's like, yeah, if I don't win, it's over. I'm
on the back foot. You only get one chance at
the Newcomer Award.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
You know, it's got nothing to do with your award.
It's got nothing to do with you know how much
you know telling you have. It's actually just about the relationship.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's about personal standing in the place I lay my head.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Who was Graham Kennedy? Do you know?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He is an iconic Australian television personality who paved the
way for people whose first name starts with G and
last name ends with why. And it's thanks to Graham
that people like me realized it was possible.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Do you It's a popularity vote, isn't it. You have
to kind of campaign for votes.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, this is one of the issues is the way
to win the award That these things used to be
judged on merit, you know, ability as judged by a
panel of experts, but now it is genuinely like the
campaign to win the award. Basically, it's who does the
best job of promoting the logis on their social media.
So you have to campaign. You have to tell people
(03:09):
to vote for you, and you know, some of the
other nominees have a lot of followers on Instagram, so
it's a bit of a or whatever platform it's It
can feel like a fruitless task, but I have been
I've been chipping away at it. I do you know,
I harbor a desire to win. I am a competitive person.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I like it. Well, you know, there are a few
New Zealanders in Australia. We all know friends and family there.
I suppose it's on us to rally them to vote
for you. Can we so we can make this a
you know, we can sort of get involved, I suppose,
and help you out here.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Have you done your bit, Francesca? Have you contacted everyone
you know in Australia.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I will do that for you the same. I've got
a moment.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
A lot of people have been idle. They think these
things take care of themselves.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I love it. You are going into campaign mode. We
have talked about the origins of the show before the
Spelling Show, but it does it blow your mind that
a concept designed to keep you entertaining Lockdown has gone
as far as it has.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, it does. I mean it's sort of the more
the longer it happens, or the more sustained kind of
audience it seems to have in Australia, both as a
TV show but also as it translates to, you know,
having a lot as a live stand up audience has
kind of gone some way to consolidating my acceptance that
(04:37):
this is just it's just part of the you know,
it's part of the fabric of entertainment television over there,
and I think at a time when comedy panel shows
or shows that put comedians first and give them a
chance to be funny on TV are kind of on
the way, like the whole industry both here in Australia.
We feel the effects here first because we've got a
smaller market and less money. But in Australia now as well,
(05:00):
the amount of shows or opportunity for young comedians to
be blooded on TV and introduce to that audience are less,
and so it's sort of I mean, for me personally,
it's unbelievable, but beyond that, for the for the live
comedy industry to be able to platform new voices and
you know, have this show take up what is I
(05:21):
remember growing up and wanting to get on seven days
and what an important space it occupied in terms of
mapping out what I thought a career could look like.
And so for to be part of that is also
what really makes me feel great about it.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Does a lot go into the show? Is there a
lot of prep and research, writing.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And things a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
More that it looks maybe.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So honestly, to get the shows really because it's not topical,
we film them in a block, so we don't do
them weekly. We've we knocked them all out across five
or six days, depending how many episodes you make, and
we do two episodes a day, so episode one and two,
you know, and then the next day we three and four,
and so all of the work has to go on beforehand,
(06:01):
and which involves devising new rounds, sort of new unnecessarily
circuitous route to get people spelling words. But then also
inside of that you have to discover the game mechanic.
But then you have to write the jokes which support
the word. And so even in the first round, the
spelling round, which is, you know, on the service of it,
the most straightforward round, every single word that is possibly
(06:23):
going to be spelled, we have to write three jokes
that we're happy with or proud of, and then the
contestants can choose whether or not to ask for those
jokes or some of them are so excited to spell
that is blow past. You know, you've spent you could
spend sometimes an hour just writing a definition to a
word and you'll think this is the funniest joke we've
written all season, and you'll be sort of out there
(06:45):
on the floor and the word will come out of
the receptacle and you'll be thinking, please, please, please, please, please,
for the love of God, will you ask for this definition?
