Public Service Announcements

Every three years, New Zealand has a General Election. And every three years, those cheeky chaps and chapesses at Circa Theatre produce a show called Public Service Announcements, where they satirise the current political parties and personalities. 

I’ve already told you about our dining experience at ChouChou, so straight in: there are six actors, and with costume changes they play the major characters of all the political parties (there are seven that are likely to feature in this year’s election), as well as impersonating commentators such as John Campbell, and Paul Henry – who has gone from commentator to participant in the election.

They signify who they’re playing with colour-coded jackets and lighting. Unfortunately, apart from the leaders of the main parties (and possibly not even those!), not everyone knows who’s who in the world of politics, especially if you haven’t been paying attention. To get around this they have to address each other like characters in a royal period drama: “Hail, third cousin Henry, heir to the earldom of Monmouthshire, how do thee fare?”, and suchlike. There is a plot of sorts, based around American warships blockading the Strait of Cook, and what each party is doing about it. The Americans are there because it’s a strait, and blockading straits is what they do. The characterisations are very basic, and the jokes aren’t all that funny. Being luvvies, of course, most of the mockery is aimed at the right of centre parties, although Chippie does come in for a pasting for not actually having any policies – he says he’ll release the Ultimate Policy “when the time is right”. Which isn’t now. There's a special guest appearance from The Top Girls, representing The TOP Party - as they seem to be special guesting in opinion polls at the moment.

Where it succeeds best is the song-and-dance routines – those tap lessons at Drama School weren’t wasted after all! There’s a rendition of "Things", “That’s A Māori”, a bit of Tears for Fears’ “Shout”, and other songs too modern for me to know the artistes. At one stage John Tamihere appears as a vampire, and his performance was so hammy that one of his co-actors corpsed on stage, and had real trouble delivering his lines with a straight face. He managed to pull it back together, despite the best efforts of Jamie McCaskill to distract him again.

It's a jolly romp, and has been extended for a week as it continues to sell out. Go see it while you can!

 

Bill Bailey - Vaudevillian

How many times have we been to see Bill Bailey? Loads. Does this stop us from going to see him again? It does not. Because he’s brilliant. He’s back, this time with a show called Vaudevillian. 

Obviously, dinner first. We booked into perennial favourites Mr. Go’s, at a slightly later time than usual. It was packed! Clearly everyone else had had the same idea, and it took somewhat longer than usual for our food to come out, so we were a bit rushed towards the end. This caused some issues when it came to paying, as I had the Mosaic Passport, but even so it came to more than I was expecting *. We paid and hoofed it up to the road to take our seats with minutes to spare at the Michael Fowler Centre.

On came Bill, to rapturous applause, and he started off with describing how wonderful our country is and how much he enjoys coming here…obviously a crowd-pleaser. He then took issue with one tiny part of our culture, and that was a pie that he’d bought at a roadside café. Not that there was anything wrong with the pie per se, but he likened the temperature of the contents to lava, magma, molten rock in general. At this point he was heckled by an audience member. At first he couldn’t catch what they were saying, so various members of the audience continued to shout it until he understood: “always blow on the pie!” This was something that he’d never heard before, but is familiar to Kiwis. Fortunately, he had a screen cunningly placed on the stage in front of him (presumably operated off-stage) that supplied him with the answer. “Have I walked into a meme?” he asked. Yes, Bill, you have. No doubt he continued to relate this story throughout the rest of his tour.

The rest of the show continued his usual themes of whimsy, musical interludes and general entertainment. He’d warned us at the beginning that he was unwell, and was recovering from a cough that made him swear. He called it the “Fuckough” and he did it every time he coughed. He ranted about a certain orange character in the White House, and complained about the current state of politics in the UK. As usual, he invited audience participation, particularly for song suggestions for the various musical instruments he played, which included a one-stringed lute and a miniature banjo. Ever heard Enter Sandman on a one-stringed lute? Well, now I have!

