Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega? Remember her? Marlene On The Wall and all that? Yes, she had a few hits in the mid-to-late Eighties. I even had her debut album on tape (tape!), but haven’t replaced it on CD since all my cassettes went to the great tape head in the sky, to be eternally chewed up. Nicola, though, is the proud owner of Solitude Standing, and I have 99.9F° (sic), from the Nineties. But she has a new (-ish) album out, and is “touring” New Zealand – i.e. playing Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland, which, frankly, is two more cities than a lot of visiting American artists manage. 

But first, dinner, as is tradition. We’ve not been to Wellington’s premier French-style restaurant, Le Bouillon Bel Air, for a long while – in fact, probably not since it opened! Which is (checks notes) two years ago! Time flies! Anyway, I had a hankering for some escargots, and this is probably the only place that actually does them in Wellington, so I booked it, with the proviso that we had to be out to get to the show. No problem, and I had my snails (delicious!) and confit de canard (not quite salted and aged to the extent that I would do, but still tasty), and a glass of French wine to boot. It was a rainy, windy, Sunday evening yet the place was almost full…quite a few may have been on the same mission as us as it’s only five minutes’ walk away…

…from St James Theatre. I’d misread the tickets and thought doors opened at 7:30pm (reasonable), but in fact a quick bit of Gemini-ing during dinner revealed (a) the show starts at 7:30pm, and (b) there’s no support act, so we resisted the blandishments of pudding and hotfooted it round the corner, to take our seats in the stalls.

She was prompt. None of your rock star messing about being late on stage. She kicked off straight away with Marlene On The Wall, so we all knew we were in the right place, and played a couple of other well-known songs before stopping for a chat. She told us she likes to play recognisable songs first, as if she kicks off with new material it can make people anxious! They come later in the set. She also told us the tale of landing in Wellington on the third attempt, having had to go back to Auckland after the first two failed…normal for Wellington. She introduced long-time collaborator Gerry Leonard on guitar, and cellist Stephanie Winters, who plays on most of the songs. They played a full repertoire from the very earliest song she wrote in the Seventies, through to excerpts of the new album (Flying With Angels), and finished up, inevitably, with probably her most famous, Tom’s Diner. 

They then reappeared for a three-song encore including Lou Reed’s Walk On the Wild Side, and In Liverpool, before wrapping up at – gosh! 9:15pm! Clearly she knows her audience and doesn’t want to keep them up past their bedtime!

  

The Rocky Horror Show

As the nights are starting to cool down and close in, the indoor entertainment scene in Wellington starts to liven up. Now showing at St James Theatre is a new production of The Rocky Horror Show. Nicola claims never to have seen the film all the way through, so this was a no-brainer.

First though…dinner, and time for another visit to perennial faves, Loggy B’s (Logan Brown to you). Last time we were there we had the leisurely Taste Of Logan Brown degustation menu, but this time we needed a quicker meal so were on the standard 3-course deal – still a snip at $95 each.  

It’s a short walk down the road and round the corner to St James Theatre, and we were ensconced in plenty of time for the show to begin. You know how it goes, right? Brad and Janet get stranded on the road and go to the local castle (!?) for help – there to be enmeshed in the goings-on at the castle, orchestrated by Frank N Furter, a transvestite from Transylvania, in the galaxy Transexual; ably assisted by RiffRaff, Magenta and Columbia. They did The Time Warp, Sweet Transexual, Dammit Janet and all the other songs. A lot of people had made the effort to dress up for the occasion, but I think we were channelling our inner Janet and Brad. All jolly good fun, catch it if you can!

 

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry is a national treasure, and a very funny actor, presenter, writer and personality. But is he an actual comedian? He’s touring New Zealand at the moment with his one-man show, but it’s not exactly stand-up comedy. I guess you’d call him a raconteur. We thought we’d go and see his show. 

But first, as always, dinner. The show started at 8:00pm so we had plenty of time, and I’d booked us well in advance so that we could go along to Dragonfly, as we haven’t been there in a while. It’s a pan-Asian place with the usual shared plates ethos. I’d arrived a bit ahead of time as Nicola was finishing up her secretarying at Friends of Te Papa, so ordered a cocktail whilst waiting. We then went for seared sesame tuna, coconut squid, sticky pork belly and salmon two ways – all very delicious; and followed with chocolate & coffee mousse and panna cotta.

We made our way across to the St James Theatre, and took our seats. The show was advertised as lasting 2 hours, with an interval between 8:50 and 9:10pm. This was completely wrong.

In the first half, he came on stage, took his seat, and proceeded to tell us about his childhood growing up in a country house in Norfolk, miles (12 of them!) from the nearest city, and his time at prep school and then at public school. This included various anecdotes about family and fitting in at school (he didn’t), and his discovery and early love of Oscar Wilde; he then moved on to how he was expelled from school, and all subsequent schools he attended, and the crimes he committed along the way. The story is both horrifying and hilarious. Somehow he gained a scholarship to Cambridge University where he met first Emma Thompson, then Hugh Laurie. These meetings changed his life in a way he completely didn’t expect, and he then regaled us with stories about his life on the road and acting and performing as a comedian, and how he’d once been inveigled into reading for the audio book edition of some children’s story.

