Today, Guy Montgomery is talking a little quieter than his usual, well-enunciated self. His baby daughter Billie is asleep not too far away, so he’s not at comedy-panel-show-host decibel levels. But he does have plenty to shout about.
When the Listener last talked to him two years ago, his second season of Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, the show he started online in the pandemic lockdown Zoom era with comedy mates, was returning to Three. That was just as the Australian version – hosted by him and made by his Kiwi producers for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation –was debuting across the Tasman.
Now, the ABC’s third season has had its 10-episode run and it’s been one of the broadcaster’s highest-rating shows. This month, the third NZ iteration, eight episodes filmed in late 2025, has returned to Three. Meanwhile, the Aussie show has been picked up for screening on BBC Three and its iPlayer streaming platform.
That UK exposure means when Montgomery heads there next month, ostensibly for a friend’s wedding, the one-night live version of Spelling Bee that he’s arranged has already sold out a 1000-seat venue in east London. And having 600,000-plus people watching you on television each week in Australia becomes useful when you go out and do a stand-up tour there.
“I’ve found that people discover me as a comedy entity through watching the Spelling Bee. All of a sudden, my audience catchment is a bunch of people who didn’t even know I was doing stand-up for 12 years prior to the show existing. I’m getting the 16-plus crowd coming with their parents because they watch the show as a family and it’s something they can agree on, which is so amazing.”
Montgomery has become a fixture on other Australian panel shows, and last year won the Logie – the Australian Emmy – for most popular new talent.
There have been changes behind the scenes on both shows, some of which gave Montgomery “slightly wobbly knees”. Joseph Moore, a key part of the writing team on past seasons, departed for a writing gig on the sketch show Saturday Night Live UK. And after two seasons in the Australian version, Aaron Chen – “he’s the reason a lot of people watched the show” – handed in his notice as Montgomery’s sidekick to concentrate on his US-based stand-up career.
Chen’s replacement has been Sam Campbell, the deadpan, oddball Australian comedian now having a moment in the UK with his Channel 4 show Make That Movie (screening here on Neon) and appearances on Taskmaster, Would I Lie to You? and Last One Laughing. Campbell is also a contestant on the new NZ series, along with others from outside the usual local comedy and radio-host pool.
“I look at both of them as leading lights internationally in terms of creativity and where comedy’s going, and so the risk you run in booking them to be on your show as an assistant is that at some point, mid-season, they’re going to outgrow you.”
Oh, and yes, he and actor-director partner Chelsie Preston Crayford had a baby – her second, his first – which meant the due date and the NZ production date were too close for comfort, so he had to step back a bit. He tapped comedians and past contestants Rhys Mathewson and Abby Howells to write the new season while he took on an oversight role.
“We brainstormed some stuff and then I handed over the keys. It was quite an amazing experience and an education in holding things lighter, and trust.”
Hosting the show, he says, is mentally harder than doing a stand-up gig.
“With stand-up comedy, there’s a different sort of nimbleness. You have to keep the ball in the air when it’s just you and words and you’re just responsible for the audience. You’re not also responsible for other comedians and whatever else is going on.”
Given each New Zealand season goes through two dozen guests, each of whom risks various levels of humiliation for their spelling and game-playing abilities, has it been an increasing challenge to recruit panellists?
“Oddly, I think the inverse is true. Once you’ve got an established format, it feels like less of a risk for people to say, ‘Well, you know, I might look stupid in some respect but also it looks like a lot of fun.’ After a season or two, people are more confident that they’re not putting themselves in the hands of something that is designed exclusively to humiliate them or also might be shit. If you look at the calibre of some of the guests this season – Dame Lynda Topp, Bret McKenzie and Jason Gunn – it’s almost a point of pride that people of that calibre, who I look up to as generationally streets ahead of me, want to come along and have a crack at the show. It makes me feel incredibly proud.”
It’s likely, then, Montgomery will be donning those trademark brown and green 1970s gameshow-host suits for a while yet. Can the costuming make it smell a bit op shop under the studio lighting?
“No, the wardrobe team do a remarkable job of laundering and refreshing all of my outstanding options … but under the hot studio lights, I will say, because I think the first season of this was 2022 and it’s 2026 now, and so that means I was perhaps 32 or 33 when it started, and I’m 37 now, so the hot studio lights do put a special burden on anyone who might be thinning up top. I remember the last haircut I got, my hairdresser said, ‘You know, it’s getting thin, but you look great. Just try not to stand under any bright lights. Obviously, he’s got absolutely no idea what I do for a living, but that’s kind of a non-negotiable.”
Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee, Three, Thursdays, 7.30pm from August 6. Streaming on ThreeNow.