As always, he gives value for money with a show that lasted over two hours, including encore. Can’t wait for his next one!

* Next morning, I got a call from Mr. Go's. Apparently they had two tables booked for someone called Rory, and they'd charged me the wrong one. Everything got sorted out.

Those shows in full:

Thoughtifier (Nov 2023)

En Route To Normal (Mar 2021)

Larks In Transit (Oct 2016)

Limboland (Nov 2014)

Qualmpeddler (2013)

Dandelion Mind (2011)

 

Comedy Festival

As autumn swings into winter, it’s time to look indoors for our entertainment options. To satisfy this need, the New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in its 33^rd year. International, as it includes many overseas performers, gracing us with their presence, as well as nationally-known and up-and-coming New Zealanders…and even internationally-known New Zealanders!

First cab off the rank, at least as far as we were concerned, was Nish Kumar. Unfortunately, New Zealand’s weather decided otherwise, and a storm that hit New Zealand caused the closure of the venue on the night we’d booked. The show was rescheduled to the following night, but at 10:30pm we figured it was way past our bedtime, so we took the refund instead. Bugger. I was looking forward to that one.

No matter, the following week we were booked to see Hayley Sproull, or Hayley Everything as she should be known, as she seems to be doing everything these days. We first saw her when Miss Fletcher Sang The Blues in - crikey! - 2012! But since then she’s gone from strength to strength, with many hit stand-up shows, and starring in New Zealand comedies; participating in and hosting panel shows (7 Days, Have You Been Paying Attention?), and hosting the annual Comedy Gala for the last two years. She also has a radio show. She’s a busy woman! Her show, Baroness, was the by-now-familiar mix of over-sharing and stories of the DINK lifestyle, culminating in a date with Jason Momua.

The following night we were at Circa Theatre. Whilst not technically part of the Comedy Festival, they’re currently performing the comedic Give Way: The Musical. Nicola was on ushering duties, so we went along. This also gave us the opportunity to try out ChouChou, the new brasserie attached to the theatre, which has recently had a makeover. I had the snapper salad Nicoise, and Nicola had chicken Cordon Bleu. Note to any aspiring chefs out there: snapper is not a good substitute for tuna in a Nicoise.

The musical follows the adventures of Sophie, a newly-minted graduate in Traffic Management Engineering. She is anxious to make her mark on the world, and when the opportunity to revamp New Zealand’s weird give way rules presents itself, she leaps at it. The musical is based on a true story, in that the give way rules were changed in 2012 to fit in with what the rest of the world does. There’s a love story, inevitably; as well as protests, conniving, popularity-seeking, mental health, and insights into public policy-making which seem far-fetched but are probably true. A cast of five Circa stalwarts play all the parts, of which there were many: each actor had a main character, but also had to fill in for Sophie’s parents, The Minister of Transport, and other roles as required. All jolly good fun, and with the high production values we’ve come to expect from Circa.

We had a night off, then plunged back into the fray on Saturday night, going to see The Tape Face Show. We first saw Sam Wills when he was but a boy, called The Boy With Tape On His Face. He has since shortened his name and reached an international audience after reaching the finals on America’s Got Talent. His show is performed entirely without words, as you might expect, but there’s a lot of music (it helps to be familiar with what the songs are and the films associated with them), and a lot of audience participation. We were safe from this aspect as he generally needed people to be on or near the end of their row to be able to get up on stage, and we were well-placed in the centre of ours. He also played some of the classics, including Endless Love. We did, however, participate in the finale of the show, which involved 99 Red Balloons. Go see him if you get the chance, he’s hilarious!

Our final foray was something a little different – a comedy cabaret show called Revel at the Hannah Playhouse. They’d rearranged things inside from the usual tiered seating to provide an enlarged performance area centred on the bar, and some seating on the level with more tiered seating at the back. Revel is the name of the bar, or Speakeasy, and we were encouraged to arrive early to take advantage of the bar and have a cocktail. A jazz band was playing as we entered.