All this took us up to around 9:30pm. We then broke for an interval. He had enjoined us to scan the QR codes liberally festooned about the theatre, which lead one to a site on which you can pose questions, and it was to these that he responded in the second half of the show. This included stories about celebrity gossip, even royal gossip when (then) Prince Charles came to visit, and then took on a more serious and darker tone as he discussed mental health issues, both his own and those of other people. He discussed his previous visits to New Zealand and working with Peter Jackson on The Hobbit. He also gave us a reading from one of his books, Odyssey, a modern reworking of an old story. He also spent a bit of time talking about his interaction with Steve Jobs of Apple, and also his old friend Douglas Adams.

Another 80 minutes flew past, and it was well after 11 o’clock by the time we were released into the spring night. Definitely a worthwhile show.

 

Rockaria – The ELO Experience

Remember the Seventies? Of course you do! When Electric Light Orchestra - ELO - reigned supreme! Rockaria aims to recreate that sound with a selection of songs from ELO. 

I’d booked Capitol for dinner, as we’ve not been there in a while. They’re still producing quality food and drink. Wish they’d re-open at the weekends for brunch, though. We had bruschetta, oysters, prawn fettucine, pork belly, Eton mess and white chocolate cheesecake. Not all mixed into the same bowl. We then trotted up Courtenay Place to the Opera House. 

Rockaria does exactly what it says on the tin – a run through all the hits, early and late, of ELO, with a bit of Xanadu and three Travelling Wilburys songs thrown in for good measure (these being two of Jeff Lynne’s other projects – in fact Xanadu, sung by Olivia Newton John, was the only one to go to No. 1 in the charts). Unlike the classic line-up of ELO for most of their albums, this incarnation has but one violinist and no cellos, as opposed to two cellos and one violin. This put a lot of the pressure on their violist as he had to handle all the string parts – I suspect he was subtly assisted by the keyboardist and synthesiser player in this. They also had a lot more guitar, with lead, rhythm and acoustic all on stage, as well as the bass. 

As this is a cover band rather than the actual, setlist.fm doesn’t show them, but from memory I can tell you that they played Evil Woman, Roll Over Beethoven, Strange Magic, Livin’ Thing, Rockaria! Do Ya, Telephone Line, Turn To Stone, Mr Blue Sky, Sweet Talkin’ Woman, It’s Over, Don’t Bring Me Down, Last Train To London, All Over The World, Rock’n’Roll Is King, and probably some others too. Not necessarily in that order. As with other cover bands, they’re all very accomplished musicians and they’re clearly having a good time as well. It was a rollicking good night!   

Guru Of Chai

Indian Ink are back in town with a new production at the Hannah Playhouse, Guru Of Chai. As it’s only on for a short run (1^st – 11^th August) I’d booked tickets for the Sunday matinee when they were first released, for fear of missing out. This was months ago.

At a much later date, Hutt Valley Orchestra decided that their next concert would be on the same day, at the same time. Nicola therefore missed out, as she is the mainstay of their viola section. I went instead with Elizabeth, and caught the bus into town as Nicola had the car. We arrived in plenty of time and took our seats in the theatre. The Hannah Playhouse, formerly home to Downstage Theatre Company, is now a tragically underused resource after Downstage went bust in 2013. It’s now owned by Wellington City Council, but they don’t do much with it.

Guru Of Chai is an older work from Jacob Rajan and Justin Lewis, the creative team behind Indian Ink, who have been responsible for such shows as Dirty Work, Paradise, or The Impermanence of Ice Cream, Mrs Krishnan’s Party, and The Pickle King, and all of which I’ve seen over the years. In this revival, Jacob plays all the characters, to the musical accompaniment provided by Adam Ogle on guitar and special effects.

The main character, Kuitsar, has a chai stand in the main railway station of Bangalore. There he meets seven sisters, abandoned by their father, who sing at his stand and earn more money than he does selling chai. They are menaced by Thumby (he has no thumbs), a henchman of the local crime lord, The Fakir, but are rescued by Officer Punchkin, a policeman who oversees the station. Punchkin then assumes a protective role as the sisters get older, and all but one get married. The youngest, Balna, stays at the station, and eventually Punchkin asks her to marry him. Balna refuses, and Punchkin is promoted away from the station. Eventually Balna meets a poet, Imran, and they get married and have a son, Little Imran. The story is spread over several years, but always narrated with humour by Chai-Wallah Kuitsar. There’s also a parrot, and Jacob wears his customary prosthetic teeth throughout, to get into character. It is, as always, hilariously funny until you get to the ending, when it all takes a very dark twist and becomes quite serious. Indian Ink don’t always do happy endings.

Another stunning show from Indian Ink, if you get the chance go and see it! Given their now international standing, It will almost certainly get to Australia, and may make it to the UK as well.

 

Wicked

After our burgers at Eva Pub, we went along to St James Theatre to see Wicked. This musical has been around for 20 years, and has finally come to Wellington! It’s a lavish production, so we went along to see it. 

