Multi award-winning South African-born standup comedian Urzila Carlson is well-known to New Zealand audiences through her extensive television presence and multiple national tours. This solo show, Unacceptable, is one of the headline events for the World Buskers Festival, and it sets a high bar for other comic acts.

The show is loosely structured as a cathartic exploration of things we might find acceptable or unacceptable, ranging from the banal through the absurd to the universally relatable. If you’ve got a beef about turmeric lattes or body odour, you will be welcomed with open arms.

Carlson’s style is casual, anecdotal and observational, and coloured by a cheerful sense of irreverence. Her skilful storytelling is generally, and gleefully, at her own expense, and jokes range from the vulgar to the mordant.

Underpinning the surface-level humour, delivered with the casual authority of a seasoned pro, there’s a streak of seriousness – about homophobia, body image, our assumptions about other people and cultures, and the way that we might support or undermine one another.

This is a loving and welcoming audience – no hecklers here – and while we’re invited to weigh in on the relative acceptability of some of her topics, anyone who is worried about being picked on at a comedy show can attend knowing that for this show, at least, they’ll be safe. The audience is warm from the outset, and vocal in its appreciation, and it’s apparent that if anyone’s not having a good time, they are keeping a pretty low profile. 

The auditorium at Christ’s College is a large and not always particularly forgiving space – when it’s good it’s good, but at its worst, it resembles a high-ceilinged brutalist bingo hall – but Carlson establishes and maintains a sense of congenial intimacy. This is leveraged powerfully near the end of the show, as Carlson doglegs unexpectedly from comedy into tragedy. You could hear a pin drop. It’s a gutsy and well-pitched move, and the show ends with a profound sense of compassion that showcases the immense power of comedy to expose, and tend to, difficult topics.

I’m left reflecting on the marvellous subversiveness of the evening. I come to the show having just attended The Topp Twins, who are headliners alongside Carlson, so my night’s been structured around clever, highly visible and bloody funny lesbians who do essential cultural work, shaving away at New Zealand’s conservative streak through laughter and shared experience, bringing out the best in us one dick joke at a time.

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