The bar was cleared for the performance, which included singing, dancing, comedy, burlesque, acrobatics and circus trickery; performed by a troupe of six. There was an interval when the bar was briefly open for business again, and then cleared away very quickly to allow the performance to continue. It was all jolly good fun and certainly a bit different from your standard comedy routines.

That’s about it for this year’s fest – but there’s plenty more entertainment to come over the winter in the nation’s cultural capital!

An Evening Without Kate Bush

An Evening without Kate Bush? That’s, er, every evening, isn’t it? Well, yes…but this is the name of the show that we went to see at Hannah Playhouse on Saturday night. And, as, you might have guessed, it is about Kate Bush. She’s just not there in person.

First up, we went for dinner at Capitol. Haven’t been there in a while, but it is reliably, er, reliable, and they were able to provide me with a Negroni, no problem, as well as half a dozen oysters and a fillet steak. Nicola hade their trademark bruschetta to start, followed by the prawn linguine. This is how you do restaurant food! (A High Dining, take note). We were too stuffed for puddings, so we made our way across the road to Hannah Playhouse. There are no allocated seats here and as we were amongst the last in, we sat high up at the back. This, incidentally, saved us from being dragged on stage.

The show is a one-woman performance by Sarah-Louise Young, described as “the chaotic cabaret cult”. She performs all the songs, sometimes engaging the audience to provide vocal effects, and on two occasions gets members of the audience up on stage to assist her performance. She dances, does costume changes, reminisces, and talks generally about Kate Bush. Who, I have to remind you, isn’t there! You know more Kate Bush songs than you realise, as she runs through a number of the hits, everything from Babooshka (in Russian, and pronounced correctly to boot) to The Hounds of Love, where she had the audience howling accompaniment. She dissected Kate’s dance moves, with a  simple demonstration of each – everything from mime to “follow the arm”. She finished up, naturally, with Wuthering Heights, and we all joined in.

The show is currently touring New Zealand, then heads to Australia and the UK later this year. If you get the chance, go see this show!

 

Fringe Frolics

It’s New Zealand Fringe Festival time again, and for the third year I’ve volunteered to help out. Nicola is no longer volunteering as she is now an active participant, with her band.

This year, I have been rostered exclusively at Hannah Playhouse, one of the larger venues for the Fringe, and therefore inclined to have events that will attract a bigger audience; so not so much the weird, quirky shows that are the essence of the festival. Next year I’ll ask if I can get a mix of venues so that I can see some of the odder offerings.

The first show I saw was Nicola’s band, Sven Olsen’s Brutal Canadian Love Saga, or The Svens as they are more commonly called. They were again playing at Newtown Community Centre. I say “Nicola’s band” but she is a viola player in the string section, so perhaps she’s not the actual leader of the pack. They played their usual selection of songs about life in Wellington and New Zealand, with backdrops that are an integral part of the show. 

My first gig at Hannah Playhouse was Antonio!, billed as “a queer punk pirate musical starring Shakespeare’s ultimate love interest”, a reference to the fact that Shakespeare has a character of this name in four plays. This is a romp through those works, with the conceit that they are in fact the same person, and Shakespeare was in love with him.

The following week was a sell-out performance of The Spinoff: The Fold Live, New Zealand’s biggest (only?) media podcast, broadcast live from the theatre with two guests, also from NZ media. How interested am I in the behind-the-scenes goings-on in New Zealand’s media world? Not very. I was allocated the mezzanine and balcony section for this show, which is normally closed as not needed, but apparently enough people are interested in this subject to use it. The crowd for this show was noticeably more mature than is usual for Fringe gigs.

Nicola came along to my third gig, Tecuani, as she had a previous engagement at Te Papa. This show was a Mexican dance show revolving around colonialism, human sacrifice, gods, ghosts, and other shit like that. 

