This story was originally published in Sunday magazine
From an unusual first gig, to a TV series a hit the world over, Alice Snedden is on a pretty good wicket. But as the comedian tells Bridget Jones, there’s still a lot in the world to worry about - like, what it means to be wealthy and how to make the perfect wooden stool.
Alice Snedden is troubled about a lot of things in the world. Wealth, prisons, why we’re scared of breasts. She’s made a TV career questioning them all. But right now, her dog Jude is her biggest concern.
Snedden, 34, moved to the UK a month ago. It happened almost by accident, after four years of splitting her time between New Zealand and London, where her career as a comedian and TV writer has been on the up. Exponentially so.
“Moving was a surprise,” she says from her flat in Stoke Newington, north London, which will be her home until at least August. “I was over here to do something, there were scheduling conflicts, we had a meeting and at the end of the meeting, I was like ‘f… I live in England now’. It was pretty mad. I had to get all of my friends to send me my stuff and pack up my house.”
Will Jude be packed up and shipped over to his new home, along with winter clothes and personal mementos? Maybe - or maybe he will be adopted (short term, of course) by friends or family back in Auckland. It’s weighing on Snedden, even though it's a relief to be in one spot for at least a year.
“It’s a bit unexpected, but that’s just the way it goes. It’s hard to complain about, but I find a way, believe me.”
It’s not that Snedden is a grump. Far from it. Even at 8am on a Monday she is apologetic for her lateness (a whole three minutes, “which is late for me”) and seems easy and eager to laugh through her trademark droll, and very clever delivery. Deep thinker might be a better descriptor.
Politics and religion
To many, Snedden might be “that friend of Rose Matafeo’s”. The pair, who are indeed longtime mates, have found global success with Starstruck, the BBC romantic-comedy series they co-wrote, and which Matafeo stars in, that has been picked up for a third season after critical acclaim came from all corners of the world. Vanity Fair called it “both the romcom we asked for, and the one we deserve”, and the show’s first season has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But Snedden is far more than just the friend behind the star.
She has performed as a standup - and was nominated for the Billy T Award in 2018 - but more frequently these days, she can be found in the writer’s room, creating gold for the screen. She’s worked on everything from local sitcom Golden Boy to Jono and Ben and 7 Days.
In Alice Snedden’s Bad News, which has recently released a third season on The Spinoff, she’s back out in front of the camera, digging into political and societal issues with a sharp eye, and even sharper tongue. She’s been honing both of those since childhood, when she was obsessed with the idea of going into politics.
“Yeah, I was desperate to be prime minister, and then discovered recreational drugs and alcohol and a work life balance [were things] I didn’t want to throw away - and it’s a f…ing hard job. And I don’t even think I have the intellectual rigour for it,” she says. “In saying that, I don’t think most politicians have the intellect for it.”
Snedden grew up the youngest of five in a catholic family, deeply involved in both the law (her father was a Treaty of Waitangi negotiator at one point) and sport (uncle Martin is cricketing royalty, a number of other extended family members have also worn the silver fern).
They say don’t talk politics or religion at the dinner table, but the Sneddens clearly rubbish that - the sense of philosophical tenacity in the household taught a young Snedden how to construct an argument, and the importance of being able to back up your opinion. So which was it? Did her childhood make her competitive or righteous about justice?
“It gave me a competitive sense of who’s the most just,” she says. “I was extremely competitive - I was the youngest child, always trying to keep up with everyone, and I think intellectually, I was constantly trying to keep up with everyone, too. I was always trying to insert myself into debates that were way over my head and that I didn’t understand the logistics of. But I was really encouraged to do that.”
She’s the first to admit it didn’t always go well. There is one example, now part of the family folklore, where, despite it being very much the opposite of her parents’ stance - and more than a decade too late - Snedden decided to argue in favour of the 1981 Springbok tour. She says she was “essentially a right-wing 10-year-old” and even now, she doesn’t quite know what was driving her. But afterwards, her dad told her how proud he was of how she argued her point.
“I burst into tears, saying it was so hard. It’s just an example of my parents being open to intellectual rigour and the idea of saying what you think on something, but don’t expect people will just accept that lying down. You will get push back on why we disagree with you.
“And even though we were Catholic, and we had to go to church every Sunday until we were 16, it was never that you couldn’t question that - and we did, constantly. We would constantly have arguments about religion and constantly have arguments about the church - there was never any sensitivity around that. Not to say people wouldn’t necessarily cry - but there wasn’t a lot that was taboo.”
‘I’ll just be able to hide in plain sight’
Her comedy chops and passion for a thoughtful argument combine perfectly in Bad News. The documentary-comedy-current affairs show is also, in many ways, a place for Snedden to confront her own privilege. Topics have included our relationship with meat, rugby, and racism, shown through the lens of Snedden’s own experiences and her conversations with experts and friends.
