Master of ceremonies
James Elliott
James Elliott is a lawyer who had a career diversion into the world of stand-up comedy! He appeared on several series of TV’s Pulp Comedy and has performed in NZ, Australia and even in East Timor for NZ and Australian peacekeepers.
The comedy link started when James Elliott gave a best man speech in London which brought out the best in him, and guests told him they’d pay money to see him — something clicked and he thought he would get it out of his system and just give it a go in a club and see how it went!
So he stood up at a comedy club one night, and kept standing up week after week. “I just did it because I wanted to do it. I had no idea what was going to happen next.” says James. He was soon inspired to go into stand-up full-time, a difficult decision given the somewhat contrasting incomes and lifestyles of lawyers and comedians.
A few jokes, a bit of enterprise, and some negotiations with the New Zealand Army got him all the way to East Timor to entertain the Kiwi and UN peacekeepers up there. So he and fellow comedian Mike King, who together had formed an agency to secure work for comedians, got a group of comedians and musicians together and were in the war zone for a week. “We were flown around in helicopters and did concerts in different places, some really small. At one place, the stage was trestles on top of ammunition boxes and the lighting was the light on an armoured personnel carrier, so the barrel of the gun was sort of pointing at you from the end of the tent.
Back in New Zealand, James and his colleagues arranged for different performers to go up to Timor on two subsequent ‘tours of duty’. Amongst other things over this time, he did a live show with comedian John Glass, “Men in Beige” and starred in three seasons of Pulp Comedy.
James’ legal contacts also proved useful, with corporate gigs providing the bread and butter to supplement the meagre earnings ‘pure’ stand-up would bring. One corporate opportunity he and a friend identified was ‘hoax comedy’. They would go into a conference and pretend to be experts on a particular topic, generally at the end of the conference, before they go for drinks.
Swatting up on the conference papers in advance to become familiar with the jargon, and employing an accomplice from the conference with a bit of ‘mana’ to introduce them, they had all manner of professionals fooled. They did everything — IT consultants, HR consultants, all kinds of things and they’d be very serious and really dry and boring for five or 10 minutes, and then slowly unravel, and the penny would drop at different times, because people couldn’t quite believe — ‘What, did they really say that?’ — and then they'd play it for laughs in the final third when people had worked it out — some people hadn’t even cottoned by the end, so they weren’t quite sure what they’d seen…”
These days, James is busy as a conference MC, awards night host, guest after dinner speaker, in celebrity debates, etc; he also blogs occasionally for The New Zealand Herald; he's performing stand-up comedy regularly at the Classic and is also a writer for TV3's '7 Days' comedy series.
James is becoming known for his excellent preparation as an MC — his blend of business knowledge and comedy experience gel together as a very professional and entertaining MC and after dinner speaker!