Pictures: Robert Trathen.
If comedy is all about getting the laughs, then for Courtney Dawson and her dad Heta, it’s about sharing those laughs with their community – and when the pair sits down with Woman’s Day at their home in South Auckland, it doesn’t take long for that laughter to flow.
“Creativity and expression has always been a big part of our whānau,” says Courtney, 36, who starred on Paddy Gower Has Issues and was a runner-up on Celebrity Treasure Island in 2023.
And despite 27 years in the corporate world, Heta – who is of Ngāti Kurī and Ngāti Amaru descent – feels the same way. He adds, “It’s also about acknowledging how Māori I am and how I do see things differently.”
“That’s something I have always respected about him,” Courtney grins, “Also the fact he’s always got a hyper-fixation, which, for the past seven years, has been comedy.”
Heta’s most recent DIY project has been turning their garage into a comedy club named Poppy’s. The space has become a hit in their Manurewa community, as well as a pathway for emerging Māori and Pasifika comics to clock some hours on the mic.
The 57-year-old is a classic “nuts and bolts man”, asking questions and breaking down a comedian’s set to its individual parts until he understands how it all fits together.
“He’s very formulaic and likes to crack the code, while I’m more about the feelings,” says Courtney. “But we’re both grounded in the community aspect of it.”
Heta continues, “Some people turn up at Poppy’s and they go, ‘I’ve never been to a show. This is fantastic!’ That’s really uplifting, exposing people to funny stuff.” Heta’s comedy is observational and he’s partial to political jokes. “I love to stick it to the man,” he chuckles.
Meanwhile, before taking up comedy, Courtney had been learning te reo Māori.
“Connecting with my Māoritanga was a reminder that we are storytellers and have an oral tradition,” she says. Then she adds that this realisation led to her first-ever comedy gig, run by Heta at their local football club. “The first jokes I ever wrote were about my family.”
Heta laughs, “She came out and kicked the living s**t out of me and her mother!” He says their sense of humour is genetic, something that becomes especially clear when his brothers come to visit. “We give each other stick and roast each other the entire time.”
Grinning, Courtney adds, “Everyone has main-character syndrome in our family, so it’s hectic at the dinner table.”
Nodding, Heta tells, “You gotta get in fast to hit the joke first. If you miss the beat, you’ll get roasted for that as well.”
When something funny happens, the pair stake their claim on the right to use it in their comedy, although Courtney says doing stand-up at her dad’s comedy club is very different from when she’s starring on long-running TV panel show 7 Days.
“Poppy’s is inside of my house, so I can obviously be cheekier and a little more sweary than on the telly. But it’s a nice challenge to do jokes about current events and in a different format on 7 Days. I’m always keen to try different opportunities, styles and ways of formulating jokes, so I feel very hashtag-blessed.”
A year ago, Courtney was picking up the pieces after a relationship ended. “It broke my heart for six months. Then, it was so hard when I first started telling jokes about it,” she confesses.
Audiences shot her concerned looks. It wasn’t until she could “see the lightness in it” that the gags started to land. “Usually, it’s better for me to let it pass for six months to a year before I write about something that’s been really intense.”
Her comedy is like a puzzle, she says, always going back to the drawing board. “I have to sit down immediately after a gig to think about what worked and what didn’t.”
Comedy might be a passion shared by father and daughter, but Courtney’s son Arie, 16, hasn’t caught the bug. At the one gig she dragged him to, she looked up to find him texting in the middle of her set.
Co-parenting in the social-media age has made Courtney a more vigilant mother, she says. “I just can’t be there monitoring him all the time, so I’ve tried to establish a really strong basis of trust and communication. There are so many young men being radicalised over the internet. I try to give him a chance to say what he thinks and just have a conversation.”
Courtney has some material in the pipeline for a future return to Poppy’s. This time, they’re jokes that she promises won’t be at her parents’ expense. But for now, she feels extremely chuffed to be back on 7 Days.
“Getting to be on stage with some of the funniest people in the country… What is my life?!”
The 17th season of 7 Days premieres Thursday on Three and streams on ThreeNow. For more info on Poppy’s Comedy, follow the club on Facebook or via Instagram.
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