'Is your last name really Tauranga? No it is not, c'mon! Well you know what's funny, my last name is the same as that ventriloquist guy from Los Angeles.”

And thus my conversation with international comedy star and ventriloquist extraordinaire David Strassman begins.

'So I'm coming back to Tauranga. I can't wait to get back and do my brand new show, it's my funniest and most amazing, jaw-dropping hilarious show. I break the laws of puppetry in it.”

After three years away, David and friends Chuck Wood, Ted E. Bare, Kevin the Alien, Grandpa Fred, Sid Beaverman, plus special guest Buttons the Very Pissed Clown, are heading to Tauranga for his brand new show iTedE at Baycourt's Addison Theatre on March 7.

David says the show, which is split into two acts, is a rib-tickling look at our technology-laden lives.

'I operate all my characters the traditional hand-up-the-bum ventriloquism for the first half, and I'm talking to the puppets about my fear that all this technology will keep us from using our imagination and shows like mine will disappear.

'All the puppets have their various ideas on whether it's going to happen or not, and we have this hysterical discussion that pretty much holds up a mirror to our society, because we're all guilty of it; we're always on our phones, checking Facebook, it's a bit of problem in our society.”

While for the second act of the show, David will use advanced puppetronics where he'll simultaneously operates five characters using a handheld wireless remote control to hold a six-way conversation.

'In the second act of my show I give a TED Talk, which is pretty much about the ‘suspension of disbelief', what is real and what isn't, and I'm sustaining a six-way conversation for the entire act. It's difficult and really hilarious.

'I started in the stand-up comedy world of New York City; if you didn't get a laugh every 10 seconds they didn't ask you back the next night. This show is a laugh every 10 seconds, it's so funny people are complaining of hurting jaws and aching bellies.”

David Strassman presents iTEDE at Baycourt's Addison Theatre in Tauranga on Tuesday, March 7. Tickets cost $49.90-$79.90 from www.ticketek.co.nz

SunLive has one double pass to give away to one lucky reader who can name one of the six puppets ventriloquist David Strassman will be performing with at Baycourt?

Enter online at www.sunlive.co.nz under the competition section. All entries must be received by Wednesday, February 15.