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Dai Henwood is a man of stock, stocky. His now familiar face and 5”5 frame are common to our television sets streaming in as they do every Friday night on 7 Days. Henwood is a member of the “new wave” of New Zealand comedy. He started out in Wellington before migrating to the big smoke and then overseas where he cut his teeth with the big boys in Melbourne, Edinburgh, Montreal and Tokyo. Having returned to these shores a few years ago, he is being kept busy by a number of interesting projects, acting included. But ,as he tells Georgie Fenwicke, he just needs to find time for that final episode of Entourage.

Are you finding that the RWC is providing you with some good material for future shows?
Sort of, although the Rugby World Cup doesn't really extend itself necessarily to perfect comedy and I suppose I don't have much sports material in my shows. But hopefully, there'll be some stuff that comes along when we start filming 7 Days which starts this week. All the debacle about Auckland's handling of the opening ceremony will come into question.
 
Talking about comedy in New Zealand, the scene has changed quite dramatically in the last 5 -10 years, what do you think the main catalyst has been for its rise?
I would say comedians travelling overseas, because I know when I started out it was very much run by what would be now the old score – Mike King, John Gilmore and that. But full credit to them because the audiences loved them. But then the younger guys like myself and Ben Hurley and Rhys Darby, we all made a point of travelling and touring our festival shows overseas in Melbourne, Edinburgh. We all ended up living and working successfully in Britain for a while. So by doing that, you were always performing around people who were better than you which I think is something you should always do whether in sport or on the stage.
 
You mentioned going to Melbourne and Edinburgh which are two of the world capitals of comedy, how was it cutting your teeth over there?
Good, hard. Something everyone needs to experience. It’s not that you go on stage and everyone loves you and so forth, you go on stage and it is very hard and cutthroat. You have great gigs, but then you have appalling gigs. Maybe not so much as people are booing or anything, but you go out there and there are only three people in the audience. The big thing about performing overseas is you discover whether you are actually going to continue doing it. You find out you have to have a thick skin and you have to work at it. Basically, performing overseas cements your will to do it or to give up. I stayed there and I suppose I enjoyed the challenge. I found I performed better under pressure.
 
What were you doing in Nelson last week?
In Nelson, I was filming a kid’s movie. I was filming a kid's movie called Kiwi Flyer which is about the Nelson trolley derby. It was with Tandi Wright who was on Shortland Street and other things, and Vince Martin of Beaurepaires fame. So that was awesome for me because the best thing in life is diversifying so you are never bored of one thing and it was nice to do some acting. Back in the day I used to be on Xena and The Tribe and all of that - all those classic New Zealand slash American shows. I really enjoy acting and I was playing a geeky school teacher so it was something completely different for me.
 
So what is Vince Martin like? I'm intrigued.
He is a jazz singer who lives in New York. He is quite the opposite of what you would think. You know the Beaurepaires guy is the Aussie dude, but he hasn't driven a car in fourteen years. We heard him bang out a couple of numbers and he certainly does have a good set of tonsils.
 
Which numbers?
Well, he did a version of “New York, New York”, “Nelson, Nelson”. He was a lovely guy, because I grew up with those ads, they've been on for like 25 years. I would never have guessed when I seven years old and watching those ads that I would be doing a kid's movie with Vince Martin in Nelson.
There is a nice symmetry to that isn't there. Does he wear a toupée?
No, that's all real. I thought that as well, but it's all the real deal. He has been rocking that same hairdo for a while.
 
You have said your favourite films are Point Break, Anchorman, Goodfellas, Pump up the Volume, Delirious – what's your favourite line from one of these films?
Oh, that's a tough one because you've got all different genres in there. Every line in Goodfellas is my favourite. But my favourite line would probably be, “You look mighty cute in them jeans” from Eddie Murphy’s Delirious and anyone who knows that line knows exactly where it goes.