Now three seasons in, she says early episodes had a sense of being “righteously in pursuit of what I thought was the right answer”, but this time around, there wasn’t the same level of clarity.
“I’ve always treated the show as essentially an opinion column, in video format, but I think maybe getting older, and maybe understanding how difficult these things can be, I’ve become maybe more nuanced. I don’t know if I want to give myself that credit, but maybe better able to see the complexity of these issues. The more you know, the less you know.”
When it comes to asking the hard questions, Snedden has no fear. She poses them, often smothered by a pillow of humour, self-deprecation and logic, and almost always putting those in power in an uncomfortable but necessary position. But this time around, it was Snedden herself who felt uneasy.
In the episode about wealth, an interviewee suggested they would never buy a house in Auckland because, for one, the land is not theirs - it was taken from local Māori. Snedden is a homeowner.
“I was like, ‘f… you for putting it so simply and straight-forwardly’,” she says, still not certain what the right answer is.
But it was the very concept of the episode focused on the stigmatisation of fat people in Aotearoa that had Snedden questioning herself. In it, health minister Andrew Little is interviewed, and won’t say the word fat. When Snedden asks if he is comfortable with that term, he responds “I take people as they are and who they are… I don’t care what people look like, or anything”.
In many ways, Snedden can relate to the prickly feeling around that three letter word. A word - and a topic - that had her in tears, and at times, wanting to shelve the episode. The rest of the team, which includes her best friend, director and Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power star Leon Wadham, talked her around.
“My thing was, if I don’t talk about it, no-one will notice. And I’ll just be able to hide in plain sight. It’s such a sensitive issue, for me, specifically and for other people,” she says candidly.
“It took a lot of support from the people around me, and a lot of discussions where I just cried, before we got to a point where we were like, OK we’re going to do this episode.”
The result is an interesting, personal look at a nuanced topic, and one Snedden says has helped begin to realign her relationship to the word and her sense of self.
“Me calling myself fat, or me outing myself as fat, has no bearing on my attractiveness, my worth, my appeal, because I’m just labelling the thing everyone is already seeing. It’s just about getting over the lump in your throat around that.
“The more I’ve spoken about this topic, the more comfortable I’ve become talking about it. It’s almost like it gets less and less raw, the scab heals over as I keep talking about it and it gets easier.”
‘And she wrote it!’
Comedy has often helped Snedden redefine herself. After a false start studying PE and politics, Snedden graduated with a law degree. Then, while studying for her professionals, she performed in a show with Auckland improv group Snort, and was convinced to try standup (“I was like, nah, nah, nah but OK”). Her first show was the night before being admitted to the bar. She was full of nerves, but the challenge of it, and the feeling, deep down of “maybe it will work” pushed her on stage.
“Honestly, at the time, I was really depressed, and [being on stage] made me really excited. It made me feel something. It was exhilarating,” she remembers. “But apparently I had my eyes closed the entire gig. So I also don’t think it was great, but it was enough to keep me going.”
From there to here, with the global success of Starstruck, which was made for the BBC - and written (largely) from Snedden’s bed. The triumph of the show isn’t something she and Matafeo reflect on a lot (“It’s not even in a humble way - it just doesn’t come up that often”) but it can be hard to escape when they run into fans together. Sort of.
“When I’m out with Rose, because she is so generous, when someone comes up to her saying how much they loved the show, she will point to me and say, ‘and she wrote it!’ And you can see them going, ‘I don’t care’.
“It is really gratifying, just to see Rose do so well, as well. She’s first and foremost my friend, and I feel so proud and happy for her and people are recognising just how good at this she is.
“We have a great friendship, and are lucky enough for that to translate into work people seem to enjoy.”
As for what’s next, Snedden’s dreams are deceptively simple - and perfectly on brand.
“I want to be a funny comedian. And I worry I’m getting less and less funny. It’s my serious goal that I want to get funnier.”
She will write, and direct, alongside Matafeo for season three of Starstruck. There are also other, yet-to-be-announced projects, like the ones keeping her in the UK and away from her dog, for the next year. It’s not that she’s legally obliged to keep them to herself, it’s just that Snedden is not one to tempt fate “and it’s a protection of my ego”.
Snedden is a true student of life. As well as swotting up on her craft - she can often be found poring over scripts and conversations about other shows, not all of them funny (Succession is top of the list) - in the past she has taken singing lessons for a possible writing project. (The lessons were recorded. There will not be a Christmas album released anytime soon.) She had plans to learn woodworking too, which were thwarted by lockdown.
“But I’ve found a class close to me in London and I’ve booked in to go and make a stool.
“I do love learning things - I don’t know if I’m a great student. I’m interested in things, but also frustrated by my ability to retain knowledge - it really comes in one ear and out the other. It’s just fun to know stuff.”
And maybe while her hands are busy it’s a way to stop worrying, even just for a moment, about things going on around her.
