Raybon Kan
Raybon Kan is a New Zealand comedian and newspaper columnist.
Early life and family
Kan's family moved to Wellington, New Zealand soon after his birth in Masterton. He began his education at St Mark's Church School. He showed an early flair for public performance which he continued at Wellington College and was School Council President and proxime accessit to dux. He attended Victoria University of Wellington's law school, and earned his LL B and was admitted to the Bar. During his university days, he captained his team to second place in the World Universities Debating Championships, losing the final to the University of Oxford. While at Victoria University he won the Dominion Journalism Scholarship, and the Energy Law Research Scholarship. His article on energy law was published in the New Zealand Law Journal.Career
Kan first came to media prominence writing television reviews for The Dominion newspaper in Wellington and performed stand-up comedy on stage and on television. His television work included regular appearances on comedy sketch shows.Kan was named Best Comedian by Metro and North and South magazines on repeated occasions in New Zealand. He has performed at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, the Montreal Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. He has also performed in Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sydney. He was nominated for the inaugural Billy T Award in 1997.
His movie reviews featured in TV3's Nightline nightly news programme. His New Zealand TV appearances include "Pulp Comedy", "Laugh Festival Gala," "Before Stardom", "Look Who's Famous Now", Skitz, "Test the Nation", "The Great New Zealand Spelling Bee", Inside New Zealand, a documentary in which he trained for two months to be a casino croupier; and a profile in TV's 60 Minutes. In Australia he performed on "Hey Hey It's Saturday" and was interviewed by Bert Newton.
Kan wrote Five Days in Las Vegas in the early 1990s about his travels to the United States where he appeared on Wheel of Fortune. Another travel-based book America on Five Bullets a Day was published in 1998 and featured his love of tennis. A collection of his short writings was published by Penguin in 2004 as An Asian at My Table. For many years he continued to write a column in The Sunday Star Times.
He has appeared in the films I'll Make You Happy, Tongan Ninja, and Spooked. In November 2004, he became the TV commercial spokesman for the Freedom Air airline in New Zealand.
For a time, Kan was based in the United Kingdom, and in 2009 he performed his stand-up show 'Spermbank Millionaire' at the Edinburgh Fringe. The film he starred in, and co-wrote with Jason Stutter, Diagnosis: Death, was also released in 2009.