And they're nervous or excited and they just go straight
to the word, and you think, well, I mean, I
think a dream one day is to perhaps publish a dictionary,
a spelling Bee dictionary of all of the words that
(07:05):
have featured on the show, with all of the jokes,
those that were used and those that weren't used. I've
sort of once we've accumulated enough sort of you know,
like it's once it's worthy.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Basically, Oh, you put that out into the universe. Now
that has to be done. I think that absolutely has
to be done. Is there a noticeable difference between making
the show in New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Ah, well, it's funny because the New Zealand we haven't
made a New Zealand version since November twenty three now,
and so that was when we made the second season
of New Zealand, and since then we've actually turned around
two seasons of the Australian Show. So I've not since
the Australian shows existed. I've not made a New Zealand show.
(07:49):
And the Australian Show kind of stands on the shoulders
of so much of the work we did in the
ground we broke in terms of, you know, the functionality
of it and the way it looks, and so in
a way it was kind of a lot of the
homework we'd already done for ourselves. And then we're filming
a New Zealand version and for broadcast next year at
some point, and so it'll be interesting actually to experience,
(08:12):
you know, the reverse that the flow and effect of
having done a lot of new work in Australia that
we can bring to the New Zealand version. I think,
in terms of the format, I want every episode there
to be a new game, so one that's new to
the contestants, new to the audience at home. But then
the value of having a deeper bank of episodes to
draw from is you can reach your favorite games, you
(08:32):
can upcycle, and you can sort of bring the ones
that you rarely thought worked over. So yeah, I haven't
experienced the full breadth of difference. I mean, of the
One of the differences is that ABC, who make it
for Australia, they the budget's bigger, the studio is bigger,
there's more cameras in there, and so the actual feel
of it when you walk out is just it's more substantial.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, are the guests in Aussie You've had some great
guests on the show over there, and we're going to
get to see these shows here too, which is fabulous.
Is it anyone that you were a fan of or
genuinely really excited to have on the show.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah. I mean in terms of the stand up comedians,
there's a lot of them. I was excited to see
how they played with the format and stand up if
you do it long enough, and I've been going for
fourteen years now, I've dot it. That's right, still new
to it. The circle of people that's globally, it's quite
(09:34):
a small community, and so unless people have broken through
to this other tier where you're never going to sort
of be on the same lineup as them. You do
get to meet these people and become friends with them
quite quickly. Whereas the television personality, so the ones who
you might not necessarily see on the live scene, you
only see through the camera. They were sort of people
(09:55):
are was more excited to I suppose to meet in
terms of I didn't already know these people. I just
wanted to know what they were like. But I'm actually
having trouble because the season that's been brought cast in
New Zealand, which is the first season of Australia, and
we've made the second season since then that's coming out
in Australia right now. So for me to trapes through
(10:16):
all of the names who have been it's it's just
a blur. It's a name soup.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It's a name soup. I love it. You were already
well known in Australia before you started the show, but
has this just really Obviously there's the Awarden things, But
do you recognized a lot more now? Are your you know,
your stand up gigs? The audience is getting bigger in things?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Absolutely, Yeah, it is really quite remarkable to on the street.
You can feel it more that you know, there's a
lot more, especially in the outside of the major cities
and the sort of I mean in their second cities
are still pretty big. I'll do gigs in those places
now and you know, I get to perform in quite
beautiful old theaters and the people in the town that
(11:00):
are so friendly and they'll stop. And I mean the
first time after Spelling Bee had been Broadcastralia, the first time.