Before staring we headed along to Eva Pub for a burger, then made our way to the theatre. This is a sell-out season, and by the time I got around to looking for tickets the only ones still available were up in the nosebleed seats. Fortunately we were in the front row of a section so had leg room in front of us. Even so, the seats at SJT aren’t the most comfortable, and the first half of the show went on for 1½ hours before a break, by which time my bum was thoroughly numbed!

The show is the back story of the witches of Oz, and focuses on Elphaba, the green, so-called “wicked” witch. Along the way it fills in the backstory of all the things in The Wizard of Oz that never get explained, i.e. where the tin man, lion and scarecrow came from, flying monkeys, the wizard himself. I haven’t actually watched TWOO for a few decades, so I’m a bit rusty on the details, but it always seemed a bit vapid. This story packs far more of an emotional punch as the actual characters and their motivations are filled in.

It doesn’t quite end up “happily ever after”, but all the loose ends get tied up, and you end up knowing much more about TWOO than the original film ever gave you.

Pascoe & Bracewell

Sounds like a detective duo, doesn’t it? But it’s not…

The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is well under way, and we’ve been partaking of its wares. International, you say? Well, yes, we have some visitors from beyond our shores, and we went to see one of these on our first excursion: Sara Pascoe, star of Out Of Her Mind and regular on the comedy quiz show circuit – QI, HIGNFY, Cats etc. She’s doing a show called Success Story.

She was performing at St James Theatre – a fairly sizeable venue, capacity c.1,500. With that many people going to the show, it was likely that all the local eateries would be jampacked, so I took the precaution of booking at Mr. Go’s. It was, predictably, full, but they’re pretty efficient there and we were quickly seated, orders taken, and food delivered in short order. As usual, we had the Korean chicken wings – still the best in Wellington! And a couple of other dishes.

Sara’s show is about her life, and how she came to be a comedian. At the beginning of the show she points out that she is pregnant – she thought she’d mention it straight away in case we thought she hadn’t noticed. She did expand on this towards the end of the show, but in between we had the delights of her first forays into television fame (failed at fourteen), and a repeat attempt a quarter century later (still forgot how to sing…”how can I make the same mistake twice?”). The show was quite short – it ran for 70 minutes without a break – but absolutely packed with not just the trappings of demi-fame, but also her more recent success at becoming a mother of a “suicidal chimpanzee” (her words, not mine).

That was Thursday. On Saturday we found ourselves – guess where? – yes, back at St James Theatre for a second round of comedy, this time from homegrown comedian Melanie Bracewell. She may not be as well-known as Sara Pascoe, but still managed to pack out the venue, and shared her delight at being able to do so – seeing people in the circle for the first time! As she recounted the first venue she played in Wellington, which had a capacity of 50, and wasn’t full. 

Her show is called Forget Me Not, as she doesn’t want to be forgotten. She recounted tales from her childhood and her psychotic older sister, and also about her new boyfriend, who suffered short-term memory loss for the first six months of her relationship. This proved a rich seam to mine for comedy gold. She also told us about her experiences as a Jacinda Ardern lookalike comedian, and during lockdown was booked by an Australian radio station. She hadn’t bothered with doing the voice, relying on appearances alone. But, hey, Kiwi accent, that’ll do. She also told us more about her family, including Cauliflower Granddad’s eye test, and people with too much time on their hands reviewing supermarket products.

All in all a good start to our comedic adventures, There’s more to come!

 

Les Misérables

Les Misérables is playing in Wellington for a three week run. We’d bought tickets, like, ages ago (i.e. before we left for Europe), so off we went. It’s the first production in the newly-strengthened St James Theatre, which has been closed for the last three years after being assessed for earthquake strengthiness, and falling short of the required standard.

We decided to go for cocktails first at CGR Merchant, one of Wellington’s premiere cocktail lounges on Courtenay Place. I had a gin infused with carrot cake concoction, and Nicola had a floral fizz of some kind. If they published their menu online I could tell you what they were. Our plan was then to trot around the corner to Mr. Go’s, our Go-to (see what I did there?) Asian food place. Unfortunately, it seems everyone else had had the same idea, and the place was packed. The maître d' found us some space at the bar, and we ordered dumplings, Korean chicken wings, and bok choi. Despite the busy-ness, the food was delivered in short order and we had plenty of time to consume it.

St James looks much the same as it did before, or at least as I remember it. Maybe there’s a few more columns in the foyer? We were in the stalls and had a good view of what was going on.

The production is a bit of a marathon. If you know the story, and the film, you’ll know that they do go on a bit…this one was over three hours including interval, so it was a bit wearing on the buttocks. The seats in St James haven’t been modernised, but they’re a bit better than the Opera House, at any rate. The interval didn’t come until we’d got through two hours of musicalizing. It was all done to a high standard with a revolving stage to assist with the scene changes, and a big barricade for the second half, and a cast of thousands…OK, maybe around thirty. We finished up at around quarter to eleven, and poured ourselves out into the darkness of Courtenay Place.

 

Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike

It’s Thursday night, so we’re off to the theatre again. Tonight we’re going to see Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. This is a New Zealand production of a 2013 Broadway play.

