Make 'Em Laugh: Alice Brine On Being Funny

As she sits down in DEPT’s London office, it’s immediately evident that Alice Brine is a naturally funny person as nearly every sentence warrants a laugh. It’s something she’s aware of; “Trying to walk into a room with a goal of being funny, I would rather die.”

While not working as one of the agency’s senior creatives, Brine is a stand up comedian and content creator - a gig that, as she details, makes the average 9-5 look like a piece of cake.

And it’s anything but a side hustle; Brine has graced the stage at the Apollo, toured with the likes of Ed Byrne and Alan Carr, and featured on New Zealand’s equivalent of Mock The Week and 8 Out of 10 cats.

The journey into comedy hasn’t been linear; Brine moved to London in 2018 from her native New Zealand in search of opportunity, having burst onto the comedy scene after impressing at an open mic night.

“In New Zealand there just aren't many opportunities; in the UK, you can go straight from what you're doing at university into the field, but in New Zealand that's not a thing. I ended up working in a call centre for three years in insurance - that was painful,” she explains. “I got to the point in New Zealand where I was like, ‘I need to go overseas and see if I actually am any good’. Because you can think you're the best in the world in New Zealand with a smaller population, and it was true. I came over here and I was no one. I'd done tours with Alan Carr. I'd been on telly. Nobody cared.”

Despite her funny streak, Brine set her sights on working in advertising, “I always wanted to work in advertising but that was like saying I wanted to be in an action movie. That’s how impossible that felt.”

She eventually found her feet at an agency called Bite — now known as DEPT — with no advertising experience, noting that her work as a comedian was perfect for the Facebook-style funny puns that proved popular at the time.

Now, seven years later, Brine continues to show the balance between adland and comedy can be done.

Obviously you work for DEPT and are a comedian - how do you manage those? Do you work full-time?

Alice Brine: I’m a full-time creative.

It’s been like this forever. I actually have on my Substack — I wrote this story about when I was first starting out — it used to be even more hectic, that balance of work and then my other work. I would finish work at five and be in the back of an Uber working to the airport so I could fly to Auckland to do a show. Then I’d sleep in a backpackers, which is like a hostel, and get up in the morning and fly back before work.

Nowadays I take it a lot easier and don't fly because I live in London where there are loads of comedy clubs I don't literally fly to, but I have lots of techniques and skills to get it all done. It is really hard to manage. I finish nine to six, and then start again six to nine each night. Whether that’s writing, filming something, editing some content, or performing. That’s most nights of the week.

Most of my weekends are just comedy. Tomorrow I’ve get to go to the Wuthering Heights red carpet and host something. And then when I did the Apollo, I needed to be there at five, so I booked out the last hour off and was working from backstage at the Apollo. I remember firing off a Slack about a dancing kebab food thing. I’m getting my hair done while doing it.

Brian Cox from Succession was in the room and I felt like I had to hide my laptop. I was like, ‘Yeah guys, it looks really good — this little dancing kebab from a video’ - which, looking back is actually so weird.

You’ve worked with Alan Carr, toured with Ed Byrne. How do you end up in those sorts of situations?

Sometimes I think my life is a simulation, because the things that happen.

If you just put yourself out there enough, are good at what you do, and have the right attitude, things will show up at your doorstep. If you’re prepared, then you can get them.

But as much as there’s things like that that I do, I get rejected about 500 times a day. In the middle of a conversation, a ding on my Apple Watch is an email from something I’ve applied for. I’m having this presentation with a client that’s going fabulously, and it’s like: you didn’t make it, they’re going in another direction, they don’t want you on that show with them.

And I’m like, ‘Nice’, and just continue.

You apply for so many things. There’s so much admin and paperwork. Most nights of the week I’ll start at 9pm doing a video application — sending footage of me performing to some guy in LA — and then I’m back on the phone in the morning about a toothpaste commercial like, ‘Yeah, we really need to change the font on that.’

How has your comedy helped you in your creative work?

Advertising used to be really funny, and brands used to take a lot of risk. Now, with the internet being what it is and engagement being the most important thing, the comment section makes a lot of brands very scared. They don’t want to be funny anymore.

Too scared. Just turn the comments off. Honestly, sometimes I’ll post something and someone will comment on my video with the most ridiculous way they’re upset. I just want to do a course with brands and be like: just scoff it off. You can piss people off. It’s the internet. Then people are talking about you.

