Urzila Carlson will always remember her first joke. She was eight years old and her parents were divorcing after years of abuse at the hands of her violent father. But in 1980s South Africa, divorce was scandalous \u2013 never mind that her father once hunted his own family with a handgun (they were whisked to safety by a savvy neighbour), or that he would beat her with a sjambok, an Afrikaner stock whip. At school, other children teased Carlson about the divorce while the teachers pressed her for details. When she complained at home, her mother told her exactly what to say if they asked again.<\/p>\n
When the next teacher asked, eight-year-old Carlson looked up and said: \u201cMiss, it\u2019s my dad\u2019s fault. My mom really, really wanted to be a widow but my dad wouldn\u2019t drink the poison.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teacher laughed. Carlson was hooked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you talk to comedians, you see a lot of humour is born out of trauma,\u201d she says now, sitting in her home in West Auckland 42 years later. \u201cGrowing up in South Africa in the 80s, just to cope with how everyone reacted, you had to make fun of it, because no one understood. Even the other parents were like, \u2018Wait, your parents are divorced?\u2019 I was like, \u2018Yeah, bitch! They weren\u2019t chained together! You can leave!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She delivers this in her typical deadpan, cheeky South-African-via-New-Zealand accented half-shout, familiar to fans around the world who love her often bawdy routines \u2013 like explaining what a \u201cgunt\u201d is, or how she told her family that her then wife was pregnant (\u201cThe dildo exploded \u2013 our Tupperware is due in August\u201d). Carlson is particularly popular in Australia where she is a regular on TV, including Have You Been Paying Attention? and Guy Montgomery\u2019s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, and she holds the record for most tickets sold at Melbourne\u2019s international comedy festival. Internationally, she has appeared on QI, Taskmaster New Zealand<\/a> and Amy Schumer\u2019s Netflix comedy Kinda Pregnant.<\/p>\n In her latest standup show, Fatty on a Yacht, she recalls turning up for a day on a friend\u2019s boyfriend\u2019s dad\u2019s boat, expecting a tinny and finding a super yacht complete with a hot tub and jetskis. \u201cI had showed up in my lifejacket that I bought at a garage sale two houses down, and a cap that says \u2018Queer All Year\u2019 on it. There was a crew serving food and stuff \u2013 I had buttered bread rolls in my Esky. I looked like a dickhead.\u201d<\/p>\n She is now back in the southern hemisphere with a sketch show titled Urzila<\/a>, to be broadcast in Australia later this month, and a sitcom with Nazeem Hussain on the way. Despite her following in Australia and the US, Carlson refuses to relocate. \u201cEveryone calls West Auckland \u2018Bogan Central\u2019, but I love it,\u201d she says. \u201cI convinced my sister and my mother to move here \u2013 my mum will literally beat me up if I immigrate again, she\u2019s had a gutful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Comedy got very serious\u2019 \u2026 Urzila Carlson in a sketch in Urzila. Photograph: Dylan Coker\/Warner Bros.<\/p>\n Carlson has two children, and recently decided her 13-year-old daughter was old enough to watch her routines: \u201cI can\u2019t say anything filthier than 13-year-olds do at school.\u201d She recently took her daughter and her friends ice-skating \u201cand they were all saying to me in the car, \u2018can you roast us?\u2019 \u2026 I just looked at them in the rear-view and said, \u2018No, because I\u2019m a professional comedian and I will destroy you. You\u2019ll go home and tell your mum.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Her phone dings, which reminds me of something in her standup: do you actually get DMs from women trying to pick you up, I ask. \u201cOh yeah,\u201d she says and reads out the message she just got: \u201cYou in that bright red shirt with glasses is making me feel things I shouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow I just ignore it,\u201d Carlson says. \u201cIf I say thank you, I\u2019ll get tits. I always say, \u2018Please don\u2019t do that. I don\u2019t need to see you naked.\u2019 And they go, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re not into tits?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018No, I\u2019m not into unsolicited nudes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She gets dick pics too: \u201cTo those I just say, \u2018That\u2019s cute \u2013 it\u2019s just like a penis, only smaller.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson grew up in mining towns around South Africa, the youngest of three. The night her father hunted his family with a handgun, Carlson, her siblings and mother lay on the floor of their neighbour\u2019s car as he drove them to his friends\u2019 house in the next town.