This is last year. I went into the show in
Adelaide and on the way through border security, the border
security agent was like, oh my god, dude, I'm loving
the spelling Show. And I thought, this is the greatest
welcome I've ever had. So I can certainly feel a
(11:24):
little bit more here, like in New Zealand, which I
quite enjoy as well. No one knows or cares. I
think people don't stop and talk to you in New Zealand,
and I think that's a combination of respect, lack of interest,
perhaps not knowledge. Also maybe some tall pop people that
I don't want to beef your head up by acknowledging
that you might have made something funny and so but
(11:45):
I kind of love it because I get to go
over there and kind of enjoy the trappings of having
a successful show and come home and just toil away
and obscurity.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Your stand up show is. I've noticed so many things
it'll be unfair to keep them to myself. I think
you've many how many performances have you done already.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
This show I would have performed about fifty times, and
forty nine of those whore in Australia. I did it
in Wellington during the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, and
the tour ends in Auckland, so that will be the
I think by then it will be the fifty sixth
or seventh performance of the show. Is that a long tour, Yeah,
(12:27):
it is. I think by the standards of this part
of the world, it's a pretty hefty tour. But obviously,
you know, if you find what you love doing, which
in myndseense with stand up, and you're in a position
where you can perform the show that many times, there's
that many people that want to see it. It's like
it's one of life's great joys. And so the show
(12:48):
improves every time in ways big and small, and the
sort of the shape of it. The jokes that maybe
at the start of the tour were the funniest, they
don't become less funny, but other jokes kind of become
stronger so they can maintain the standard. It's sort of
an interesting thing to be working with a show this much,
to feel the ebbs and flows and the changes that
(13:10):
occur throughout it. But yeah, to be able to finish
the tour in Auckland and the theater I've never played before,
the Collector Kanoa is I'm really really excited to, you know,
to I love this show. It's the best one I've done,
and so to be able to send it off at home,
I'm really you know, I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
This is probably a really dumb question if you're If
you're an actor, there are techniques involved. You can go
and study how to become an actor and things. If
you want to do stand up comedy, how do you
learn how to be a stand up comedian? Do you do?
Is it just trial and error? Do you get on
stage and work out what works and what doesn't? Do
(13:52):
you have to learn yourself how to craft a joke
to make it work? Do you watch other people?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
How do you get better at it? All of the above.
It's it's an interesting thing. It's just I mean, do
you know the first before I did stand up comedy,
when I was thinking I might like to do it,
there was a channel in New Zealand called C four Die,
and there was a show on it called you Know,
Die Henwood's Protege, and Die Hamdwood put a call out
to a bunch of New Zealand you know young people,
(14:21):
saying you could be my comedy protege. And I followed
this along. I had not yet built up the courage
to try stand up and some of the people who
applied Rose Mutterfaya was one of them. In Heidi o'lachlan
and Guy Williams was on it and he won. And
I watched that and I thought he was funny, but
I thought, I'm sure I can do a version of that.
And so I was at University in Wellington and I
(14:42):
was walking past the library one night to go back
to where I was living, and Guy Williams was out
the front and he was canvassing. He was going to
run for student body president. And I recognized him from
the show and I see, Guy, you're from TV. You're
Guy Williams, You're Die Henwood's protege. And he's like, I
(15:03):
don't know if you've met him before, but his personality
is there is no hsh artifice to his TV pisoda.
He is absolutely the same Emverary goes, he goes, Oh,
good game, mate. Yeah I am. You know. I was
thinking about trying comedy. How do I do? You got
to get down to the raw Bar and Wellington They
got an open mic nut on the Monday and I
said okay, and I went away and I never did it.
I didn't have the courage. And then years later I
(15:25):
was in Auckland and I went on a blind date
to a comedy show. This must be twenty eleven, is
maybe twenty ten and I went on a blind date
to a comedy show. It was a Guy Williams comedy show.
He was doing a split boar with a guy called
Joseph Harper and I went and watched it and Rose
was opening for them. Then I watched Rose open and
(15:46):
then afterwards the blind date didn't go well. But I
went up to guy and I said, I don't know
if you remember me. I met you outside the Victoria
University Library and I talked to you about comedy and
he said, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I said, look,
I've written some jokes. I think I would love to
open for you if you have me. He said, you
come back tomorrow before the show and do the jokes
for us before the show, and if they're not herri offensive,
(16:07):
then you can open. And so I went back the
next day and I did the jokes, and most of
them were about how Vental and Haaler's look like chimneys
and how disparaging that is towards the asthmatic community. And
he said, yeah, absolutely, and I opened for him and
that was my first gig, and then from there again
I still didn't have the courage to keep going. But basically,
(16:28):
to answer your original question that was just accuring to
me in real time, to share their anecdotes, I think
it's quite an interesting memory. But it's you just have
to keep doing it. You just have to keep getting
up and doing it. And it's a unique art form
in that you are building and improving these things in
front of your audience. When musicians work on a song,
they're usually doing it in a studio. When actors are rehearsing,
(16:49):
they're doing it in a rehearsal room. Comedy, you are
building the thing in front of the people who are
purportedly going to enjoy the finished product and hopefully enjoy
what you're doing along the way. But it's just I
was devastated when I started really pursuing it in earnest
to discover it's just hard work. I thought it's got
to be some sort of cheatcode.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Oh well, I am so pleased that you finally got
the courage to get up on stage. I think it
is the most terrifying thing in the world, trying to
work out, you know, being in that sort of situation.
