History-making comedian Urzila Carlson on losers, anti-vaxxers and how she beats stage fight
After selling out shows last year, Urzila Carlson is breaking more barriers at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a new show called Loser.
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URZILA Carlson has an excellent life motto. “If you don’t ‘ugly laugh’ at least once a day so you can’t even see your eyes in a photo then you need new friends.”
The 40-something, South African born, Kiwi-based comic knows what she’s on about.
She’s about to make history.
Carlson will be the first female stand-up comedian to headline a run in the Melbourne Town Hall main room.
Once the domain of Ross Noble (who does stadiums but has dropped off the pace), Stephen K Amos (who is quitting comedy after this year) and Arj Barker (who is widely loved but has cooled off), it’s now time for Urzila to emphasise the second syllable in her name (say it with me) “Urzila Carls-ON.”
Carlson is a triple threat.
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She writes, acts and does stand-up. She’s more than dipped her toe into thespianism, she’s pretty much hung a bomb off the deep end in films Super City, 7 Days, indie hit The Breaker Uppers and brought a high LOLs count to TV hits Get Krack! n and Orange Is the New Brown. The main reason you probably know her is from her riotous turns on Network Ten’s Have You Been Paying Attention?
“I was talking to Sam Pang last night, we were having a drink, the show’s become an amazing thing and the people that work on the show are so nice across the board, I literally have not found a s--- one.”
Carlson’s deadpan punchlines are often followed by a natural, unpretentious laugh — she’s usually the funniest person in the room that everyone gravitates towards.
Last year she sold out her Studies Have Shown Melbourne Interntional Comedy Festival run in The Forum’s main room and then kept having to add more shows.
The mousy-haired cheerjerker has 19 shows lined up in Melbourne, not including the extra spots she’ll be doing at Festival Club at Max Watts, random podcasts, a Herald Sun Facebook Live set and when she’s funny next to you in line at Yoyoji Sushi at 11.37pm.
Studies Have Shown exhibited an artist who had refined her craft without losing the oh-hey-here-is-something-I-just-came-up spontaneity that separates the good comics from the great ones.
And she saved a savage kicker for the last ten minutes where she went all in on anti-vaxxers. “I did this bit in New Zealand and 12 parents walked out … probably going home to their sick kids,” she quips. It helps her wife is a doctor, “she explains all the boring medical s--- to me; I try not to black out.
“Even now I still get emails from people. I got an email yesterday saying ‘My mother in law is an anti-vaxxer, my partner is a vegan’, I’m like ‘You know how to pick ‘em.’ The email said ‘I was watching your show with my mother in law and she couldn’t leave … and I was laughing so much I peed a bit on the seat’,” Carlson says, enjoying the schadenfreude.
Her new show is called Loser.
“I thought how we’re taking all the negative words like queer and making them positive. It’s like that. Everything around loser is negative except for weight, why do we add that to fat people? I point out the proper losers and take the heat off the fat people for a bit.
“The real losers in life are the ones who don’t thank you in traffic, they take it and move on. What kind of animal raised them that they don’t look up or anything? I say thank you, put the hazard lights on, pull up to the lights and jump out and run up to their car and say ‘Thanks for what you did back there, superior race and all that’,” she says, winking.
You wouldn’t think she freaks out pre-gig but Carlson is only human.
“I get really bad stage fright, so what I do is tell myself I’m having a conversation with each and every person in the room. As soon as I start I literally am just talking to everyone like a friend.”
Billy Connolly always describes his style as telling a story to his mates in the pub.
“Yeah that’s right, it’s like I’m at a BBQ with friends but I’m the one with the tongs, because that’s who’s in charge. My mic is my tongs.”
I throw a random internet titbit at her: Oprah Winfrey’s net worth is $US 2.6 billion. Urzila Carlson’s says “Under review.”
“I think that’s my accountant’s work, she put that up!” she blurts with a hearty, self-deprecating guffaw. “Look I’ve got an old tennis racquet and two piggy banks at home so I’m solvent.
“Every time I think of my dream scenario, it happens. In Sydney you want to play the main hall at Sydney Opera House, which I am doing now. In Melbourne you wanna play the main room at Melbourne Town Hall which I am doing now. Next I’ll take a round stage at Madison Square Garden. I can be the Adele of comedy.”
Urzila Carlson, Melbourne Town Hall, 90 Swanston St, city. March 28-April 20. $32/$40. comedyfestival.com.au
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