But first, dinner. We thought we’d try somewhere we’d not been to before, so a quick flick through the Entertainment app got me as far as Ancestral. This is a modern Chinese restaurant on Courtenay Place, and thought we’d give it a try. It has a cocktail bar attached, which we eschewed and went straight in to the dinner. Maybe next time. We ordered the dim sum selection to share as a starter, then duck in lettuce cups and banana prawns with iron goddess of mercy tea leaves (yes, this was a new one on us too), and green beans with ground pork and preserved vegetables. It was all quite tasty, but the table for two was far too small for their dishes, so we ended up being a bit cramped. Especially as we had to peel prawns, have a separate dish for shells, and a finger bowl. The service though was very good – an Eastern European waiter who was very knowledgeable. We do finally seem to have got away from the idea that waiters in ethnic restaurants must be of that ethnicity.

We arrived with plenty of time (unlike last time we were at Circa) and took our places. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is based around three siblings, and as the names might suggest, there are echoes of Chekhov throughout in the themes and relationships in the play. As my knowledge of Chekhov is largely limited to him saying “yes captain” and “where do you keep your nucular wessels?” it’s possible that some of the references went over my head. The action had been transplanted to the USA (I assume Chekhov's plays are set in Russia?) However it was quite humorous in a play-ey kind of way – somewhat contrived, and you kinda knew where it was going to end up. But it’s not about the destination, it’s the journey, and it contained some good lines, some histrionic sub-plotting, and was generally quite enjoyable. Well, I enjoyed it, anyway. Wellington regular Gavin Rutherford was in the Vanya role, and I’m sure I’ve seen some of the others in various productions.

The Politician's Wife

It’s Thursday, so it must be theatre tonight. We’re away from our usual haunt and back at BATS for tonight’s performance of The Politician’s Wife. The play is being staged in The Dome on the top floor, which is an open venue with limited room for stage dressing and props; and seats along two sides of the stage, facing each other.

First up, we went for dinner at Hummingbird on Courtenay Place. This is a venue that we appear to frequent once a year, to take advantage of the Entertainment offer. They serve reasonable food but nothing out of the ordinary…we had fish crudo and lamb kofta to start, followed by eye fillet with oxtail pie, and gnocchi with burnt butter. All cooked very well, and served competently. God, we’re so demanding these days! The fish crudo would be better in the summer, I feel, but otherwise all was good and tasty. The meat dish was fairly substantial, so I didn’t really feel like a pudding, but we manged to force down a house-made salty caramel chocolate with our coffee and tea.

We ambled round the corner to BATS and took our seats. The theatre has recently been strengthened and refurbished, so at least the seats are comfortable!

The Politician’s Wife follows the adventures of Kim, the privileged wife of a politician who is standing for re-election in an unspecified election in an unspecified country in an unspecified year (but really, it’s Australia). Kim worked as a nurse in the distant past, but now gives speeches for charities. The play follows her encounter with a former medical colleague, and her trip to the refugee centre where he works. As the play unfolds, the four actors assume a number of characters, from the politican and his adviser, to the documentary film-maker trying to get access to the centre, and the refugees themselves.

The first half of the play unfolds with predictable, er, predictability. It’s in the second half that things take a different turn, and the whole ends rather more messily than the nice, neat tie-up you might expect. In this, the author is showing more a real-life outcome, rather than the artificial constraints of drama. Everyone is compromised to a certain extent – the wife, the politicians, the medical staff, even the refugees themselves.

Having only four actors probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but the costume changes unfortunately break up some of the transitions, so at times it felt a bit clumsy. The scene changes were also voiced with a cod-Eastern European accent, which seemed unnecessary.

What started as looking like a fairly straightforward piece of agitprop did eventually turn into something more nuanced than it first appeared. It had its flaws, but overall it made you think a bit more deeply about the compromises we all make and what our price would be. The purpose of good art is to make you think, so it worked. It wasn’t perfect, but then, what is?

I’ll try and book something a bit cheerier next time, though.

Started At The Top

The comedy festival is coming to a close. Before I decided on the theme for this year’s festival selections (did you spot what it was?) I’d decided that Guy Williams would be a good person to go and see, having seen him on Jono & Ben.

What I’d forgotten was that I’d also booked The Ten Tenors for the same night a month or so previously. It is my habit to book these things when they are first advertised, often several months in advance, to avoid disappointment (these shows do sometimes sell out in Wellington – we’re not that apathetic!).  Fortunately, Guy was doing an early evening slot at 5pm, whereas the next show was at 8pm. Phew! We could do both, and grab some dinner in between.

Guy Williams’ show, Started At The Top, is in homage to rapper Drake with his song Started From The Bottom. Guy notes that he is white, male, middle class and privileged, so naturally he started from the other end. His show is very similar to the kinds of stuff he does on television, including a long section on the TPPA where he shows how ignorant people are of what it is and what it means…and even how many countries are involved. The people he asks about this are MPs, as he accosted them at Auckland Airport. His point being that it’s easy to make someone look stupid when you stick a camera in their face, and news reports of protestors who don’t know what they’re protesting about aren’t the only story. He also riffed on his favourite subjects – being tall but no good at basketball, fulfilling dreams, and emails from his mother.

