Pictures: Robert Trathen
For someone who talks all day for their job, broadcaster Jono Pryor is feeling awkward. “It’s so weird self-promoting!” he moans, looking around bewildered at the offices of Kevin & Co, the production company behind his new TV show Vince.
His co-star Laura Daniel, however, is in her happy place, having her hair done by one of her besties, makeup artist Chay Roberts. She’s back in Aotearoa on a flying visit from her home in London to promote the show with Jono and is well-versed in the humbling art of talking herself up.
“Vince sprung from the twisted mind of Jono Pryor!” Laura squeals and Jono laughingly agrees. Stuck in a room with COVID during lockdown, he set about writing his debut TV show, having dreamt of writing for a while. “It was just a weird idea I had,” he says shyly.
The comedian plays Vince, a breakfast TV host who falls from grace after having his pants pulled down at a charity event for kids with cancer. Then, he’s stuck picking up the pieces – and his trousers – afterwards.
Jono, 43, is quick to say the show isn’t autobiographical but comprises “little moments of things that’ve happened to me. Anecdotes I’ve woven into the show.
“Having my pants pulled down? That actually happened to me at Christmas in the Park one year! I was having a photo with Ben [Boyce, his Jono And Ben co-star] with these kids. Their mum was taking a photo, then someone came up behind me… All the pants! All everything!”
At our photoshoot, it’s clear Jono and Laura, 34, feel thrilled to be back in each other’s company. After all, Laura made her TV debut with Jono And Ben in 2015. “I started as an actor,” she explains. “I came in on sketches and then I started doing a lot of the pranks.”
In fact, one of the first times she worked with Jono was a prank on Kiwi boxing champ Shane Cameron. “That was the scariest thing they ever made me do!” she howls.
“Oh, yes,” recalls Jono. “We made her massage Shane! That probably doesn’t stack up in 2025.”
Laura laughs, “I pretended to be Shane’s osteo when he was on Dancing With The Stars. He said he had a sore groin, so I just started massaging towards that area.
“Jono and Ben were in my earpiece, and they made me pretend to break up with my boyfriend on the phone. Then, I had to pour chocolate sauce down Shane’s back. He was so mad. He was going down the hallway, yelling, ‘She’s crazy! She’s insane!’ Jono and Ben had to follow him, yelling, ‘It was us!’”
Laura falls about in hysterics. “Jono was like, ‘Good on ya, Loz!’ I just wanted to impress them, so I’d do whatever they’d ask me to do!”
And the father of two clearly felt impressed. “Laura was amazing in that,” he tells. “She did a few cameos and sketches, but then we realised how bloody talented she was.”
Eventually, Laura ended up taking over Rose Matafeo’s role on the show when she moved on.
Jono and Laura clearly had lots of fun working together again on Vince, and Laura has nothing but high praise for the “really good vibes on set”.
She explains, “Because Jono was the showrunner, it was on him to make it a great environment. If he was going through something rough, you’d never know. I think that’s the thing I’ve learned from Jono – to be a delight to be around and to take a genuine interest in people.”
Jono’s known as one of the nicest guys in TV and Laura enthusiastically agrees with this assessment.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again!” she enthuses. “He learns everyone’s names. He gives everyone the time of day to the point where people have to pull Jono away. Working with Jono again was a bit like going home.”
The Hits Breakfast show host is equally in awe of his co-star.
“It’s a good sign when you’re genuinely laughing on set,” gushes Jono. “I love Laura. There’s one scene where we’re talking about money and we were going, ‘You want to talk turkey?’ Laura kept going ‘gobble gobble gobble’ right up in my face. We couldn’t keep a straight face!”
While the two are besties at work, Jono is notoriously “boring” off the job.
“When I get to the end of a working week, I’ve done so much talking about nonsense and socialising, I’m so boring,” sighs the radio legend. “And because I do breakfast radio, I’m a piece of trash by 7.30pm.”
Laura, meanwhile, is loving being back in New Zealand with her husband Joseph Moore, who is working on pre-production for Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee. They’re about to start touring their comedy music duo Two Hearts in Australia before heading back to the UK for more shows. They’re also excitedly working on their own first TV series, which will bring them back home again later in the year.
However, Laura admits the hustle in the UK has been hard, even though she enjoys living in London, not far from her good friends, comedian Alice Snedden, and newlywed Kid Sister stars Paul Williams and Simone Nathan.
“We’ve been mainly doing New Zealand work in London,” says the Taskmaster NZ winner. “I don’t know if you know the exchange rate, but it is horrific. We’re starting to get work over there, though. Things are looking up!”
As the comedy pair get ready to pose for our pictures, Laura is quick to remind Jono that he doesn’t hate all self-promotion – he just tried to make fun of her on his live radio show to publicise Vince only a couple of hours ago.
“You guys just made me do a game where I had to finish the lines of all my old parodies,” Laura teases a grinning Jono. “You didn’t think I’d remember every lyric! I saw your face go, ‘Oh, she hasn’t forgotten any!’”
Vince screens 8.35pm Thursdays on Three and streams on ThreeNow.
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