Back in the day the comedy side helped for sure. But the part that plays into most at DEPT is the thick skin part — knowing how to churn out a huge amount of content really quickly, and the rejection part.

One of the hardest things to swap between is when I’m with Chris Hall and Grace and we’re doing a writing session after work. I’ll read something and they’ll be like, “Nah, that’s shit. Get rid of that. Move that. Put that there. Cool, done.” And I’m the same back to them. Move that, get rid of that.

That’s one of the biggest challenges — the difference in culture. Comedy is so savage and brutal. In a comedy writing room I’m considered quiet, soft - my approach isn't seen as harsh or blunt at all; in advertising it's passive and polite - I find this to be the hardest adjustment; and in every room I’m the bluntest one.

The comedy side also helps in small moments where you can be funny. With copy you can be kind of classy funny. My skill set has grown so much to have a comedy tone of voice in lots of different brand accents.

For my own comedy voice that’s almost the one I’m weakest at. I’m like, how would I say this? But if I’m writing for a character or a brand, I can immediately know how that brand would say it. Tone of voice is huge.

What have you found has been a career highlight?

The Katy Perry work. That’s still my favourite.

We did this ad with Katy Perry and Just Eat, and another agency did the big TV version. We were way smaller, and I got tasked with being the creative director of digital.

We got seven minutes in between their two-hour-long takes. I ran into each scene in this huge studio in Hollywood with my own cameraman, my own script and my own shot list. We put in just as much work presenting to the client and getting it signed off.

They had two hours per take and we had seven minutes per take. I was kneel-skidding to the ground like, ‘Katy, can you look at the camera please, and hold this and do this?’

We got these unbelievable shots that delivered the same messaging in 10 seconds that the whole one-minute music video delivered. They blew up on the internet. Every asset I made performed so well.

As much as Katy Perry gets a lot of slack at the moment, she was unbelievably professional and hardworking. I was obsessed with her. She wasn’t trying to rush us. She was happy for us to do 20 more takes. She was so adaptable.

In one shot she was sitting in a puddle of jelly and lettuce for an hour freezing and didn’t complain.

If I had an idea, there were a couple of times she suggested doing something slightly different and I’d be like, 'Yes, Katy Perry, that is a great suggestion’, then watching the shot back I’m like, oh my gosh, she’s so creative and clever. This is way better than what I had.

What would you say in your comedy career has been your highlight or biggest success?

Surviving London.

A lot of people come over and it takes two years to start getting the wheels turning again. It’s such a hard thing to summarise, but it would be climbing to the top of a cliff, jumping off it, and then climbing to the top of a cliff again — and still going.

I actually stuck to it and didn’t quit. My ego got smashed in half, shattered, thrown to the ground, and I had to build it from scratch. That was so important.

Now you can tell me my idea is bad and I honestly won’t even feel it. I’ll sweep it and move on to the next one. Before I did that in London, if you told me my idea was bad, I’d probably take it to heart.

What are your ambitions for the future of your comedy?

Netflix special. Easy.

I love American comedy. I’m definitely way more into American-style comedy than British, which I think upsets a lot of British people. I apologise. I just love the way Americans are doing it — like Hannah Berner and Nikki Glaser.

The Edinburgh model doesn’t make a good Netflix special - it means you have to make a show that’s very heavily themed and has this big deep emotion to it, often about some trauma that happened to you.

And why do you think it’s important for creatives to have a side hustle outside of advertising that assists what they do day-to-day?

You can’t always achieve your own creative goals in a workplace role. While you can fulfill lots of creative needs in a creative role, your actual ambitions — you can’t do them for somebody else. You have to do them for yourself.

My dream Netflix special isn’t going to shine suddenly out of a Katy Perry kebab advert. You have to do it yourself. If you’re a creative working in advertising and have dreams, you need to do them on your own side project outside 9 to 6, otherwise you start getting really upset and frustrated and get in your own way in advertising.

Creatively, stand-up comedy is unbelievably different from creative advertising. They have nothing in common.

Advertising is more structured. It’s about messaging, audience, tone of voice. Life performing and advertising are totally separate.

DEPT is great - I don’t get treated any differently ever, whether its annual leave, all of it. I work as many hours as everyone else. I’m just another employee.