Starstruck Another Triumph for New Zealand Comedy

“Australians have known for decades that New Zealanders are the funniest people in the world: we’ve been claiming hilarious Kiwis as our own since John Clarke crossed the ditch in the ’70s,” Ben Pobjie writes for The Sydney Morning Herald.

“And here comes Rose Matafeo, 29, to add a vivid new splash of colour to the Kiwi comedy palette.

“Created by Matafeo, [television comedy] Starstruck came about only after a procession of other pitches for shows met with polite rejections,” Pobjie writes. “‘It ‘It was my last try, after a long line of “No, not that one. Do you have anything else?”’ It was on a plane that inspiration struck: while flying back to New Zealand, the auteur hatched the plot of an ordinary woman tumbling inadvertently into a relationship with a celebrity. One last-ditch pitch was made, and finally the gods smiled: Starstruck was born.

“Like her contemporaries from the land of the long white cloud, it’s to be hoped Matafeo never loses [her] groundedness, the perspective that allows celebrity-obsession to be tempered by wry humour. But she’ll sooner or later have to face the fact that increasingly, the world is going to be star-struck by her.”

Original article by Ben Pobjie, The Sydney Morning Herald, June 16, 2021.

Photo by ABC.