So this year we’ve been to see five women comedians/actors/performers, and one bloke. I’d never heard of the women before, and selected them more or less at random, based on availability and the short blurb on the festival website. Guy Williams I have heard of. And I’m sorry Guy, you weren’t the best, funniest, or most original act we’ve been to see this year. B-.

I’d originally planned to have a tapas-style dinner at Basque, which is just round the corner on Courtenay Place. But when we stuck our heads round the door all the tables were taken. A quick rethink took us to Yakitori and Sake Bar, where we had a Japanese dinner of – yes, yakitori and sake (me) and sashimi and chicken hotpot (Nicola). We then strolled in leisurely fashion up the road to St James Theatre, where the Ten Tenors were performing.

Now you’ll have heard of The Three Tenors (Pavarotti, Carreras and Domingo). They were big in the 90s, and gave concerts of popular arias from opera. I thought that what we’d be seeing was going to be much the same, but with ten instead of three. From the look of the audience, it appeared that they were expecting much the same sort of thing.

That was not what we got, however. The show mostly consisted of covers of pop songs. Mostly not even very good pop songs. They did do a medley of Neapolitan opera in the first half for about 10 minutes, and Nessun Dorma as the encore, but in between they were mostly doing stuff by the current (and not-so-current) crop of boy and girl bands. They threw in a couple of New Zealand songs  - classic lullaby Hine e Hine, and Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over. The highlight was probably the opening of the second half - Bohemian Rhapsody. This is a song that's entirely suited to their style.

The performance, singing and staging was all very professional but I couldn’t help feeling that we’d been somewhat shortchanged. I was expecting a lot more opera, and we didn’t get it. I don’t know who selects their songs, but someone needs to have a word. They did a Bowie tribute with Heroes – a song entirely inappropriate for their voices.

So that was Saturday night in Wellington. The comedy festival is over, roll on the food festivals!

Contrast

Last night was the final cheap Wednesday  of the NZ International Comedy Festival and we’d booked in two shows to make the most of it.

It was a rainy, blustery night in Wellington – typical autumn weather, windy but not cold. After parking the car in Courtenay Place for a quick getaway, I realised I’d foolishly left the tickets in my desk drawer at work. It was too far to walk back, but we managed to find a handy internet place to print them out again from Gmail. Phew! Unfortunately we’d wasted a lot of time by this stage so we dived into Egmont Street Eatery for a quick but tasty dinner before scurrying up the road to VK’s Comedy and Blues Bar – in the place that was BATS Theatre’s home away from home whilst their original building was being strengthened.

At the venue we chatted with Tor and Gavin who were also in the audience. Then Angela Barnes hobbled onto stage – as she explained, she’d hurt her foot in an argument with Mount Eden. Angela Barnes is an English comedian who does a good line in self-deprecating comedy. She was doing sit-down rather than stand-up because of her leg. Part of her show deals with the subject of ugliness and expectations of beauty, having suffered at the hands of nasty girls at school. She also told us about her father, who owned a sex shop. Well, someone has to! She illustrated her show with photos and a short film she’d made and put on Youtube, and also discussed her article in the Guardian, and the feedback from it. All good stuff, and very entertaining. This all explained the show's title "Come As You Are", as she played out with the song by Nirvana. We couldn’t hang around much afterwards, though, as we had to head off to The Fringe Bar in Allen St for our next instalment of the evening…

The audience set-up was a little different here. Instead of the serried ranks of seats, it was arranged café-style with tables and chairs. We selected a table near, but not right at, the front, in the expectation that we’d be safe from any audience participation being foisted on us.

This turned out to be a schoolboy error. First, no-one occupied the two front tables - the show had a disappointingly low turnout, possibly due to the weather. I assume they put out tables based on ticket sales, but not even the ones they’d put out were fully occupied. And on a night like this, passing trade was likely to be sparse. As it was, we were effectively in the front row. Not that this mattered.

Tessa Waters’ show, WOMANz, is strange. It’s part performance art, part comedy, total audience participation, and most of all, FUN! She starts off with the birth of the world from a coupling between a rock and a star, and then gave us a demonstration of stagecraft and art. All whilst wearing a leotard and sequin-encrusted sports bra. Fairly early in she demonstrated how to do her favourite dance move, which she explained was like rowing, then asked me to get up and demonstrate my dance…so I invited Nicola up to the front and we did a quick six-turning-basics waltz for her. This, she told us, was amazing! In doing her show over 200 times no-one had ever done that! She then invited other audience members to do their dances, and we were treated to Becs’s box, and Sam’s sit-down dance. She then got us all up on our feet to do a dance medley incorporating all these elements into our performance. Everyone got up and enjoyed themselves.

It’s really hard to explain how and why this is fun. Maybe this will help:

All of this is delivered in a cod Eastern European accent, for a reason that is never explained. After the show she greeted everyone as they left, thanked us for coming, and was generally enthused. We wandered out into the Wellington night, somewhat dazed and confused, but smiling. We'd seen two very different shows, both good in utterly different ways, Both are on until Saturday, but if you get the chance to only go to one of them, I'd pick Tessa Waters. Go see her! You'll emerge a changed person. 

