The co-host of the award winning podcast, ‘The Worst Idea Of All Time’, Tim Batt is one of New Zealand’s sharpest comedic minds. 

He’s taken some time away from the festival circuit to raise his children, but has decided 2026 will be his return. 

Batt is bringing his dry humour to the International Comedy Festival with a brand-new stand-up show, ‘Eternal Optimist’, in which he, in his own words, “makes light” of the rising tide of fascism and offers a sincere apology for accidently causing a dire situation. 

He told Jack Tame that while the world’s not looking the best it ever has at the moment, it’s important to keep your chin up whenever you can. 

“For me it comes from a place of like, I wanna be useful, and I think you’re not useful to anyone if you’re sort of paralysed by the world, by all the negativity.” 

Circumstances have been getting tougher and tougher over the years and Batt believes the funk that causes can make people easier to manipulate. 

“We’ve really been put through the meat grinder,” he told Tame. 

“And I think that there are some pretty evil, very wealthy people who have taken advantage of the fact that they've got a lot of power and they've tricked us into thinking the wrong people are our issue.” 

Since everything seems to be getting worse in real life, Batt decided to take a more optimistic approach in his comedy show. Kind of.  

“I went in with a hiss and a roar being like, hey, let’s flip the script a little bit. Yeah, we’ll be radically positive in this one. Is that in the show? A bit!” Batt explained, agreeing with Tame’s assessment that the show would be more “optimism adjacent”.  

His show won’t be over the top “himbo comedy”, he stressed, focusing only on the positives – there will be some gallows and black comedy too.  

“I’ve got a lot of Irish heritage,” he told Tame. 

“I'm certainly down for having too many whiskeys and talking in a, very dark pub about how bad everything's gotten as well.” 

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