Live Laughs

May is a great month to get a huge dose of the very best medicine – the International Comedy Festival is in full swing and there are comedians serving up laughs for a wide range of comedic tastes.

Whether your sense of humour tends towards the ridiculous, you have a taste for improv, musical comedy lights you up, or you get a kick out of good old fashioned stand up, don’t miss the opportunity to see acts from New Zealand and overseas in action.

The beauty of live comedy is that you can really interact with the performer – most of the venues are intimate and you are encouraged to laugh, hoot, holler or groan, depending on your reaction. It’s a fantastic night out – the programme has several shows a night, each running for about an hour, so if you want to be home by 9, you can, or if you’re a night owl who would prefer to see a 10pm show, you absolutely can.

Pardon the pun, but audiences can be funny things at a comedy show – there’s often the group who are determined to be unimpressed, the group who laugh heartily and the rest, chuckling at first, then really letting go and enjoying themselves, once they realise that is the idea. You’ll leave the show with a fresh view of life – comedians are masters at finding a new way of looking at things.

The International Comedy Festival began in 1993 and has steadily increased in popularity ever since. Every year, for three weeks in Auckland and Wellington as well as regional touring around the rest of the country, it’s giggle time. The programme is designed to offer a diverse and exciting stream of live comedy shows for all ages. There are even shows with ‘subtitles’ in New Zealand sign language on certain nights.

For more information, see comedyfestival.co.nz