The first acting job I got was when I was about 21. I played a character called Boy #1 on a post-apocalyptic teen drama, The Tribe. My role was to shift around dark alleyways, looking dodgy, a role well within my skill set. The next acting job I got was on Xena: Warrior Princess. I played a character called Siki, who used to jump out of trees and attack Kevin Smith and Lucy Lawless. I loved it—and I had an actual character name this time.
I was happy with those little bits and bobs because I was all in on my stand-up career, and it was going well, but things can change in an instant. Life is funny like that.
It was a Monday, and I was doing laundry at home when I got a call from Scott Blanks, owner of The Classic Comedy Club, asking if I could fill in and MC the Raw Comedy Night that evening. I was staring down a long night of pairing socks so I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
I remember getting onto that stage feeling like I had electricity running through me. After my shift in perspective from Edinburgh and falling in love with Jo, I felt buoyed, loved up, confident and free. Everything I did on stage that night had an extra boost behind it because I was in such a good space. I was in my element that night, and it was clear to everyone in the room.
One person there that night was music channel C4’s programme director, Andrew Szusterman. I knew him vaguely from Wellington College and family acquaintances (yeah, it’s true, everyone in New Zealand knows everyone). After the gig, he found me, pulled me aside and said, “Do you want a TV show?”
It’s funny to think back at how effortless that all seemed. It was a time in New Zealand when you could dream up a TV show idea in your bedroom, find the email of the network executive in charge and pitch the idea, and there was a high chance it would happen. Making TV felt experimental and TV Three was the nimble underdog hungry for a bone. It’s wonderful to think how many of us were given opportunities then that you’d never see repeated today.
The show Andrew wanted me to host was called Insert Video Here. Basically, we’d play a bunch of music videos around the same theme, and I’d film funny little bits to go in between the videos. It sounded fun.
I said yes immediately. We shook hands, and out of the shadows came this tall, cool-looking dude with glasses. “Right, this is Mikee Carpinter,” Andrew said. “He’s your cameraman, director, editor and best mate. You guys start in two weeks.”
Mikee and I became best friends from that moment on. He told me once that he knew we were going to be close after we filmed our first episode at an open mic music night on Ponsonby Road. We were outside on the street and when Mikee said, “I’ll go now, lovely shooting with you,” I leaned in to hug him, cracked open a tin of baked beans, tipped them on his head and ran away. And Mikee thought, “I love this dude.” The beans had been part of my plan all along. I’d bought them earlier, thinking it would be a memorable way to say goodbye. You always have to be prepared to leave a good impression. It’s the rules.
I used to love doing random little pranks like that. My friend Steve would come around and I’d plan how to make him laugh. I’d set it up so I was wearing just a bathrobe and had my robe belt tied onto the stair bannister. He’d ring the doorbell and I’d walk forward and open the door, which would rip off my robe and reveal that I had Sellotape on my nipples and a plastic bag covering my willy.
Mikee and I became a tight unit. We’d have so much fun going on adventures and filming the show—sometimes too much fun, because often we’d deliver the show so close to the deadline that we’d almost be running into the control room, dive-rolling across the floor and shoving the tape straight in to go directly on air.
Insert Video Here became popular, and became known for all the crazy interviews we’d do with wasted people. We’d be at the Big Day Out, concerts, the food show, and we’d make something out of anything.
But it wasn’t always a good vibe. Once, we ended up at a house party in Rānui, which, in hindsight, was probably the most unsafe thing we’d ever done. Josh Thomson was filming.
We went in, and I immediately felt like we were in danger. This was when party pills were huge in New Zealand; you could buy amphetamines from the dairy. P had just started to come to New Zealand, too, and so many people were out of their depth with that.
We walked into one room and I clocked these guys giving a girl P. That shocked me. I wanted to do the filming really fast and then get out of there. We were used to filming wild chaos for the show, but this felt like it wasn’t the sort of wild chaos we were looking for. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so fast; I just wanted to finish the filming and leave. We were doing quick interviews when we walked into this bedroom area. I could see these big guys around a bed with this young, wasted girl.
I could feel the energy in the room. It was heavy, and I knew they were about to do something bad to her. I just knew. I got this sick feeling in my gut and then this surge of energy. I just walked in, scooped her up in a fireman’s lift and walked out onto the street with her. We called a taxi and told her to get as far away from them as possible. I hate to think how that situation would have unfolded if we hadn’t been there at exactly the right time. But it was one of those moments you reflect on and think, I’m stoked I did that.
Taken with kind permission from the bestselling memoir The Life of Dai by Dai Henwood (HarperCollins NZ, 2024). It was reviewed in ReadingRoom by Steven O’Meagher, who wrote, “Whenever Dai eventually exits stage left, he will have provided a tremendous service for the many New Zealanders he will never personally meet: the people for whom cancer is hellish, a dark, bottomless black hole of misery and despair. For those without any, Dai has provided the most optimistic of four-letter words… hope. Not the false hope of a miracle survival, but hope that by keeping on fighting, each day is worth the considerable effort to do so.”
