NICK GIBB in 4am Thoughts
Cavern Club, 22 Allen St, Te Aro, Wellington
06/05/2014 - 10/05/2014
Q Theatre Loft, 305 Queen St, Auckland
16/05/2014 - 17/05/2014
NZ International Comedy Festival 2014
Production Details
A ONE MAN INSOMNEDY
Nick Gibb often lies awake at night, thinking all his profoundest and silliest thoughts, so decided to organise these thoughts into a show. Will he finally resolve the gnawing, existential confusion at the heart of the human condition? Probably not, but it’ll be funny watching him try in Wellington (7 – 10 May) and Auckland (16 & 17 May) as part of the 2014 NZ International Comedy Festival.
Gibb spent six years honing his skills as a sketch comedian and improviser in the unforgiving comedy wilderness of Palmerston North, before tentatively attempting standup in 2007. He was immediately hooked, and quickly established himself as one of the rising stars of the NZ comedy scene. He has performed ravingly received shows in the New Zealand Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Festival. In 2011 his debut solo show “Pakehas Be All Like This” won the Billy T Award. He has also toured to Melbourne and Edinburgh Festivals as host of the cult geek sensation FanFiction Comedy.
This year he hosted a one hour comedy special for TVNZ, The Year That Was, and is a recurring panellist on the ever-popular 7 Days.
Alongside stand-up comedy, Nick is a writer, designer, and filmmaker. He directed the entirely non-comedic documentary feature “Once Upon a Time in the West Bank” and is the co-creator of the cult webcomic www.dead-philosophers.com.
“Commands the stage easily and with a practiced precision that equals some of the biggest comedians in the game… Phenomenal dark witty humour – you’ll laugh till it hurts.” – (four stars) FestivalJournal.co.uk
“Nick Gibb is a genuinely talented comedian, erudite and educated… brilliantly original material. I would be very surprised if Nick Gibb wasn’t a name with serious clout in the comedy world in the near future.” – (four stars) Edinburgh Guide
“Incredibly self-assured and cleverly intelligent… a masterclass in comedy” – TVNZ
“Maintains a level of wit and intelligence which sets him apart from many of his contemporaries” – Theatreview
As part of the 2014 NZ International Comedy Festival in cahoots with Old Mout Cider, grab some mates and join us for a great night of laughs from 24 April – 18 May. For the full Comedy Fest show line-up head to comedyfestival.co.nz
WELLINGTON
Dates: Wed 7 May – Sat 10 May, 10pm
Venue: Cavern Club, 22 Allen St
Tickets: Adults $20, Conc. $15
Bookings: 0800 TICKETEK (842 538) // ticketek.co.nz
AUCKLAND
Dates: Fri 16 & Sat 17 May, 10pm
Venue: Loft at Q, 305 Queen St
Tickets: Adults $20, Conc. $15
Bookings: 09 309 9771 // qtheatre.co.nz
Wind-down chuckles and a couple of LOLs
Review by Nik Smythe 17th May 2014
Nick Gibb rounds out the end of the last couple of evenings of our 2014 Comedy Festival with a wee intellectual, pun-encrusted, late-night ramble. Really by clubbing standards the night is still young at 10.00pm, but at the end of a working week at the end of what has been a fairly intense and quite eclectic overall event, Gibbs’ 4am Thoughts make for an easy, gentle closer.
Not that it doesn’t venture into some fairly grim and tasteless areas of the comedic spectrum of course; the guy evidently understands his market. To start with, he specifies that the thoughts referenced in the title are by and large morbid reflections on the frightening inevitability of death.
So Nick grew up in Palmerston North, which he can both be proud of and laugh about, and is now thirty but doesn’t feel like an adult yet. He appreciates aphorisms, loves lame impressions, and delights in layered geek-humour both scientific and pop-culture based. Mostly though, he freely admits to being obsessed with puns to an obsessive-compulsive degree.
His stories span the length of his life and halfway around the globe, musing on his first confrontation with death during a fishing disaster when he was nine, through to his most recent encounter with the Grim Reaper in Amsterdam. He’s got some inadvertently violent sexual escapades to overshare, and is not ready to have children but has already thought of some devious ways to blow his brand new nephew’s mind.
Altogether, 4am Thoughts is great for a bunch of wind-down chuckles and a couple of LOLs.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
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