But absolutely loving the TV show. Thank you so much
for your time. Guy, really really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Thanks very much for having me, Francesco. I'll see you
around the traps.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Thank you so much so. Guy Montgomery's Guy mont Spelling
Bee Australia. It's going to launch on July the seventeenth
on three and three now. And if you're keen to
see his stand up in Auckland, he's playing The Kiddy
to Kanada Theater on August the fifteenth. Tickets are on
sale now.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks ed b Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well, he has been known and loved by all of
us for a very long time now, but thanks to
the crazy success of his Lockdown Spelling Bee creation, Guy
Montgomery is a rising new talent of TV in Australia.
He's been nominated for a LOKI. He's up for the
Graham Kennedy Award for the Most Popular New Talent at
the prestigious Australian TV Awards. It's not all about Australia though.
(00:35):
The Australian version of Guy mont Spelling Bee is coming
to our screens soon on three and Guy is back
here soon with his stand up show to run us
through it all. He's with me now, Guy Montgomery, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, well, you've done a very good job of running
us through it all already, live for me to get
into it.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well. Congratulations nominee for Graham Kennedy Award for Most Popular
New Talent at the logis Did you see that one coming?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
No, I because you don't. I don't know how it works,
but the networks choose who they put forward from there.
I suppose stable of shows, and so I had no
idea I was in the conversation. I had no idea,
respectfully that I was new I you know, I always
(01:24):
dreamed of being acknowledged as an exciting newcomer before I
was bolding. But you don't have agency over these things,
so it's very exciting. But it was certainly a surprise.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I think it's quite encouraging to know that you can
be new talent at thirty six years old.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, I guess that's another way of looking at it.
I think, yeah, I honestly don't know what the criteria is,
but it was I was stoked because the logis are
you know, like it's a weird name for an award.
It stays in their head. And my partner, Chelsea Preston
Crayford has this same LOGI in our house. She won
(01:59):
it in like twenty eleven for Underbelly Raiser, and I
really want to get one of my own.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You're never going to hear the end of the day,
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's like, yeah, if I don't win, it's over. I'm
on the back foot. You only get one chance at
the Newcomer Award.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
You know, it's got nothing to do with your award.
It's got nothing to do with you know how much
you know telling you have. It's actually just about the relationship.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's about personal standing in the place I lay my head.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Who was Graham Kennedy? Do you know?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He is an iconic Australian television personality who paved the
way for people whose first name starts with G and
last name ends with why. And it's thanks to Graham
that people like me realized it was possible.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Do you It's a popularity vote, isn't it. You have
to kind of campaign for votes.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, this is one of the issues is the way
to win the award That these things used to be
judged on merit, you know, ability as judged by a
panel of experts, but now it is genuinely like the
campaign to win the award. Basically, it's who does the
best job of promoting the logis on their social media.
So you have to campaign. You have to tell people
(03:09):
to vote for you, and you know, some of the
other nominees have a lot of followers on Instagram, so
it's a bit of a or whatever platform it's It
can feel like a fruitless task, but I have been
I've been chipping away at it. I do you know,
I harbor a desire to win. I am a competitive person.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I like it. Well, you know, there are a few
New Zealanders in Australia. We all know friends and family there.