That pretty much ends our adventures in the comedy festival for this year. Did you spot the theme?

Waiting In The Sky

It’s Saturday night, so it must be David Bowie night.

Astute readers who pay attention to current affairs may have noticed that David Bowie shuffled off this mortal coil earlier this year. So what’s this? A tribute concert, obviously.

We headed into town early to try and find a parking space. We were thwarted in this ambition, so had to pay for parking in the multi-storey. Undeterred, we went for a quick dinner at The Tasting Room, before trotting up Courtenay Place to St James Theatre to see Bowie: Waiting In The Sky, a tribute concert by New Zealand and Australian acts including Eddie Rayner (Split Enz), Finn Andrews (The Veils), Jordan Luck (The Exponents), Alistair Riddell (Space Waltz), and Zaine Griff (Human Instinct). I trust you’ve heard of all these megastars. Yeah, me neither. Also, introducing Olympia and Skyscraper Stan, apparently.

Despite never having heard of any of these people, they were all accomplished musicians, and, importantly, were all able to bring something to the unique style of David Bowie’s singing voice. They mostly picked songs which suited their own vocal range.

The concert started a bit clunkily. Lazarus, from his final album Blackstar, had everyone politely applauding whilst looking at each other in a WTF? kinda way. This was followed by Space Oddity, but then Sorrow? OK, I get why you’re choosing these songs, but are you sure? After that it improved, with Olympia giving us Starman, and then it was pretty much hit after hit. They included all three singles from Let’s Dance, and Cat People, but nothing of a newer vintage than that after the opening song. Significant omissions included Fashion, Scary Monsters, and John, I’m Only Dancing. Also, none of his collaborations made the cut, despite having topped the charts twice with them.  But they managed to cram in a good lot of classics, and rotated the strike well. Once again, unusually for Wellington audiences, there was dancing in the seats (d'you see what I did there? ;-) ).  

Jekyll & Hyde

A Slightly Isolated Dog are putting on a production of Jekyll & Hyde at the moment at Circa Theatre. I’m vaguely aware of the story Strange Case Of Dr. Jekykll And Mr. Hyde, as it is more formally known – it involves potions and alter egos, but that’s about all I knew. Time to find out more.

But first, inevitably, dinner. One of our favourite restaurants, Muse On Allen, has moved to larger premises on Victoria Street and is now known as Muse Eatery And Bar. There’s been a notice in their window for the past month saying “Opening in March”. As I walked past it the other day the notice had been changed to “Opening 1^st April”. Perfect! I booked a table for 5:30 and we went there straight after work.

The menu has changed a bit since their “On Allen” days, with more choice on the starters and an addition of pasta options. I had the beef croquette to start, followed by the lamb rump. Nicola opted for a tuna ceviche and prawn linguine. On the dessert menu, they had a dessert burger consisting of a brioche bun and chocolate “burger”, strawberry jelly “beetroot”, and a mango and coconut “egg”. How could I possibly resist?

Not a real burger

After dinner we walked along the waterfront to Circa Theatre, in time to be greeted by the cast. This is an audience participation show, and they were selecting their potential victims possible collaborators early. The production is very much in the modern style, with minimal set and props; a blonde wig (Dr. Jekyll) and black wig (Mr. Hyde) denoted who was playing the central characters, but this was not fixed on a specific actor – everyone played each character at some point (as also did several audience members, when co-opted to do so). All the actors were speaking in cod French accents, for reasons that were left unexplained. We were all issued with window frames and instructed in their use, to stay indoors when Mr. Hyde is stalking the streets of London…wait, no, that’s Courtenay Place. And what’s all this talk of cars? Yes, the setting has been moved to present-day Wellington. So what’s with the French accents?

The story (spoiler alert) is that Dr. Jekyll, a pillar of Victorian society, does good deeds. He has a dark side (dramatic music – heads turn), but he pushes it down, pushes it down. The story follows of how he has developed a potion to transform into Mr. Hyde, but later transforms without the aid of the potion, firstly in his sleep, then later whilst awake. he drinks his potion to transform back to Dr Jekyll. Aware that he is unable to control his transformations, he eventually becomes a recluse. He decides that the only way to rid the world of the depraved Mr. Hyde is to kill himself, and promptly throws himself under a car.

The actual story is not the most important part of the show, however. What is really good is the way the cast interact with the audience, and also talk over each other, argue, get distracted and sidetracked, before eventually bringing it back on course. It's exhausting just being in the audience! Some members of the audience are given parts to play, with the actors whispering their lines to them first.

The cast are all regulars of the Wellington scene. Andrew Paterson was seen as Isaac Newton in Isaac’s Eye, Jack Buchanan in The Mystery Of Edwin Drood and Hayley Sproull as the musical Miss Fletcher Sings The Blues. And doubtless other stuff that I've missed.

The show is quite short - there's a drinks break, but you don't leave your seats for it - pre-ordered drinks are brought in - but such is the nature of the show, it seems like you've been in there for an action-packed couple of hours. This show is a lot of fun - go see it!

