Rove McManus is no longer on Australian television after ending his decade-long show last year.
But that didn’t stop the Australian funny man making his way to New Zealand to see John Campbell (and host the International Comedy Festival too).
Since ending his show, Rove has been spending a lot of time in Los Angeles to get away from it all.
“I just found I needed to get away so that when you decide ‘I don’t think I’m going to do this show anymore’, your not surrounded by all the things that would make you go ‘why did you do this?’” he says.
Rove says it was a tough decision to end his decade-long series in Australia.
“I think, because having reached the ten years only a couple of months before, you become very retrospective, you become very introspective and I just got to the point where it was just coming up to what would have been another two years of a contract, and I thought ‘well, then what?’ Then it’s 12 years, then how long – 15, 20, how long does this show run?”
“Let’s say its even 30 years down the track, how would you want to wrap it up? On your terms, while you’re still on a high – well why not just do that now while you can?’ It was a scary decision, but I closed my eyes and I jumped.”
But, he doesn’t regret the decision.
“Everyone now and again you might have a day where you do wake up and you go ‘calendar’s a bit empty’, for the most part I really am just enjoying a creative breath of fresh air and it feels like a bit of a weight has been lifted.”