I suppose it's on us to rally them to vote
for you. Can we so we can make this a
you know, we can sort of get involved, I suppose,
and help you out here.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Have you done your bit, Francesca? Have you contacted everyone
you know in Australia.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I will do that for you the same. I've got
a moment.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
A lot of people have been idle. They think these
things take care of themselves.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I love it. You are going into campaign mode. We
have talked about the origins of the show before the
Spelling Show, but it does it blow your mind that
a concept designed to keep you entertaining Lockdown has gone
as far as it has.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, it does. I mean it's sort of the more
the longer it happens, or the more sustained kind of
audience it seems to have in Australia, both as a
TV show but also as it translates to, you know,
having a lot as a live stand up audience has
kind of gone some way to consolidating my acceptance that
(04:37):
this is just it's just part of the you know,
it's part of the fabric of entertainment television over there,
and I think at a time when comedy panel shows
or shows that put comedians first and give them a
chance to be funny on TV are kind of on
the way, like the whole industry both here in Australia.
We feel the effects here first because we've got a
smaller market and less money. But in Australia now as well,
(05:00):
the amount of shows or opportunity for young comedians to
be blooded on TV and introduce to that audience are less,
and so it's sort of I mean, for me personally,
it's unbelievable, but beyond that, for the for the live
comedy industry to be able to platform new voices and
you know, have this show take up what is I
(05:21):
remember growing up and wanting to get on seven days
and what an important space it occupied in terms of
mapping out what I thought a career could look like.
And so for to be part of that is also
what really makes me feel great about it.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Does a lot go into the show? Is there a
lot of prep and research, writing.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
And things a little bit.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
More that it looks maybe.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So honestly, to get the shows really because it's not topical,
we film them in a block, so we don't do
them weekly. We've we knocked them all out across five
or six days, depending how many episodes you make, and
we do two episodes a day, so episode one and two,
you know, and then the next day we three and four,
and so all of the work has to go on beforehand,
(06:01):
and which involves devising new rounds, sort of new unnecessarily
circuitous route to get people spelling words. But then also
inside of that you have to discover the game mechanic.
But then you have to write the jokes which support
the word. And so even in the first round, the
spelling round, which is, you know, on the service of it,
the most straightforward round, every single word that is possibly
(06:23):
going to be spelled, we have to write three jokes
that we're happy with or proud of, and then the
contestants can choose whether or not to ask for those
jokes or some of them are so excited to spell
that is blow past. You know, you've spent you could
spend sometimes an hour just writing a definition to a
word and you'll think this is the funniest joke we've
written all season, and you'll be sort of out there
(06:45):
on the floor and the word will come out of
the receptacle and you'll be thinking, please, please, please, please, please,
for the love of God, will you ask for this definition?
And they're nervous or excited and they just go straight
to the word, and you think, well, I mean, I
think a dream one day is to perhaps publish a dictionary,
a spelling Bee dictionary of all of the words that
(07:05):
have featured on the show, with all of the jokes,
those that were used and those that weren't used. I've
sort of once we've accumulated enough sort of you know,
like it's once it's worthy.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Basically, Oh, you put that out into the universe. Now
that has to be done. I think that absolutely has
to be done. Is there a noticeable difference between making
the show in New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Ah, well, it's funny because the New Zealand we haven't
made a New Zealand version since November twenty three now,
and so that was when we made the second season
of New Zealand, and since then we've actually turned around
two seasons of the Australian Show. So I've not since
the Australian shows existed. I've not made a New Zealand show.
(07:49):
And the Australian Show kind of stands on the shoulders
of so much of the work we did in the
ground we broke in terms of, you know, the functionality
of it and the way it looks, and so in
a way it was kind of a lot of the
homework we'd already done for ourselves. And then we're filming
a New Zealand version and for broadcast next year at
some point, and so it'll be interesting actually to experience,
(08:12):
you know, the reverse that the flow and effect of
having done a lot of new work in Australia that
we can bring to the New Zealand version. I think,
in terms of the format, I want every episode there
to be a new game, so one that's new to
the contestants, new to the audience at home. But then
the value of having a deeper bank of episodes to
draw from is you can reach your favorite games, you
(08:32):
can upcycle, and you can sort of bring the ones
that you rarely thought worked over. So yeah, I haven't
experienced the full breadth of difference. I mean, of the
One of the differences is that ABC, who make it
for Australia, they the budget's bigger, the studio is bigger,
there's more cameras in there, and so the actual feel
of it when you walk out is just it's more substantial.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, are the guests in Aussie You've had some great
guests on the show over there, and we're going to
get to see these shows here too, which is fabulous.
