Confessional: Melanie Bracewell

The co-host of The Cheap Seats on Channel 10 botched the paper run back home and can’t live without antihistamines.

Melanie Bracewell, co-host of The Cheap Seats on Channel 10.

My first big break in comedy was … entering a competition, Comedy Apprentice, for a show in New Zealand called 7 Days. I had never done stand-up comedy in my life and I won this competition to go on TV for five minutes. With that first nudge I realised I could do it. The joke I made was probably inappropriate; there was a photo of someone with a stool on their head and I made a classic sitting on a face joke. It was the first thing I ever said on television. I think one of my uncles disowned me after doing that.

Not on my CV … is the time I was fired from doing the paper run when I was 15. I was delivering a free community newspaper, the North Shore Times, in New Zealand. The route was pretty straightforward but there was one house that was an extra 40m from the edge of the route. I was like “I’m going to skip that house. They’re never going to notice.” I got a letter saying I hadn’t delivered to this house in six weeks. They had noticed. Instead of dealing with that I decided to quit because the idea of doing that extra walk was not worth $8 a week.

On my bedside table there is … a packet of antihistamines because I often wake up in the middle of the night with an itchy throat and itchy face. I need them nearby, otherwise I’ll sniff in my boyfriend’s ear all night. I always have to have a phone charger. I know it’s unhealthy but I always have to look at my phone for 10 minutes before I get out of bed.

The last time I had to say no was … A gig offer I knew I was not going to do well at. Like being the MC of an electrical conference, which I know nothing about, so I would have turned up and embarrassed myself. But I’m very much a “yes person” because I don’t want people to hate me. For the most part I’ll say yes to anything. I fill in for about 12 netball teams because I can’t say no and end up exhausted by the end of the week.

When I was looking for love, the advice I was given … seemed stupid and didn’t make any sense. But now the idea that “it will happen” does make sense in retrospect. My partner and I went to school together in New Zealand. So it was just one of those weird reconnections post-lockdown. It’s annoying that I tried so hard for so long and it was all for nothing! I thought if I went on as many dates with as many people as possible it would happen. But then someone I knew came back into my life by chance.

I shouldn’t have laughed when … I definitely laugh at other people’s misfortune a bit too much. Never anything horrible, but I was at Maccas and watched someone drop about 1000 straws on the ground and stare at them and just sigh. I got the giggles and couldn’t stop myself.

Kiwis should be better known for … I feel like New Zealand is so small that everything we are good at, we will tell you about. We are smashing it in everything, per capita. I think New Zealand television is having a real moment and I hope some of our stuff makes it across the ditch.

Hosting The Cheap Seats is making me … pinch myself. We’re in the office right now writing the show. I’m looking at a letter from Neil Armstrong to Working Dog Productions about the film The Dish. To know that Working Dog, who are producing our show, have made an impact on so many people is surreal. They made The Castle, The Panel, Frontline and Thank God You’re Here.

The Cheap Seats screens on 10 and 10 Play at 8.40pm Tuesdays.