Women who crack us up MEET OUR QUEENS OF COMEDY

Stand-up is for the brave – but this Kiwi trio is having the last laugh

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Back in the day, if there was more than one woman in a comedy line-up, people would curiously question: Is it a fundraiser? Is it a special night for breast cancer awareness?

The issue never was that women weren't funny. It's that for generations, stand-up comedy had only been an almost exclusively male art.

For the original queens of Kiwi comedy, Michèle A'Court and Justine Smith, they've also had to endure a lot of derogatory comments during their 30 years in the limelight.

Now, as they come together for a Weekly photoshoot at Auckland's Q Theatre, they're speaking out about their own experiences to make sure the next generation of female comics can work in a safe environment.

Along with Courtney Dawson – who stumbled into her first comedy gig in 2018 – the trio shares how their upbringing shaped their humour – and who paved the way for them.

Michèle A'Court, 63

When you began doing stand-up in 1993, were you regularly the only woman in the room?

Yes! There were just a handful of people doing gigs, so it wasn’t an industry or a profession. Comedians like Jeremy Corbett, Kevin Smith and Dean Butler were fantastic because all of us were new and young. When I’d been around for a few years, some of the younger men in the line-up would say to me, “Why are you here?” Or I’d get introduced at the “Grandmothers of NZ comedy,” when I wasn’t even old.

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