At 5pm comedian Stephan K Amos walks on stage and gets everyone laughing simply by telling us we are here so early because none of us has any plans for a late evening. For an audience that skewed a little older, it was probably true.
Amos has a very confident style, his humour is a heady mix of self-deprecation, political polemic, and always very topical. He swears, he makes tasteless but hilarious references, and at times, takes potshots at almost everyone including his own family.
His father, he says with a shocked expression, is a cunt and even when staying with grown up Stephen, he still tries to tell him what to do. When he was a child, Stephen claims his mother used to beat him.
It’s all said in such an earnest way it’s easy to believe him, but of course, Amos is a master of comedy and loves to shock. All of us in that theatre enjoyed going along for the ride.
He also used the age old tactic of appealing to our love of provincialism to take pot shots at places he’d done shows such as Wellington’s weather and the often while knuckle experience of landing at the city’s airport. The Aussies were in the firing line with Adelaide being mocked for people sporting mullets, and Canberra being populated solely by civil servants and where nothing ever happens. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at those shows where I’m convinced he’d have fired barbs at Auckland.
He spoke about covid and how wearing masks disabused him of the notion he had minty breath and how cancelled flights meant he turned down the offer of flying American Airlines because he believed the US flag on the tail served as a giant bullseye in a world full of terror.
Cancel culture and the things that trigger people was on his mind and then almost begged people to be triggered by butchering various accents and gently making fun of a global religion. Our local accent came into the mix when he misheard the name of a man in the audience and called him Bin instead of Ben. That became a theme of the night.
His funniest material was actually a lesson on why laughter is so important and trying to teach the few young people in the room about the benefits of getting older. The latter culminated in him telling one 25 year old that some people were wearing underwear and socks that were older than him. Being a topical comedian, Amos also took a swing at social media and how now even the dumbest people are afforded the luxury of giving uninformed opinions about everything.
Stephen K Amos is an extremely clever man who uses a mix of intelligent observations and gutter language to make people laugh. His interactions with the audience are superb and his responses lighting fast. His shows should never be missed.
STEPHEN K AMOS – NOW WE’RE TALKING
9-10 May 2026
Q Theatre Auckland
