With her twenties now wrapped, Melanie takes an inventory of her life so far, as we visit the series of events that led to her getting an ADHD diagnosis. Fittingly given that
diagnosis, the show covers pretty much everything from dining to the dark to car manuals – all of it bound together by Bracewell’s infectious, slyly virtuoso style. It is time for this country to help itself to A Little Treat.
- Your last show turned a stolen pair of AirPods into an epic tale of obsession and revenge. This time you are taking stock of your twenties and your ADHD diagnosis. How has your relationship with storytelling evolved between those two shows
I think this show weirdly took more work than the previous one. The airpods saga was something of a ‘comedy gift’. An insane hilarious thing happened to me and I got to get on stage every night and present it like it was a murder mystery. This new show I got to go back to my storytelling roots. I didn’t want to do a typical “ADHD” show as us comedians have been blathering on about it a bit lately. I wanted ADHD to be the structure, more than the content. So yes there’s a little bit in there about ADHD, but mainly the show is me desperately trying to get to the end of a story about leaving my car in a precarious place at the netball awards and getting distracted along the way. I want the show to feel like a night out with friends, where you start talking about something and have no idea how you got there.
It’s been amazing to hear the feedback from people after this show, saying they loved it for a whole lot of different reasons to the previous one. I love that people can walk away from my shows satisfied but in a completely different way.
- A Little Treat jumps from dining in the dark to car manuals and everything in between. How do you structure a show that embraces that kind of gloriously chaotic range while still keeping the audience hooked
I love making a show feel natural. When we talk to people about our lives we don’t go “well that brings me naturally into my next topic, let me seamlessly elaborate”. We dart around chaotically! Your friend might start talking about their birthday party plans and deviate quickly into what’s happening on “Love Is Blind” before she gets to telling you what the venue is.
I think this show is about putting yourself in jeopardy and just having faith things will work out. I think audiences like sitting there thinking “well I’d love to see how she gets out of this pickle”.
- You have built a huge following across New Zealand and Australia and now you are back touring the UK. Do British audiences laugh at different moments or in different ways compared to crowds back home
Oh for sure! I always try to change local references so that the audience can understand. Unfortunately I think I sometimes choose the wrong one. I had a joke about buying a muffin from a supermarket and so I just slipped in “M&S” and the crowd BOOED. They were like “Oh you get fancy muffins do you? POSH”.
- ADHD plays a part in the new show. Has understanding your diagnosis changed the way you write comedy or the way you see your own brain at work on stage
For sure! The dexamphetamine has a huge part to play. I think writing this show I was able to understand why I write the way I do. I think it was always the fine tuning that I would slip up on. I would go “well obviously this is a placeholder joke and I’ll fix it later”. Then 3 months into the tour when I was still doing the placeholder, I was like well it’s too late now. I’m much better at being ruthless with my shows now.
- Reviews often describe you as a master of callbacks and wordplay. Are those intricately crafted from the start, or do they emerge organically during festival runs and previews
I think sometimes I write my shows backwards in a way. I think people see ‘callback’ and think “okay well she just does the same joke twice”. But that’s the lazy way. I think a great callback is presenting the audience with a sort of Chekhov’s gun. Oh you had no idea that part I mentioned earlier is INTEGRAL TO THE ENTIRE PLOT. GOTCHA. That’s always super satisfying. Basically… It’s manipulative. But boy is it fun. Wordplay is the thing that emerges more organically. I love cryptic crosswords, so my brain is always unpacking words and playing with them in my head. Often I’ll stumble into them halfway through a run.
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