Is it anyone that you were a fan of or
genuinely really excited to have on the show.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah. I mean in terms of the stand up comedians,
there's a lot of them. I was excited to see
how they played with the format and stand up if
you do it long enough, and I've been going for
fourteen years now, I've dot it. That's right, still new
to it. The circle of people that's globally, it's quite
(09:34):
a small community, and so unless people have broken through
to this other tier where you're never going to sort
of be on the same lineup as them. You do
get to meet these people and become friends with them
quite quickly. Whereas the television personality, so the ones who
you might not necessarily see on the live scene, you
only see through the camera. They were sort of people
(09:55):
are was more excited to I suppose to meet in
terms of I didn't already know these people. I just
wanted to know what they were like. But I'm actually
having trouble because the season that's been brought cast in
New Zealand, which is the first season of Australia, and
we've made the second season since then that's coming out
in Australia right now. So for me to trapes through
(10:16):
all of the names who have been it's it's just
a blur. It's a name soup.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It's a name soup. I love it. You were already
well known in Australia before you started the show, but
has this just really Obviously there's the Awarden things, But
do you recognized a lot more now? Are your you know,
your stand up gigs? The audience is getting bigger in things?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Absolutely, Yeah, it is really quite remarkable to on the street.
You can feel it more that you know, there's a
lot more, especially in the outside of the major cities
and the sort of I mean in their second cities
are still pretty big. I'll do gigs in those places
now and you know, I get to perform in quite
beautiful old theaters and the people in the town that
(11:00):
are so friendly and they'll stop. And I mean the
first time after Spelling Bee had been Broadcastralia, the first time.
This is last year. I went into the show in
Adelaide and on the way through border security, the border
security agent was like, oh my god, dude, I'm loving
the spelling Show. And I thought, this is the greatest
welcome I've ever had. So I can certainly feel a
(11:24):
little bit more here, like in New Zealand, which I
quite enjoy as well. No one knows or cares. I
think people don't stop and talk to you in New Zealand,
and I think that's a combination of respect, lack of interest,
perhaps not knowledge. Also maybe some tall pop people that
I don't want to beef your head up by acknowledging
that you might have made something funny and so but
(11:45):
I kind of love it because I get to go
over there and kind of enjoy the trappings of having
a successful show and come home and just toil away
and obscurity.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Your stand up show is. I've noticed so many things
it'll be unfair to keep them to myself. I think
you've many how many performances have you done already.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
This show I would have performed about fifty times, and
forty nine of those whore in Australia. I did it
in Wellington during the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, and
the tour ends in Auckland, so that will be the
I think by then it will be the fifty sixth
or seventh performance of the show. Is that a long tour, Yeah,
(12:27):
it is. I think by the standards of this part
of the world, it's a pretty hefty tour. But obviously,
you know, if you find what you love doing, which
in myndseense with stand up, and you're in a position
where you can perform the show that many times, there's
that many people that want to see it. It's like
it's one of life's great joys. And so the show
(12:48):
improves every time in ways big and small, and the
sort of the shape of it. The jokes that maybe
at the start of the tour were the funniest, they
don't become less funny, but other jokes kind of become
stronger so they can maintain the standard. It's sort of
an interesting thing to be working with a show this much,
to feel the ebbs and flows and the changes that
(13:10):
occur throughout it. But yeah, to be able to finish
the tour in Auckland and the theater I've never played before,
the Collector Kanoa is I'm really really excited to, you know,
to I love this show. It's the best one I've done,
and so to be able to send it off at home,
I'm really you know, I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
This is probably a really dumb question if you're If
you're an actor, there are techniques involved. You can go
and study how to become an actor and things. If
you want to do stand up comedy, how do you
learn how to be a stand up comedian? Do you do?
