'Squirming in agony' for a laugh - comedians tattooed on Wellington stage

There are usually fewer needles involved in a comedy show, and less plastic covering the stage floor.

But these days, it's about standing out.

And so Comedians Getting Tattoed and Doing Stand-up While Sitting Down was born, building on an idea which began years ago, when Anya Rzhevitskaya lost her job and began thinking of ways to get tattooed for free.

Rzhevitskaya and her co-producer Emma Jean Ranson - along with two other local comedians Katy Borrows and Ivan Fadjukoff - took to the stage at Fringe Bar in Wellington earlier this month, alongside tattoo artist Pearl Watson (@mxpxw).

Facing dwindling ticket sales for comedy in general, with patrons struggling with the cost of living and deprioritising nice-to-haves like live performances, Rzhevitskaya said the purpose was to catch people's attention and lure them through the door.

Sitting in the green room before the show, the comedians talked through their tattoo options.

Each had two designs ready to go, and it would come down to an audience vote later that night.

Rzhevitskaya would be getting either a plain red flag, or one containing the words "nice guy"; Fadjukoff was paying tribute to the Offspring song 'Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)' with either a number 13 or a 31; and Borrows would be getting one of her own drawings, either a cute cartoon llama or an iced coffee.

Ranson's options were two phrases in Elvish, an homage to her love to Lord of the Rings: "Keep off the grass" (a Dungeons and Dragons podcast reference) or "Speak friend and enter" (the words inscribed above the entranceway to Tolkien's Moria).

All four already had tattoos - in fact, this would be Fadjukoff's 10th time being tattooed in public, making him "some kind of community art project", he said.

Only Ranson was anxious about the pain level, and perhaps for good reason.

While the others were playing it safe, getting theirs on arms and legs, her's would sit on her lower stomach, just below the waistband of her skirt.

"I've decided to have it in my bikini area, because I thought, 'Why not?'" she said. "It's a joke tattoo, why not have it in a silly place?"

And it would hopefully give the people what they came for - "which is squirming in agony", she said. Indeed at one point during her set, she confessed to forgetting her own name.

Tattoo artist Pearl Watson had been a friend of Rzhevitskaya's for years, and for her part, she'd come armed with her tattoo gun, and a bucket hat.

"So I can kind of zone out a little bit. I also brought headphones, just in case," she said.

They would be winging it a little on timing, setting aside 20 minutes for each performer, but she wasn't worried about working within a time limit.

"Depends how much they move around and complain, I guess!"

Before the show opened they had sold more than 40 tickets. It made a nice change, Rzhevitskaya said.

"It's been hard to fill in rooms for a while," she said. "I'm nervous about having many people come to the show. Not in a bad way, more like, 'Yay, finally', but it's been hard to fill up stuff."

In the end, it was packed, the audience laughed from start to finish, and every tattoo was finished in time for the end of the set.

Rzhevitskaya ended up with a red flag with "nice guy" written inside, amid a series of jokes based on problematic men.

Ranson went for the "Keep off the grass" phrase to add to her collection of tattoos which disappointed her mother.

Fadjukoff did, unsurprisingly, end up with the number 31 on his ankle, despite the audience voting for a number 13.

And Katy got her llama, after thrilling the audience with a slideshow on using "quantifiable performance measures" to determine a dating match.

After the show's success, Rzhevitskaya said they were hoping to repeat the format, with some fresh comics on the lineup.