The following night we went to see a show that we’d actually bought tickets for – The Fabulous Fabelinskys, at Te Auaha. This is a combination of circus and play, with the story centred on a family of three women who’ve just lost the patriarch and main performer of their circus act. It follows their trials, particularly at the hands of the nefarious circus-owner who exploits them; interspersed with demonstrations of their acts – hoops and harness, high ropes, and a clown, with a sword-swallowing finale. Does what it says on the tin, and probably the best thing that I’ve seen this festival. 

My final show was Hausdown, which is a Bridgerton-esque house party at a country estate. There are various shenanigans between the guest before they finally all come out and admit that the boys are in love with the boys, and the girls are in love with the girls. Enthusiastically performed, the actors camp it up in period costumes and generally have fun.

 

The Tempestuous

The Tempestuous is described as “A Shrew’d new comedy by Will Shakespeare and Penny Ashton”. Penny Ashton I’ve heard of, but who’s this other fella? It's currently showing at Circa Theatre.

Yes, Ms. Ashton is back! This time working in collaboration with William Shakespeare. Those of you with long memories may recall that she has worked with Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility, Austen Found, Promise and Promiscuity), and also Charles Dickens (Olive Copperbottom), and also that we’ve been to see all of these shows, as well as listen to her present at Te Papa. We’re definitely fans of her work, and with her taking on Shakespeare, this is definitely a must-see.

In the ordinary course of events we’d wait until Nicola was allocated a night of ushering at Circa, and I’d go along that night. However, Ashton is a huge draw card and I couldn’t risk the possibility of the show being sold out on the night she was working, so we booked ourselves in to go and see it on a non-working night. It did of course subsequently transpire that Nicola will be ushering later on in the run so she’ll get to see the show twice.

Although we’d arrived early with the intention of dining at the in-house facilities, these were somewhat thwarted by the fact that the kitchen is currently closed as they complete the rebuild of the theatre. All they had was cabinet food, including some pies. We considered going out elsewhere, but (a) we hadn’t booked, and (b) it was raining, so we contented ourselves with said pie and a muffin.

Circa Two now has allocated seating – it used to be a mad scramble for the best places - and as I’d booked early we were centre in the second row. As the show’s blurb hints, it’s loosely based on The Taming Of The Shrew, in that it involves a woman who does not wish to be wed, and certainly not wed to Duke Olivano, the candidate picked for her by her uncle Enzo, now king of Sicily. There’s a lot of allusions to other Shakespearean plays, with witches abounding, murders and poisonings, cross-dressing, a fool and a competition. Penny Ashton sings and dances all the roles, putting on different voices, affectations and poses, even a false moustache, to indicate who she is playing each time. This includes the main character, Rosa, her mother, Queen Carlotta, her father and her uncle; three suitors; a fool, a baker, and a nurse; and the witches. At one stage she co-opts two audience members into her coven to mix a magic potion; and later, brings another on stage to be one of the suitors, unfortunately knocked out in the first round of the game-show competition devised to select her husband, called “The Chaste”.

Shakespearean language, filthy jokes and modern references also abound (there’s a lot of abounding going on) and the whole jolly jape lasts around 90 minutes in a non-stop whirligig of action, drama and fun, (nearly) all in rhyming iambic pentametric verse! Go and see it if you can!

 At the end of the show Penny was outside selling merch, notably the now-infamous fridge magnets (or “meat safe magnets” as they are designated in the programme), and tea towels.

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.

 

Romesh Ranganathan

British comedian Romesh Ranganathan’s “Hustle” currently touring New Zealand. He’s familiar to us from various games shows on the telly, Taskmaster, hosting The Weakest Link, as well as his own specials on Netflix. Why not go along?

The show didn’t start until 8:00pm, so we had time for a leisurely dinner beforehand. We decided to try the current hot spot for dining in Wellington, the newly-opened Bouillon Bel Air. From the name, you can probably deduce that there’s a French theme to this place, and you’d not be wrong. A bouillon is a type of French restaurant that became popular in the late 19^th – early 20^th century in Paris, selling inexpensive but hearty meals for the workers in the city. In modern Wellington, this means no mains over $30.

