Jordon Jones reviews Face/Off: Comedy vs. Poetry presented by Dave Adams and Jor Dansaren, at Little Andromeda, Saturday 6 June 2026.
You might think that the question “who is funnier: comedians or poets?” would be fairly self-explanatory. But, then, you probably don’t know enough poets. It’s certainly a question that has inspired comedian Dave Adams and poet Jor Dansaren, the brains behind the series of Face/Off performances at Little Andromeda. This weekend, I popped into the eighth showdown between the comedians and the poets to find out for myself.
The premise is fairly simple: for each skirmish, team captains Adams and Dansaren assemble teams of cracking Ōtautahi comedians and poets―a trio of each―who take turns presenting short sets and poems to the audience. The captains then wrap things up with performances of their own, and the audience is asked to judge the winning team through the very precise scientific method of measuring cheers with a decibel meter. Competition is stiff between the two sides, so it gets quite exciting.
The selected performers for this weekend were on top form. Representing Team Comedy, Ron Mac got the audience nicely warmed up with a relaxed set that felt very “in the moment” and made good use of sound. Ben Vyas gave us a taste of Bollywood from his childhood, which he balanced out with some good-natured jabs at poorly-thought-out Kiwi racism. I was particularly impressed with Audrey Porne, whose proficiency with carefully crafted yet casually delivered one-liners kept us on our toes. Rounding off the team’s efforts, captain Dave Adams took a stab at a poet’s strength, vulnerability, with a very intimate but highly entertaining anecdote about an awkward discount massage. They all kept the laughs coming with ease, and set the bar high!
On the other side of the competition, Team Poetry kicked off with Lee Fraser, whose cheeky ode to menstrual cups garnered an enthusiastic response (especially from the menstruators in the audience). Steffi Brightwell, a.k.a. Electric Starfi, presented some very punchy and succinct poems on the theme of bad dates. While her Velma Dinkley cosplay was delightful, I think it did distract a little from the poems themselves, which I quite enjoyed. Erik Kennedy’s poems had a good balance of deep interiority and gentle humour―intellectual, but not inaccessibly so. My favourite performance of the night, though, was from team captain Jor Dansaren, whose playful skill with rhyme, rhythm, and diction (or dicktion, in some cases) was an aural treat.
In retrospect, I’m not sure if Face/Off actually answers the question of whether comedians or poets are funnier; as an audience member, I was just as invested in the relatability of the content and the quality of the performance as I was in the humour. (And, as a dedicated word nerd, I also greatly appreciated the poets’ skill with literary techniques.) Perhaps what we really measured was how well each team connected with the audience―after all, isn’t that the goal of both comedy and poetry? If so, all of the performers get top marks.
When it came to judging, the audience brought down the house with their appreciation for both teams, with just a single decibel deciding the nights winners: Team Poetry! This brings the total score over all eight shows to four wins to each side, and strongly suggests that a tie-breaking ninth show is in order. Should that ultimate showdown occur, I wholeheartedly recommend you try and nab tickets. It will be funny, yes, but there will be a lot more to enjoy as well.
Face/Off: Comedy vs Poetry was performed Saturday 6 June and may well be coming to a venue near you.
Flat City Field Notes 