Hold my rod _{by Madelaine Empson}

Urzila Carlson is a multi-award-winning South African New Zealand comedian. From her star turns on Netflix comedy specials and rom coms like Kinda Pregnant to winning the prestigious People’s Choice Award at the 2025 Melbourne International Comedy Festival and dazzling with deadpan wit on more TV shows than you can shake a mast at, she’s one of Aotearoa’s biggest comedy names.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of hilarious comedians in my time, but I’ve never cry-laughed during an interview before. At least not till I spoke to Urzila Carlson about her new show Fatty on a Yacht, coming to Michael Fowler Centre on the 30^th of January 2027.

I’m obsessed with the title! Please tell me more about Fatty on a Yacht.

So many people are too scared to say the title. They go, ‘So you’re… touring?’

Because I’m a storyteller, everything I talk about onstage has either happened to me, I’ve seen happen, or I can imagine happening. So last year, a friend of mine had just started dating this new guy, and she goes, ‘We’re going on his dad’s boat, and I’m scared’ – because they’re six weeks in, right – ‘that if the conversation isn’t flowing, then I’m out on the ocean with this man… Can you come with me? You could talk to a stick for four and a half hours.’

I go, ‘Mate, say less.’

I’d been with her on other dates in the past, but like, hiking, which is not as fun. So I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go’, and to her credit she never said this, but when she said we’re going on a boat, my bogan head autocompleted that we’re going on his dad’s tinny, and we’re going to go fishing. I dressed accordingly, from head to toe. My fishing gear, my hat. I had my fishing rod that I got for my birthday. I had a chilly bin full of bread rolls, pre-buttered and back in the bag from which they came, some chippies to put in them. I even had a two-litre Coke Zero in there and party cups with a sharpie so you can write your name on yours.

I was fully kitted out to go on this tinny, and then I’m waiting at the marina in Auckland, and people start arriving and it looks like they’re going to the races. Sun dresses, fascinators, big hats. What is happening? How big is this tinny? And then I see my friend, who’s also in a sundress, and I’ve never seen her in a sundress. She’s strictly a jeans kind of gal. When our eyes locked, she had panic in her eyes – and then I had panic in my eyes, because she had panic in her eyes – and she goes, ‘Where are you going?’ And I go, ‘Where are you going?’

It wasn’t a tinny at all. It was a yacht. Not one of those skinny ones where you have to sit on the side or it tips over. It was a superyacht. On the superyacht, there were two jet skis. There was a hot tub for eight people. Later, the crew showed me around (it was like full Below Deck) and there was another jetboat inside, that comes out on a hydraulic arm that you put into the ocean in case you wanna go bomb around. They had all of that, and a library. Who can afford a superyacht, and not a kindle? I want to know that.

So I rock up, and I went on it. People are surprised to hear that, because I think when people realise they made a huge mistake – like I did there – they’d go, ‘I made a mistake, you guys go, have fun.’ But I’m 50 years old. I’ve never been on a superyacht. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the opportunity again. I’m going! I was invited; I’m going! I texted my manager from the marina, ‘Next year’s show’s called Fatty on a Yacht!’ She goes, ‘What are you doing!’ I said, ‘I’ll report back.’ And I got on that superyacht and I had the best time of my life.

And that’s how I wrote the show.

[Fighting back tears.] Did you get any pushback about going on the superyacht?

I could tell the captain wasn’t too keen. Initially, he goes [lowers voice] ‘Can we have a word? Unfortunately, we won’t be able to let you on today because of… your fishing rod.’ And I go, ‘Oh, no problem!’ And I walk over to Shane, a guy I know who cleans fishes at the marina, ‘Can you please hold my rod?’ And then I go to the captain, [cheerily] ‘Sorted!’ I’m not going to let a little snafu like that hold me back, bro. I left the rod and got on the yacht with my chilly bin full of bread rolls and the little one full of bait. And I just went with it.

Honestly, any situation ever, if you give it five minutes, it all settles down. You feel like an impostor for a bit, but once you settle in, have a good chat with anyone, it all just disappears. People don’t care if your hair is wild. If they have a good time with you, they don’t care what you’re wearing or what you look like.

It sounds like part of the show is about letting go of people’s expectations and just having the best time regardless?

Yeah, fully! Years ago I was in hospital in ICU, and I will never forget the lady next to me. She was a yoga teacher in her eighties. They weren’t sure what was wrong with her. I’d had surgery that day and was really sick, but there was someone else who came into ICU who was really unwell. While they were busy with her, I started throwing up. Mrs Josantus came and sat with her legs crossed – the way only a person who does yoga for a living can sit – on my bed, and she was holding the sick bucket for me. But she had one for herself too, because every time I would throw up, she’d throw up as well. She stayed with me throughout the night. The next morning, I said to my mum and my sister when they came to visit (and they’d moved Mrs Josantus to a different room), ‘She sat with me all night and was an absolute angel.’ My sister goes, ‘Yeah, a wrinkly one.’ Excuse me? ‘You can tell she does yoga in the sun.’ Mum goes, ‘Yeah, that’s a lot of sun damage there.’

I tell you what, even today, I would not be able to describe what she looked like to you. I can’t remember. All I can remember is that she was an absolute angel of a woman, and her looks never even came into it for me. I think 90 percent of things are like that. We obsess about what we’re wearing, what we look like, but none of that matters. If I said to you, ‘Is your best friendly really wrinkly, what’s her neck look like?’ you’d go, ‘What?’ You just go off their vibe, how they make you feel.

There’s some lovely dialogue out there at the moment: at your funeral, no one is going to say, ‘Oh, she looked so good in a bikini,’ or ‘Her hair was so shiny’ – they’ll talk about you as a person.

100 percent. My mum’s got Alzheimer’s now, and my sister and I care for her. You can tell that she is drawn to people who make her feel safe and comfortable. That’s it. So many of her friends are not in there anymore, she’s only with the true people. What a great way to sift out the trash.

And what an amazing calling card, if you’re a person who other people want to be around… You’re someone who gets to make people feel great through comedy!

I have the best job! You don’t know the week people have had, and I get the opportunity to go make them laugh. They immediately feel better. When I tell a joke and look out and people are like baby birds in a nest – head back, mouth open, laughing – I can’t tell you what that does to a person. That’s my job! I come out, people are screaming, then they start laughing. It’s just the best. The best. I can’t imagine doing any other job.

What makes the impact you have on people really hit home?

You get these messages where people go, ‘I’ve had the roughest time, but your clips, or your stand-up, got me through.’ I just did a gig in Tamworth and there was a lady who asked if she could come who’s going through chemo. Every time she gets chemo or radiation, she listens to my stand-up. She told me that initially she felt awkward ugly laughing during that, but she’s got the same group of women who she goes through chemo with, and they all now sit and watch my stuff together. It’s changed it from this quiet, depressing room; they’re looking forward to doing it.

That’s the stuff. People can’t say anything when I know that. Someone calls me a fat b***h online? I don’t care mate. What you say carries so little weight when I know my stand-up is lifting someone up in a chemo room.