We’d booked early, and it was a good job we did so as the place was absolutely heaving by 7:00pm. Possibly as a result of people dining before going to the same show as us? Anyway, the service was leisurely, probably due to this, but even so it wasn’t glacial, and allowed us to eat at a reasonable pace. I had snails and bouillabaisse, Nicola had the terrine and fish du jour (made with real du jours). Classic French food. It’s not haute cuisine, but then, it’s not trying to be. And what with the cozzie livs, reasonably priced.

We walked along Tory Street to the Opera House, and waited for Romesh. Normally there’s nothing going on before the show, but he’s brought along a mate, who enlivened the crowd by testing their knowledge of old-school hip-hop, practising cheers etc.

Then Romesh came on. I’m not going to repeat all his jokes, but tell you that he is extremely funny, and comes up with such gems as telling an employee at Disneyland about Chessington World of Adventures. “Gee that sounds amazing!” replied the employee. “Wait until they find out it’s Chessington Village of Disappointment”. He discusses the difficulties of modern life, with anecdotes from his days at KFC and his teaching career – where he locked a kid in a cupboard once – and how to communicate using animal noises. It was all great fun, and I’d recommend his show to everyone.

 

Two Girls One Gun

Two Girls One Gun is the latest production by Comedy Gold, aka Phoebe Caldeiro and Nina Hogg. It’s doing a one-week run at BATS Theatre. We’ve seen this duo in two previous productions, Cocked & Loaded, and When Booty Calls. Based on our past experience, we knew what we were in for this time, as they take on the spy genre.

But first, as always, dinner. I’ve been trying to get into Koji for a while now – since I first noticed it, in fact. It’s a sister restaurant to Rosella, which we’ve been to a few times, located on the ground floor on Majoribanks Street in Mount Victoria. Unfortunately it is highly popular as a local restaurant for the denizens of Mount Vic, so this time I booked well in advance and secured a table. It’s Japanese-inspired shared plates, and our waiter tried to entice us into their “Just Feed Me” option (which Rosella also do) but time constraints led us to selecting from the menu, where we had oysters (natch!), salmon pie tee, roasted broccoli, dumplings and beef carpaccio. All very good, and we tried their oriental cocktails as well – mine was a martini with sake and yuzu-infused vodka, Nicola had a yuzu, grapefruit and infused tequila concoction. We’ll definitely be back, and will make time for the feed me option.

BATS is just around the corner, so we trotted round and arrived with plenty of time. As we entered the auditorium, both performers were dangling from the ceiling on Mission Impossible-type rigs, doing various twirls with greater or less success. Then the lights went down, they released themselves from the harnesses, and the show began.

The opening sequence sounds a lot like (but not enough to infringe copyright) a James Bond theme, and the two actors do a creditable imitation of the opening titles to a Bond film. The basic plot is that agent Vaja Steele has been demoted from MI6 to MI3.5, and isn’t happy about it. To try to get her old job back, she undertakes a mission to recover a drive which contains details of all of MI6’s agents. The mission fails, and her partner and friend Lorraine is killed. After the funeral, the undeterred Vaja tries again, and encounters a Russian agent, Titsa Dynamite, who tells her that not only does the drive contain MI6’s details, but also those of Russian SVR agents. So begins Vaja’s greatest challenge to date: teamwork!

As usual, the dialogue is peppered with double entendres, single entendres, and various references to spy movies – Bond, Bourne and MI all get a look-in, and even Atomic Blonde and Evelyn Salt get a mention. The fight scenes are well choreographed, and also the obligatory gymnastics-through-the-laser-alarm-system routine, where fortunately they find the cleaners’ off switch. I mean, the cleaners can’t do gymnastics, can they? There’s also a reference to the “Apparition Arrangement”. “You mean the Ghost Protocol?” “No, there’s too much copyright!” Again, music reminiscent of Mission Impossible plays, but not quite close enough to infringe.