Funny Business

Master jokesmith and all-round funny guy Jimmy Carr has been touring the antipodes with his Funny Business show recently. The self-styled “hardest working man in comedy” (which he admits isn’t that impressive, being similar to “tallest dwarf” or “healthiest Scotsman”) gave two performances in one night in Wellington – the first having sold out, and either his tour schedule or venue availability necessitating the double whammy. Fortunately, as I’d booked early, we were in on the first sitting at 8pm rather than the later (billed as starting at 10:15, but actually started after 11:00pm according to my source).

I perused the Entertainment website to find somewhere away from our usual haunts for dinner, and we ended up in the Cuba Street Bistro. It may surprise you to learn that this is a bistro on Cuba Street. They serve typical bistro fare. We both liked the sound of the crab ravioli, so I had it as a starter whilst Nicola had it as main course. I followed with the pork 2 ways (pork belly and a pulled shoulder pastry sandwich) served with red cabbage, while Nicola started with the duck liver paté – served with “grilled bread”, apparently. Looked like toast to me, but hey, who’s arguing?

The St James Theatre in Wellington is undergoing a bit of a renovation at the moment, whilst they rip out what was The Jimmy and install a new Mojo in its stead. We were upstairs in the circle. We took our seats when the bell rang, and looked on expectantly. The pre-show projection listed a number to text if you had any questions, comments or heckles that you wanted Jimmy to respond to (or, in the case of heckling, just hear).

Before the show started, he enjoined us not to record the show on our cell phones, pointing out that (i) you’ll never listen to it again and (ii) the best way to enjoy the show was here and now. He then launched into the show.

Jimmy Carr is an old-fashioned kind of comedian. He doesn’t do the whole stream-of-consciousness thing with different characters, situations and long stories, like Eddie Izzard and Bill Bailey…he tells jokes. Lots and lots of jokes. Many of them are very rude, about people, or groups of people. No-one is safe from his scathing wit. Oscar Pistorius? Maybe he just really, really needed to pee. Teachers were also a favourite subject.

At the start of the second half, he read out a number of texts he’d received. Some of them were jokes (recycled from other comedians, I would hazard) and some were comments on the show. At the beginning of the show, he’d promised us “an hour’s worth of funny material, crammed into two hours”, and one wag wanted to know when he’d start with the funny material.

We left at around 10:15pm and had to fight our way out down the stairs and through the foyer, as the theatre management didn’t seem to have given much thought to managing a theatreful of outgoing people at the same time as a theatreful of incoming people.

What rhymes with orange? No, it doesn’t.

Oh, What A Circus

Do you know, I’ve only ever been to one Andrew Lloyd Webber musical? And that’s because someone gave me a ticket. I went to see Starlight Express at the Apollo Victoria theatre. It was rubbish.

This week, however, Evita is in town, and I thought I’d give him (Lloyd Webber, that is) another chance. We scored some tickets for the Saturday matinee performance. We went for a quick lunch at Egmont St Eatery, a new-ish café on (you guessed it) Egmont St. This café had recently taken the award for “best burger” at this year’s Burger Wellington competition – I’d even eaten the burger in question during Wellington On A Plate – so I was looking forward to trying it again. I asked the waitress if this was the same award-winning burger, and she told us it was its “little brother”. It was, to coin a phrase, a tasty burger. It had everything you want in a burger, and nothing you didn’t. In the spirit of Burger Wellington, I washed it down with a Hapi Daze from Garage Project. Mmm, tasty. Nicola had a cheese and ham toasted sandwich.

We were just across the road from the Opera House, so a short walk took us there, where we met up with some of Nicola’s fellow chorussers, who had got the tickets for us. And we settled back to watch and listen.

You probably know a couple of the tunes – Don’t Cry For Me Argentina and Oh What A Circus. The rest were fairly standard musical fare in a variety of musical styles from classical to latin. The story follows the rise of Eva, her marriage to an up and coming army colonel, Juan Peron, and her subsequent career as the first lady of Argentina. At the end she dies. The musical ends very abruptly at this point…I was expecting a big finale (no matter how inappropriate that might sound), but there isn’t one.

We emerged blinking into the sunlight…ha! Afternoon performances will do that to you!

No Shit, Sherlock!

The Hound Of The Baskervilles is probably the most famous Sherlock Holmes story. If you don’t know the story, well, see, there’s this dog, right…oh, go and read it! This version (for there are many) is a new adaptation for the stage by Clive Francis.

First, of course, there is the important question of where to go for dinner beforehand. Last week, those good chaps at Logan Brown emailed me with a  special pre-theatre bistro offer…but sadly, that was last week, and this week no such offer was forthcoming. So I abandoned my Logan Brown-ward thoughts and consulted my Entertainment Book for inspiration. We decided to visit Hummingbird on Courtenay Place as we’ve not been there in a while and it looks like they’ve got a revamped menu.  

