If you're out and about in Auckland or Wellington in the next couple of weeks, chances are you'll run into a comedian.
With the International Comedy Festival in full swing and hordes of local and overseas comedians roaming the country, Steve Wrigley gives us some valuable advice on how to avoid embarrassment around his species.
"The worst thing you can do around comedians is trying to be funny," he says, "because they can smell it from a mile away.
"There's the smell of desperation when a joke is being tried out."
Wrigley would know. The winner of the coveted 2008 Billy T Award and resident funnyman on TV3's 7 Days is one of the country's busiest comedians and has is part of not one but four different productions at this year's festival.
His favourite of the lot is Kevin The Musical, which he created last year with his wife Cyan Corwine. But he is also looking forward to returning to his roots with his own stand-up show Left out of the Field at Wellington's San Francisco Bathhouse.
"The SFBH is where I started out doing comedy. Me and Ben Hurley (with whom he's doing yet another show, Live and Unleashed) used to run the regular comedy night down there and it always feels like going back to your home ground," he says.
Talking to a comedian, there's one question nagging: Are comics really funny people to hang out with, or are they quite a bore off the stage?
"It is a real fun time for us because the only time we get to see these people is during the festival. But usually everybody is having too much to drink to be making jokes at that stage.
"I guess we all have our down times, the same way plumbers aren't always fixing things, but there are people like Jason John Whitehead, a Canadian who's coming over for the festival - he's one of those people who's funny even when they don't want to be funny.
"And when he's generously frustrated or angry with something I can't help but laugh, it's just the way he talks," Wrigley says.
In fact, angry people in general make the comedian laugh.
"Every time I see somebody losing their temper, particularly online where people are writing real angry comments about something somebody said, it really makes me laugh.
"Or people at a checkout loosing their mind because something is 15 cents more expensive than it was advertised on the shelf and I ask myself: Is this offence really worth this agitation?" he laughs.
Having been part of the comedy circuit for years, Wrigley is no stranger to hecklers.
Most of the time it's all fun and games, but sometimes somebody in the audience manages to rub him the wrong way.
"I did a gig a couple of weeks ago and I came onto stage and this woman just shouted 'you suck' before I even started.
"And I asked her on what she was basing this on and she said: 'Your whole history'.
"So she knew everything about me and I had no idea who she was and then I made fun of her for about 10 to 15 minutes, so pretty much my whole show.
"I couldn't understand why she came to the show, paying 30 bucks just to tell me that she doesn't like me.
"Sometimes you get people who watch comedy and I don't really understand why, they get so angry whenever a comedian who they don't like comes on and they feel the need to passionately tell everybody that they hate what this comedian does and you just don't know what they have done to hate them so much," he says.
Angry people aside, where else does he come up with material for his stand-up routine? Do comedians lock themselves in dark rooms, write like maniacs and emerge with droves of funniness?
"No, I am not really good at sitting down and figuring out how a clever joke works.
"That has never been my strength and I admire comedians who can do that, who can sit down and craft a really clever, really well worded piece of material, but that's not really me.
"I just go out and freestyle, throw a couple of stories in there and have never really written down anything before.
"I just like having fun with the audience and going where the show goes. It keeps it interesting for me as well.
"But I am usually surprised when something gets a laugh from the audience. A lot of my comedy happens by accident.
And when Wrigley's not on the stage himself, who would he go out and see?
"I like Irish comedian David O'Doherty ('the least famous person to ever host BBC's Nevermind The Buzzcocks').
"Ben Hurely is bringing his show back and there's a new guy in town, he's a bit left of the field and very interesting.
"So if somebody wants to go and see somebody they've never heard before, Tom Furniss is your guy," he says.
Steve Wrigley and Cyan Corwine perform in Kevin the Musical, Tuesday to Saturday at Auckland's Herald Theatre. Wrigley also performs his new stand-up show Left Out of the Field at Wellington's San Francisco Bathhouse, from Monday, May 7 to Saturday, May 12; and with Ben Hurley in Live & Unleashed at Auckland's Rangatira at Q, from Tuesday, May 15 to May 19.
Comedyfestival.co.nz
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