Jon Gadsby: an iconic Kiwi comedian...

Interview – 2015

Jon Gadsby was a key part of the Kiwi comedy landscape. With his longtime friend and colleague David McPhail, Gadsby showed that a New Zealand comedy show could win an audience. The pair first teamed up in 1977 for A Week of It, which took potshots at politicians, news, and everyday life. Then they moved on to the long-running McPhail and Gadsby and Letter to Blanchy. Gadsby also penned rural comedy Rabbiter's Rest.

Jon Gadsby died in December 2015. In this ScreenTalk interview from earlier that year, Gadsby talks about:

Being the newbie on groundbreaking comedy show A Week of It
How mocking religion led to death threats on McPhail and Gadsby
Why politicians wanted to be on the show, and how it captured the public mood
The origins of the infamous saying "Jeez Wayne"
How Letter to Blanchy reflected heartland New Zealand, and his own upbringing
Tormenting cameraman Jacob Bryant while on an Intrepid Journey to Myanmar

This video was first uploaded on 14 December 2015, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing - Andrew Whiteside

It was pure middle New Zealand, where I was brought up. I understood the characters I was writing about, and I understood the situations because many of them where based on things I'd actually done as a teenager in Invercargill.
– Jon Gadsby on writing for rural comedy show Letter to Blanchy

Jon's Full Profile