This adaptation is for four actors, all of whom play Dr. Watson, and share the rest of the parts between them. So, for example, when only Watson and Holmes are in a scene, there are in fact three Dr. Watsons on stage, sometimes sharing the dialogue, sometimes doing it all together. Then one of them will nip offstage to do a costume change to become another character – Mrs. Hudson, say, or Barrymore the butler. All of them got the opportunity to play one of the female characters, with slightly disconcerting results!


Another aspect of the production is the back projection, which, as well as being used for scene changes, provides the animation of the hound itself, with blazing eyes and mouth.

The story is pretty faithful to the original, with boot thefts, beards and escaped convicts on the moors.

Alan Davies

International superstar and QI legend Alan Davies came to Wellington to do his show, Little Victories. How could we not go?

After a quick tour of Cuba Street we ended up in Loretta for some unexceptional scran, then hurried along the street to the Opera House in time to claim our seats. We needn't have bothered, as the man was 15 minutes late taking the stage. This may have been for last-minute technical checks as they were videoing the show for a future release.

He started off with a quick "get to know you" session, which resulted in a bit of discussion with an audience member about whether they did, indeed, come from Dorset, and had travelled to Wellington from Dorset to be at the show tonight. He also established the oldest, youngest, and mode age of his audience and seemed disproportionately pleased that the majority were born in the 60s: "my people!" He also established his New Zealand touring credentials by mentioning the windiness in Wellington, and having a dig at Palmerston North.

He then got on with the show proper. This consisted of a series of anecdotes about his childhood, which involved a lot of tennis and "cashing up", as well as tales from boarding school, and, to a great extent, the trials and tribulations of parenting. Indeed, it seems his daughter is the main scriptwriter, or at least idea-producer, for a substantial part of the show. Kids, eh? Who'd 'ave 'em?

Yes, we were crying with laughter as we came out. He's a very funny man! Think I'll buy the DVD when it comes out to remind myself of what he said...and also to try and spot us in the crowd shots, although that may be tricky as we were at the back of the circle.

It was quite a long show and getting on for eleven o'clock by the time we emerged, wiping away tears, onto the mayhem that is Courtenay Place on a Saturday night. Home, James, and don't spare the horses!

Neil Finn

Shockingly, in the 4-plus years we’ve lived in Wellington, we’ve never been to Ortega Fish Shack. We decided to put this right as a prelude to our evening’s entertainment. I’m told that they do a killer steak, but given that it’s a fish restaurant, we both decided to stick with the fish. We can get steak at The Larder or other places anytime. I had scallops with pork belly to start, followed by a gurnard fillet on papardelle. Nicola had the sake-cured salmon and the terakihi. All very well prepared and presented, and I think we’ll be back (when we can fit it in around all our other commitments).

Then a quick stroll up Courtenay Place to the Opera House, in time to catch support act Bic Runga. Bic is world famous in New Zealand, but has been away from the recording scene for a while. She played guitar, and half-way through her set she employed an assistant on the piano, who looked suspiciously like Neil Finn – largely because it was.

After running through her half-dozen songs, she was off and it was time for the main act. Neil Finn has a new album out this year, his first solo effort for 13 years (he’s been recording with Crowded House, collaborations and other projects in between, and also touring with Crowded House and other bands). We were prepared – I’d bought the album a couple of months ago, so we were familiar with all the new tunes. He managed to squeeze most of the album in, between playing hits and favourites from his extremely rich back catalogue, including Split Enz, Crowded House, Finn Brothers and earlier solo career. After a good long set, they left the stage.

But the crowd wanted more, as they always do, and so the band came back on to play an encore. I’ve heard encores before. Usually the band comes out and plays one or two songs, maybe comes out a second time and plays two more.

They played six. Opening with Split Enz classic “I Got You”, then more from the back catalogue.

Off they went again, and the crowd, somewhat optimistically I thought, still clapped, stamped and cheered for more. But the house lights stayed down, and Neil came out and sat down at the piano, gave us a song solo, then picked up his guitar and gave us three more on his own. Then the rest of the band wandered on, took up their positions, and gave us another three songs, finishing on “Better Be Home Soon”. Eventually, at around twenty to twelve, we rolled out onto the street in search of a cab home.

Medieval Merriment

We were invited to Jim’s 50^th birthday party, held at the Wellington Irish society just off Cambridge Terrace.  Jim is a keen collector of all things medieval, so the party was themed and fancy dress required. We set off to the Costume Cave on Thursday evening before dancing to select our costumes, and with the assistance of the helpful staff, soon came away with a good selection including accessories:

After work on Friday, we headed straight home to change, then got in a cab back into town. Unfortunately we’d both forgotten to go to the cash machine before going out, so we had to ask the driver to take us into Courtenay Place to get some money out, and then walk from there to the venue, attracting some comments along the way – although most of the denizens of Courtenay Place seemed to take it in their stride, and assumed that we were just a sharp-dressed couple!

We arrived to find the entertainment had already started. The Wellington Medieval Guild had been invited to provide jugglers, musicians, singers and dancers, and they proceeded to juggle, make music, sing and dance. After dinner various friends and family members made some speeches, then the dancers attempted to instruct us in the art of medieval dancing. We just about got the hang of it.

Medieval lady with mobile phone