With Jez & Jace: Lads On Tour (our first hour long show as a duo) closing on Friday 27th of September 9:30pm at BATS Theatre this week (cheeky link for tix here) we thought we'd take you through the journey that we've been on for the last three years and two months with these boys! So grab a cuppa and read along...
Jez & Jace first started as 'Jez & Freya' in a Captain Caketin sketch comedy show, the group were Nina and Megan started performing together for the first time. Freya was an Ed Hardy wearing lesbian, and Jez we think was played by Megan. They both took turns convincing their friend (played by Matt Jaden-Carroll) how "best" to market himself on Tinder. It was that sketch specifically where we kind of realised the energy we had playing these ladish characters was fun, and that we should do more with them!
So! Having "borrowed" back the bush shirt that Nina gave to Ben Linstone as a gift (and never returned again for 3 years), we went onto compete and win Late Night Knife Fight in 2021 as BROsplained.
*Now technically this was the first show with online voting, and we will note that Jez & Jace won with a landslide victory of 45 votes (from a 40 person audience) due to no refreshing to resubmit votes caps on the website at the time, but we're still say that we won (our friends cheated), we won.
We headlined two months later with help from Matt Powell developing into a full 30min piece. From there we ditched the new old names 'Jez & Fred' at Matt's suggestion and became 'Jez & Jace' doing a two night season (with a LIVE STREAM (thanks Dennis Eir Lim) so our family could watch it) at BATS Theatre in 2022 with director (and long time sufferer) Austin Harrison. We had a set with two haybales from the start and the rest was made up mostly Austin and Hugo Beale's belongings hung up (questionably) with fishing wire. 
From there Austin produced our first tour to Palmerston North and it was on this stage that young Nina died a thousand deaths. In her first serving of humble pie she thought that an audience of 23 was TINY, resented them for not easily interacting with ask-fors and sped through the show in a rip roaring 45min (MAX) show. OH BOY WAS SHE IN FOR A TREAT COME INTERNATIONAL TOURING! 
After that the boys got a sexy upgrade with a sick night shoot with Scott Maxim and started #tourlife. We went first to Q Theatre as a part of 2023 Auckland Pride Festival (with the support of the incomparable Nathan Joe and the Pride Elevates scheme). In between Welly seasons we toured once to Christchurch (thanks Michael Bell & Connie for having us at Little Andromeda) and were lucky enough to get funding to go to Dunedin Fringe Festival 2024 making the most of "Nina's already working down there" touring day job perks. The boys been back to Auckland twice since pride, once whilst dry-shotting whey protein powder and riding a small trike in a bid for the Billy Ts and again just a couple of weeks ago to say "hello-goodbye" at in our first season at Basement Theatre! 
We'd be amiss without mentioning the Ashvegas spirit that lives in these boys, instilled by the incomparable Katie Hill who we brought in to direct our 2023 NZ Int. Comedy Festival season. We were thrilled to be nominated for Best Newcomer Wellington that same year, then got to perform IN THE ST JAMES THEATRE for 'Loud & Queer' in front of 500 people! 
Then in the boys' silver screen debut, Aaron Douglas and the Bucket Hutt Crew helped us to expand the Jez & Jace universe digitally with a 20min filmed sketch on youtube! We had the iconic Mo Munn and Malcolm Morrison play our very convincing body doubles and were grateful that they put on our sweaty costumes in the name of "continuity" (we are so sorry).
Just two weeks after Dunedin Fringe earlier this year we performed in a shipping crate outside at 9:30pm during a 43 degree heat wave for Adelaide Fringe Festival to some new friends, Austin and Megan's Aunty Mez. Somehow performing in 11 shows in 5 days (whilst doing our day jobs) and even tried a family friendly version of Jez & Jace for a lineup of parents that hated us every night!
In our second go at Australian festivals, we went to Melb. Int Comedy Festival and did 12 nights in a row to audiences as big as 30 and small as 1 Megan's Aunty Mez (but mainly an average of a 5 whole people in a 90 seater room). Chur to Austin, Gab Raz, Will, Michael and a random improv duo from Melbourne for keeping those numbers up on the "maybe we cancel" nights. And the BIGGEST SHAKKA to Max our tech, for keeping our spirits up and listening as we got more desperate for new story lines (one time Jez had to move away because he wanted to Zorb to Uluru). Despite that we still performed at Malthouse Theatre sharing a venue with our idols Reuben Kaye and Hot Department, and made a bunch of new friends despite being deliriously tired.
We have cried, laughed, met so many cool people, stunk of BO, kissed, had allergy flare ups and drunk a lot of beer because of this show and we couldn't have made these memories or come so far without you all. Whether you're a collaborator, bought a ticket, commented on or liked a video, suggested some new bogan lingo, told a friend to come along or just showed us some support as we try to find our place in this big comedy world, we're infinitely grateful.
Now, we're excited to put the seats down in the Honda Odyssey so Jez & Jace can spoon in the back as we focus on some new shows.
Chur - Ginge & Minge (Nina and Megan)