It's all a jolly jape, and only lasts 50 minutes. But as the blurb says, it has more jokes and punches per minute than any other spy-comedy debuting at BATS Theatre in July. And you can’t really ask for more than that.

 

Dawn French Is A Huge Twat

Her words, not mine – this is the name of Dawn French’s new show. I say “new”, like many performers she’s finally brought it to New Zealand, after first performing it around the UK in 2022 and 2023, along with her book, The Twat Files.

The show sold out two nights at the Michael Fowler Centre almost immediately, so a third show was announced, for Monday night. Being a Monday, dining options were necessarily limited as many venues aren’t open. This was exacerbated by the fact that I’d done nothing in the way of advance planning, so by the time I looked for availability at two of our go-to places, there was none…all booked out by Dawn French fans, presumably. Instead, we took a punt on one of Wellington’s institutions, Great India, who’ve been around since, oh, ages ago. They do your standard Indian restaurant food, to a very high quality, so we enjoyed that. Must go there more often!

 

The show is about how Dawn has embarrassed herself, over the years, in a number of different ways. It’s a retrospective of her career in TV, film and on stage, as well as other excerpts from her life, in which she has behaved in a way that makes her cringe now. Much of it was supported by videos or photos pertaining to the incident in question, including her appearance at Elton John’s fancy dress party, which she attended with then-husband Lenny Henry – he as Michael Jackson (in white-face!) and she as Bubbles. She also related stories about auditions for roles, some of which she’d got, and some of which she’d failed to get; notably, a role in musical Mamma Mia!, as, despite her insistence that she can sing, she can’t actually, you know, sing. Not in tune, anyway. Other incidents include misunderstanding her doctor’s diagnosis for her knee, and a bizarre meeting backstage with Dustin Hoffman.

The show finishes with a musical number, as she sings As Long As He Needs Me, from Oliver! Naturally, she’s terrible, but she still gets a huge round of applause.

An Unfunny Evening With Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin is back in town! It’s been a while since we last saw him – 2019, in fact – so of course we had to go and see him again. Tim Minchin’s appeal does appear to be a bit patchy…obviously, we’re fans, but when my barber asked what I was up to and I mentioned going to see him, he’d never heard of him. Similarly, when I bumped into a Zealandia colleague in town who enquired what we were going to see, again it was “who he?” Both of these are young persons, so maybe it’s a generational thang. As is saying “thang”.

 I’d wanted to go to Koji for dinner, but they had no availability so we ended up back at Rosella again, which we’d enjoyed last time we went there. There’s been no change, but we did manage to select some different menu items this time (although I still had oysters to start). Then it was a short walk  up Courtenay Place to St James Theatre for the show. 

Waiting for Timot

Tim Minchin is known for his humorous songs. As he explained at the beginning, he hadn’t set out to be a comedian, and had started out in a band with his brother, before becoming more comedy-based, and also taking up acting. So tonight’s show was not going to be his usual comedy routines and songs, but a selection of songs, old and new, with various levels of sincerity, pathos, and bathos…including some from his musicals, Matilda and Groundhog Day. Did you know he was responsible for those? He’s a man of many talents. He did warn us in advance about how sincere each song was, giving us a value on a scale of one to ten. So this was a set of unfunny songs, punctuated, as usual, by Tim’s musings and ramblings on any number of subjects, his acting career, the background to the songs, and anything that popped into his head, really.

On the poster and other publicity materials it does say that “artist may inadvertently amuse”. This is a lie. The amusement was definitely advertent. And amusing it was, too, as the evening ran on, finally ending up almost half an hour longer than the advertised run time. No, I’m not complaining. It was a great fun evening, and if it comes anywhere near you, you should go and see it.

Dara Ó Briain

It’s raining comedy in New Zealand! Hot on the heels of Bill Bailey comes Ireland’s finest, Dara Ó Briain. As you can tell from the picture, his tour is ending in New Zealand, not beginning.

