Photo: Supplied
This is award-winning Kiwi comedian Melanie Bracewell's first summer away from New Zealand.
Now based in Melbourne, she joined RNZ's Summer Times for a virtual road trip to Northland, taking in some generous scoops of ice cream, her favourite pies and some roadie tunes on the way.
"I'm missing New Zealand so much. And nothing has made me miss New Zealand more than hearing you talk extensively about pies, it's not the same here."
Road Trip: Melanie Bracewell
She has been Melbourne-based for four years now.
"I flew over here to film a pilot for a show when the bubble was open between Australia and New Zealand back in those times. And then I got here, and it was around the time I was doing Jacinda [Ardern] impressions, and then she closed the bubble.
"So, I don't know if that was related, but I was locked in Australia."
The popularity of her Jacinda Ardern impersonations took her by surprise, she said.
"It was a weird one because it was all in lockdown, so there was not much else to do. And I had done a regular makeup video that I just did because everyone was doing it on Tiktok, and someone had said, when I put makeup on in a specific way, they're like, 'Oh, Jacinda!'."
The prime minister at the time was so taken with her impressions she asked her to help with a campaign launch.
"Jacinda emailed me asking me if I could appear at her Mount Albert campaign launch, and I was like, 'Oh no, I've just bleached my hair'.
"So, I had to get on Facebook marketplace and find a wig that was like, $6 and could get to me on time. And it was so ratty, it was awful. But I tried to make it work. I tried to style it, to make it look like her hair and look OK."
Her fondest childhood memories are summers at a bach in Teal Bay north of Whangarei, she said.
"My best friend from school, had this beautiful little bach there where we slept in bunk beds, and we had these rules where you have to have a swim every day, and it only counts as a swim if you put your head under.
"So, we would have all these little fun games, and we'd have water fights and just all of my favourite memories growing up was at that place in Teal Bay.
"And that's the thing, when you live in New Zealand, right? Is that either you have a family that has a bach or you have to befriend someone who has a family who has a bach."
Road trip food when she was a kid was ginger beer - and ice cream.
"On this road trip to Teal Bay, there's a place called Kūaotunu and there's this ice cream shop that, I mean, when I was a kid, you could spend $2 and they would give you four scoops. It would blow your mind."
She has found comedy success as a performer, writer and TV host, but it is in the writers' room where her heart lies, she said.
"That's the most fun I have, I think, working with other people. Stand-up is so fun, but it's very isolating, especially if you're touring, you know, you're doing it by yourself.
"Sometimes you go to cities where you don't know anyone, and so you just have to do the show, and then if it goes well, you have no one to celebrate with, but if it goes poorly, you have no one to commiserate with.
"So, it has its highs and its lows, but I think the most consistent highs I get are from writers' rooms."
Her latest stand-up tour ponders turning 30.
"I turned 29 and I finally got around to getting an ADHD diagnosis. And so, it's me looking back at my life with this slightly different lens…it's mostly about one evening of my life, but as it is with ADHD, I will try and tell the story, but I will get distracted and end up talking about my entire life.
"But for the most part, the central arc of the story is a night of my life where I made almost every wrong decision and I got rescued basically by a woman named Annette.
"I didn't want to call the show Annette, because I didn't want people to think it was like a Hannah Gadsby parody show.
"It's basically an evening of my life where I do all of the wrong things, but thankfully, there's a hero in the situation."
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