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I didn\u2019t have a clear idea of what was going on, I do remember that in their house I felt completely safe for the first time in my life,\u201d Carlson wrote in her memoir, Rolling with the Punchlines. \u201cI\u2019ve never met them or heard of them since, but along with the neighbour who bravely drove us away that night, I have no doubt they saved our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n After the divorce, her mother, Lettie, raised the three kids in Benoni, east of Johannesburg. They were \u201cdirt poor\u201d but happy. \u201cMy mother had to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, so we ran the household,\u201d Carlson says. \u201cWhen the oldest is 10 and we\u2019re cooking, cleaning, doing the washing \u2013 you develop differently. I look at my kids now and I\u2019m like \u2018Damn, they have a completely different childhood than we did\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n As an adult, Carlson found life in South Africa increasingly demoralising, but discovered freedom in travel. She funded a trip to the US by selling fudge door-to-door with a sign that said HELP ME GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. The final straw came in 2006, when armed men stormed the office she worked in and robbed everyone at gunpoint. The very next day, she saw an ad: \u201cWant to emigrate? Why not New Zealand?\u201d Three months later, she was there.<\/p>\n (L to R) Amy Schumer and Urzila Carlson in Kinda Pregnant. Photograph: Scott Yamano\/Netflix<\/p>\n It was New Zealand that gave her a first taste of standup. She was leaving one job as a graphic designer for another, and got a farewell gift from her colleagues: a fake contract to sign, to make her do an open mic spot at an Auckland comedy club. It turned out they had already booked her for it \u2013 \u201cand 70 people in the agency were going,\u201d she says. \u201cI said, \u2018How hard can it be?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She wrote four minutes of material for a five-minute slot (\u201cI thought I\u2019d give them one minute to laugh. How arrogant!\u201d), got on stage and was a hit. The next day she got a call to let her know she was through to the next round: without knowing, she had entered a talent competition. She had never seen a standup show before, and went on to win New Zealand\u2019s best newcomer.<\/p>\n When the global financial crisis came along and brought redundancy with it, it was like the universe was telling her to go professional: \u201cI thought, you can\u2019t ride two horses with one arse. You\u2019ve got to go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Two horses with one arse? \u201cI think that one was in the Bible,\u201d she smiles.<\/p>\n Urzila Carlson: \u2018I don\u2019t want to say to another comic, \u2018I don\u2019t want you to talk about abuse\u201d.\u2019 Photograph: Andy Paradise<\/p>\n To this day, she still gets terrible stage fright, and rarely has a support act: \u201cI\u2019m the only one I completely trust \u2026 I don\u2019t want to say to another comic, \u2018I don\u2019t want you to talk about abuse\u2019, or whatever. I\u2019d rather just not have one. I don\u2019t need to be worried about them and me.\u201d<\/p>\n A few years ago, she noticed, \u201ccomedy got very serious. Comedians started to become preachers. People would say, \u2018I\u2019ve never cried so hard in my life!\u2019 And I\u2019d be like, \u2018Er, it\u2019s comedy?\u2019\u201d The way she sees it, it is her duty to write new jokes for each new show (\u201cAudiences give you new money every year, so give them new material every year\u201d) and, most importantly, make them laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cI get my fair share of hate online,\u201d she says. \u201cBut then some people write: \u2018You make my day brighter\u2019 or \u2018Because of you I got up and got on with my day\u2019. Old ugly men can call me a fat, dumb bitch all day long \u2013 it can\u2019t override those people.\u201d<\/p>\n She thinks her difficult childhood has shaped her energetic optimism. That, and lots of therapy. \u201cBeing in a negative mindspace is not an option for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m just so thankful to do what I do. I love it so much. And I think because of my fucked up childhood \u2013 make no mistake, it was fucked up \u2013 I go, I\u2019m not gonna let 10 years of childhood fuck up the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Even her father, who died in 2016, left her with something positive. \u201cMy dad\u2019s whole family are storytellers, and they\u2019re very funny,\u201d she says. \u201cEven my dad was funny \u2013 he was just an asshole too.\u201d<\/p>\n Urzila Carlson is now touring Australia until 31 August, then the UK and Ireland 9-27 September. Urzila starts on ABC on 29 April at 9.25pm with all episodes available on ABC iview.<\/p>\n In Australia, domestic and family violence counselling <\/a>is available from Full Stop Australia on 1800 385 578. In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline<\/a> on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women\u2019s Aid<\/a>. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Urzila Carlson will always remember her first joke. 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