Dinner first: we booked The Old Quarter, a modern Asian place on Dixon Street. They specialise in Vietnamese food; they also specialise in serving you quickly and turning over tables. We made a rookie mistake of ordering our drinks and food at the same time, and the food started arriving before our cocktails were ready! Next time, we’ll order cocktails and not do the food until they’ve arrived. All of it was delicious, however, and we even had time for a dessert.

It’s just up the road from St James Theatre, so in a matter of moments we were in the foyer with time on our hands. On this occasion we had eschewed the cheap seats and booked into the dress circle (there’s also a grand circle), and settled in for Dara to begin.

When Dara Ó Briain does stand-up, he doesn’t have anything on the stage, except a stand with some water on it. This, we found out later, has its drawbacks. Much of his show is stream of consciousness, and he disappears off on to wild tangents before dragging himself back to the story he was telling. He also did some audience interaction, meeting people in the front row and basically taking the piss out of their jobs (there was a hypnotherapist, an animal experimenter, and a civil servant, amongst others).

Anyway, he’s pleased to be back in Wellingon, if only because the Cable Car is working now. On his first visit in 2019 it was out of action, being repaired. “But don’t worry, there’s a replacement bus service”, said the attendant. Dara then explains “I don’t have a meeting at the top of the Cable Car that I have to get to, I just wanted a go on the Cable Car.” But now he’s happy.

The second half of the show takes a different tack. After first regaling us about the joys of visiting a theme park, with rollercoasters and the like, mere days after undergoing knee surgery, he realised he’d missed out a bit of his show. He ran off stage to collect his exercise book, and started leafing through it, eventually pulling out a swathe of papers. He then proceeded, for around half an hour, to give us a harrowing tale of the privations suffered under Irish law, by anyone who was adopted. And why they were adopted. This all came from having watched a film called Philomena, which he heartily recommends, as do I. Because (spoiler alert), it turns out Dara is adopted, and he detailed the Kafkaesque Irish bureaucracy involved in getting information about the woman who “gave you up” for adoption. Like many Irish phrases, “giving up for adoption” is a euphemism that disguises the horrendous truth (cf. “The Troubles”) that these women had their babies taken from them forcibly, and often sold to Americans. Yes, sold. This was in the latter part of the 20^th century. It’s a very moving story, and fortunately one with a happy ending, which is not the usual outcome.

But it’s all a bit of a downer. This is supposed to be a comedy show! So Dara then brings us back with an upbeat, uplifting story about an audience member in Canada, to cheer us all up! And then he leaves the stage, before coming back for an inevitable encore about how he was asked for a seven-minute segment to trail his show, and how this was impossible, because it takes him an hour just to say “hello”.

Bill Bailey: Thoughtifier

That old card Bill Bailey has gotten into the habit of starting his tours in New Zealand. It’s a sad fact of life that many acts, both comedians and music, will start off their tours in Europe & America, and don’t get to New Zealand until (sometimes) several years later. Not so Mr. Bailey, though…in fact, at one point during his show, as he railed against the incompetencies of UK politicians, someone heckled him “Emigrate!”, and he shared his serious thoughts on how he’d considered moving to New Zealand at one point. He loves New Zealand!

But I digress. Obviously, you want to know where we went for dinner beforehand? We went to Mr. Go’s, a perennial favourite, who have now relocated to larger premises on Eva Street. The food, however, has remained to the same high standard, and we had my favourite, Korean chicken wings, along with broccolini, dumplings, and “typhoon shelter” prawns – because they’re like a typhoon for the taste buds!