Is it just trial and error? Do you get on
stage and work out what works and what doesn't? Do
(13:52):
you have to learn yourself how to craft a joke
to make it work? Do you watch other people?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Like?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (13:59):
How do you get better at it? All of the above.
It's it's an interesting thing. It's just I mean, do
you know the first before I did stand up comedy,
when I was thinking I might like to do it,
there was a channel in New Zealand called C four Die,
and there was a show on it called you Know,
Die Henwood's Protege, and Die Hamdwood put a call out
to a bunch of New Zealand you know young people,
(14:21):
saying you could be my comedy protege. And I followed
this along. I had not yet built up the courage
to try stand up and some of the people who
applied Rose Mutterfaya was one of them. In Heidi o'lachlan
and Guy Williams was on it and he won. And
I watched that and I thought he was funny, but
I thought, I'm sure I can do a version of that.
And so I was at University in Wellington and I
(14:42):
was walking past the library one night to go back
to where I was living, and Guy Williams was out
the front and he was canvassing. He was going to
run for student body president. And I recognized him from
the show and I see, Guy, you're from TV. You're
Guy Williams, You're Die Henwood's protege. And he's like, I
(15:03):
don't know if you've met him before, but his personality
is there is no hsh artifice to his TV pisoda.
He is absolutely the same Emverary goes, he goes, Oh,
good game, mate. Yeah I am. You know. I was
thinking about trying comedy. How do I do? You got
to get down to the raw Bar and Wellington They
got an open mic nut on the Monday and I
said okay, and I went away and I never did it.
I didn't have the courage. And then years later I
(15:25):
was in Auckland and I went on a blind date
to a comedy show. This must be twenty eleven, is
maybe twenty ten and I went on a blind date
to a comedy show. It was a Guy Williams comedy show.
He was doing a split boar with a guy called
Joseph Harper and I went and watched it and Rose
was opening for them. Then I watched Rose open and
(15:46):
then afterwards the blind date didn't go well. But I
went up to guy and I said, I don't know
if you remember me. I met you outside the Victoria
University Library and I talked to you about comedy and
he said, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I said, look,
I've written some jokes. I think I would love to
open for you if you have me. He said, you
come back tomorrow before the show and do the jokes
for us before the show, and if they're not herri offensive,
(16:07):
then you can open. And so I went back the
next day and I did the jokes, and most of
them were about how Vental and Haaler's look like chimneys
and how disparaging that is towards the asthmatic community. And
he said, yeah, absolutely, and I opened for him and
that was my first gig, and then from there again
I still didn't have the courage to keep going. But basically,
(16:28):
to answer your original question that was just accuring to
me in real time, to share their anecdotes, I think
it's quite an interesting memory. But it's you just have
to keep doing it. You just have to keep getting
up and doing it. And it's a unique art form
in that you are building and improving these things in
front of your audience. When musicians work on a song,
they're usually doing it in a studio. When actors are rehearsing,
(16:49):
they're doing it in a rehearsal room. Comedy, you are
building the thing in front of the people who are
purportedly going to enjoy the finished product and hopefully enjoy
what you're doing along the way. But it's just I
was devastated when I started really pursuing it in earnest
to discover it's just hard work. I thought it's got
to be some sort of cheatcode.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Oh well, I am so pleased that you finally got
the courage to get up on stage. I think it
is the most terrifying thing in the world, trying to
work out, you know, being in that sort of situation.
But absolutely loving the TV show. Thank you so much
for your time. Guy, really really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Thanks very much for having me, Francesco. I'll see you
around the traps.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Thank you so much so. Guy Montgomery's Guy mont Spelling
Bee Australia. It's going to launch on July the seventeenth
on three and three now. And if you're keen to
see his stand up in Auckland, he's playing The Kiddy
to Kanada Theater on August the fifteenth. Tickets are on
sale now.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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