By Liz Smith
While most New Zealand comedians struggle with day jobs, Jemaine Clement would never fit one in between comedy gigs. He has been touring comedy shows constantly for th past year, both in New Zealand and overseas.
Clement is fresh back in Wellington from a successful sitcom pitch to an American TV network, in collaboration with Bret McKenzie, the other hald of folk parody duo Flight of the Conchords. Clement has only been off the plane two days but is already digging around for more comedy gold.
"I've already started to get new projects goingm even though I probably won't have time to do them," he says.
He has plans for a vampire-comedy-horro movie as well as more theatre projects an animated films. As we talk he is busy doodling a fish to animate for his upcoming show, The Untold Tales of Maui.
Clement is brimming with so many ideas that hge is almost ambivalent about doing the US sitcom - there are just so many other things he wants to do as well.
American TV network NBC loved the sitcom idea. "They said it was the best pitch they'd had out of the last 200," he says.
The duo has been commissioned to write a pilot episode with an American writer. The storyline, he says, is a secret, but he and McKenzie will be playing Kiwis and the rest of the cast will be American.
Clement will have to squeeze time in for scriptwrting between performances of The Untold Tales of Maui, his show with other performing genius Taika Cohen, whose short time Two Cars, One Night is tipped to become an Oscar contender.
Clement and Cohen certainly don't need any hyping in their hometown. The Untold Tales of Maui's ten shows sold out two weeks before the November 30 opening. The seasons has been extended with five more nights at the much larger Downstage Theatre.
Clement says The Untold Tales of Maui has been a work in progress. "I think it gets better every time because we keep developing the script and cutting out bits we don't need. I think it's definitely better than when we performed it in the Fringe."
Clement does an unforgettable corss-dressing turn as the show's wise and wizened kuia, telling tales to a surly grandson. "The character is a little bit like my grandma whio is a short old Maori woman - and she's pretty funny."
Clement became a performer almost accidentally. "It was something I wanted to do as a kid, not neseccarily as an adult, but I sort of fell into it."
His initial shyness led to a lot of botched auditions. "I went to auditions but I was too nervous. I was so bad U didn't get into anything."
It was only in his third year at Victoria University that he got a part in the capping revue and has never looked back.
A bit like Maui, Clement is fast becoming a legend in his own lifetime.
The Untold Tales of Maui has sold out ten nights at BATS. Be in quick for a ticket to the extended season at Downstage from December 14 to December 17, phone 801-6946 for bookings.