Urzila Carlson is delighted to talk about Urzila, her new six-part sketch comedy series on ABC TV. But first: lawn maintenance.
“Today’s sunny and tomorrow’s going to be sunny, so I’m going to do half of the lawn today with a weed whacker, and then tomorrow I do the actual mowing,” she says from her home in West Auckland. “I’ve got two shows this evening, so while I’m doing the lawns I’m also thinking about those tonight.”
Then there’s the fridge, just behind her and next to a mantelpiece.
“This is the party fridge,” she says. “I brought this into the house for my birthday in February and I haven’t had a chance to take it back out to the garage. But then everyone in the family and our circle, if they have a birthday or whatever and they go, ‘Can I come and get the fridge?’, they come and get the fridge. So I’ve got a fridge, and also a trailer, that people can use. But I promised myself today it will go back into the garage because this ugly fridge is in the background of every Zoom.”
There is something about the way Carlson tells a story – about lawn-mowing or a garage fridge still in the house after two months, or even why she’s sitting in front of it today, (“I want you to know I do have an office, but it’s a little room outside and it’s cold and I’d be too far away from the coffee machine”), that is funny.
The South African-born comedian, known for her tell-it-like-it-is, deadpan humour on myriad panel and quiz shows and live stand-up that now sells out huge arena venues in Australia and overseas, is a consummate observer of daily minutiae.
It’s why the often surreal sketches of Urzila, bookended between recorded excerpts of Carlson performing stand-up at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre – are fuelled by an unflinching cognisance of everyday life.
“You know what?” Carlson says. “I am still a member of every community page I’ve ever lived in, in New Zealand. I refuse to leave it, and I’m an active contributing member.”
This comes up in relation to various sketches in Urzila following a woman’s diagnosis of “early onset Karen”. How else to describe her mysteriously instant blow-dried bob hairstyle; her constant, angry desire to call the local council; and her worried niece admitting her to The Karen Clinic (which runs Fox News all day, and rehab programs about ignoring young people riding bicycles on the grass).
Carlson says she posted an image of someone driving inconsiderately on the morning of our interview.
“I go, ‘You’re not living in Arkansas’,” she says. “Stay on the left of the road. It’s so frustrating.”
Carlson, who is joined onscreen by comedy collaborators Bron Lewis, Anisa Nandaula, Carlo Ritchie and Andy Saunders, is often the inspiration or spotted the topic of the sketch herself.
“A friend of mine said to me the other day, ‘Holy f—, you just pay attention to everything’,” she says. “Like, yeah. That’s where a lot of the ideas are. I don’t really mess around on my phone when I’m out in public. I watch people and then I write it down and then I do it as a bit. But then, when I’m in the scenario [in Urzila], I know exactly what I was picturing on the day.”
Urzila is also notable for its guest stars, with sketches featuring appearances from Tom Gleisner, Sam Pang, Nazeem Hussain, Julia Morris and even Ione Skye.
“I remember the day Sam was filming,” she says. “He looked around and then he said to me, ‘So you’re basically just having a little friend reunion. You’re just getting all your mates to come on’.
“I said, ‘Mate, of course’. If your name is on the door and you get the opportunity and they go, ‘Who do you want for this?’, and people are taking my calls and happy to come and do it, of course I’m only going to put the people that I love and know will be super funny in it.”
Carlson says she heartened to see an increase in sketch comedy shows coming back to TV, including the recent arrival of Saturday Night Live UK.
“Comedy is a mirror to our society,” she says. “The same with music. It’s always been there. People have sometimes turned away from it a little bit and gone into news, but then they come back. I think the tide is a-turning and comedy is coming back in a big way.
“Just in the last six months, what I filmed for the ABC [a new six-part comedy series Separated At Birth, created by and starring Hussain], it’s another scripted comedy. It’s definitely coming back and stronger.”
Urzila also features a blooper-reel, added to the end credits and a nod to Carlson’s love of staying in cinemas until lights-up so she can catch any after-the-movie extra scenes.
Watching these blooper reels, it becomes clear Carlson breaks character more than most in the show’s record.
“Yes and no,” she says, wagging a finger. “Bron Lewis and Anisa Nandaula … I’m just saying the men were a lot more professional than we were because we were scream-laughing.
“In one of the sketches, it was one about a telephone sex line, you can hear that Anisa cannot pull her shit together. We got yelled at on that day, and we got yelled at on other days because we just could not get it together. I would say that we extended every day’s recording time by about an hour just because we were laughing so much.”
Urzila airs at 9.25pm on Wednesdays on the ABC and streams on ABC iview.
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