The rest became millionaires

Comedian Jeremy Corbett launched his comedy career at Massey University, he made friends and he missed out on becoming a millionaire. He talks to Kathryn Farrow about his student days and his striking resemblance to Steve Maharey.

Broadcaster and comedian Jeremy Corbett fancies breaking through new frontiers as a geneticist.
He is fascinated by the genome and says if he could have a “brain injection” he would be a research scientist.

“If I was to return to study I’d love to delve into that,” he says. “I like the glory side of it, the exciting side of it, standing on the shoulders of giants.”

He is not yet sure what area he would look into but knows it would have to be pretty specialist.

“Scientists are always looking for the next thing to study,” he says. “Like the colour of pubic hairs of an African whistling moth.”

The son of a doctor and a nurse, it is no surprise that Corbett is interested in genetics, but his academic life took a different path.

He decided early on that he did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps because it “seemed like too much hard work”.

Instead, Corbett took a BA double major in English and computer science at Massey in Palmerston North, pedalling his bike 16km to lectures each day from the family home and completing his degree in 1983.

“I had no particular direction in mind but I had a creative side so I did English. The computer science side was to get a job, plus I have always been a bit of a computer nerd.”

Summarising his academic prowess as, “I passed, I didn’t shine, I was workmanlike”, he says it was outside the lecture theatres that he found his forte.

On his profile for his 7 Days television show he credits the capping revues at Massey as the start of his comedy career.

He says these short sketch shows, which he performed with his younger brother Nigel, an agricultural science student, taught him how to think on his feet.

“When we saw we could goof around on stage, we gravitated towards that. We were the next Monty Python – but without the talent.

“I learnt a valuable skill – how to die on stage.

“One time, I went blank. Nigel just walked off stage leaving me standing there on my own. I suppose that is where I started my improvisation skills.”

Corbett says the audiences in Palmerston North put up with a lot but didn’t shoot the performers down. “That gave us the confidence to continue.”

Nigel is now executive creative director at Sugar Advertising and Corbett went on to enjoy success as a stand-up performer, radio broadcaster, and television funnyman.

He has recently fronted the satirical news quiz show 7 Days, produced by Jon Bridges, his pal from the capping revues, and is hopeful it will soon be back on screen.

He is still enjoying a stint on MoreFM that is 16 years and counting, and his love of radio is also traced back to his student days when he presented on Radio Massey.

Corbett admits he got in by luck and determination. He had failed three auditions “miserably” by his own admission, and was just having a scout round the studio when he saw there were two gaps on the roster.

“The programme director had literally run out of names and I was there.”

Corbett clearly embraced his role on the air, although it was not entirely without controversy.

“I talked nonsense and played whatever songs I liked.” His love of music extended to playing and his university band Dosage B was the first release from the Meltdown Records label.

The band reformed – under a slightly different line-up – and played at his wedding to actorMegan Nicol two years ago.

After he left university, Corbett kept an interest in radio, setting up Energy FM, with a group of friends, including Steven Joyce, before pursuing new adventures in Australia.

They bought up several stations and quickly sold them for a huge profit.

“In a nutshell, the story goes that I left and the rest went on to become millionaires,” he says.

Connections to Massey have popped up throughout his career, but there is one last thing that Corbett mentions. He could have been separated at birth from the Vice-Chancellor.

“Kerre Woodham said to me ‘you look like Steve Maharey’, I said ‘you are right – but I am not sure who is prettiest.’”