Bill (we’re mates) was on at the Michael Fowler Centre, which has a bigger capacity than St James Theatre...and also, crucially, more comfortable seats! Nevertheless, he’d had to book an additional night – we were on the second show of the two, on Monday night. I’ve since spoken to some people who went on the previous night, and there were definitely elements of our show that weren’t in theirs – a testament to his ability to ad-lib and concoct hilarious moments without needing to just stick to a script. Many of his quips were tailored specifically for a New Zealand audience, including constant digs at Palmerston North, and always referring to this gig as being in “Wellington and the surrounding areas”.

As ever, the show involves a lot of music, and this time round he’d come equipped with MIDI balls. These are bouncy balls, wirelessly connected to a computer, which play a sound whenever they are bounced or hit. He distributed some of these to the audience (in the front row, natch), to play the drum line, whilst he played the guitars on another pair of balls himself. Obviously, there's a comedy moment to be had about playing with one 's balls. Another instrument he introduced was the laser harp – a series of laser beams are the strings, and he plays it by “plucking” them – a note is played when he interrupts the beam. He also plays more traditional instruments, including walking around the house and doing everything in the death metal style. Also, a madrigal interlude based on Henry VIII’s meeting with Anne of Cleves – clearly a comedy goldmine! And a rendition of Habenera from Carmen, with subtitles which he felt more accurately reflected the content of the aria; with the assistance of Deborah Wai Kapohe.

Another area he explored in some detail was the emergence of AI. He has built some AI clones of himself and asked them questions, and also deals with some ChatGPT live on a screen. He’s unconvinced by the idea that AI will be taking over the world soon, and demonstrates why.

As ever, two hours of howlingly funny, intelligent comedy. If you can get to it, do – he’s playing the UK and Ireland from February next year.

 

 

Dracula’s: The Resurrection

What is Dracula’s? According to its website, it was “born in a dark, dingy Melbourne laneway in 1980, and four decades later has sold over five million tickets…leaps like a feathered zombie show girl - from the crypt!” In Australia, it has a fixed venue on the Gold Coast, with a dinner and a show. For the tour, there’s no dinner – although their signature cocktails were available, served in blood bags. It’s best described as a comedy gothic cabaret show. What’s not to like?

It’s on at St James Theatre for three nights and a matinee, and has also toured the rest of New Zealand. Before the show, two of the cast are patrolling the foyer in full makeup and costume, interacting with the audience. The show started with a bang, and a rendition of Sympathy For The Devil. The show contains “strobe lighting, haze, fog/smoke effects, simulated pyrotechnics, strong language, partial nudity, and adult themes”. As well as the cabaret elements, there was a circus-style act with aerial silk, and a lot of singing and dancing. The performers are all very technically accomplished. The more comedic acts included one with two men and two bath towels…and nothing more. The first half ended on the song When I Was A Sperm.

The second half continued in the same theme, and finished with a musical medley, beginning with a puppet version of Bohemian Rhapsody, then live versions of Let’s Go Crazy and Let’s Dance. All jolly good fun, and we emerged blinking into the afternoon sun.

Public Service Announcements

Every three years, New Zealand holds a general election (I know!), and every three years, to mark this, Circa Theatre puts on a show called Public Service Announcements, in which they generally poke fun at the whole party politics and electioneering process. As part of Nicola’s ushering duties, we went along on a Thursday night to see what it was all about. 

The show has a plot, sort of, revolving around Chloe Swarbrick’s defection to Te Pāti Māori. Mostly it’s about the jolly japes of party politics, with a few contemporary references thrown in. Without knowing the minutiae of New Zealand politics, it’s difficult to explain why James Shaw is being presented as the sensible one of the Green Party, or why waka-jumping* is such a heinous crime (in the eyes of some). Ginger Chris (or Chris With Hair), zooming about the stage on a skateboard, is portrayed as being mates with Bald Chris; and there is Judith CollinsGPT as an AI bot. Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters also get walk-on parts.

It's a bit hit-and-miss, with lines being thrown out left, right, and centre in the hope that some of them stick, rather than being funny all the way through. There’s the traditional digs at the in-fighting of the Green Party, Te Pāti Māori, and the minor minor parties. In the end, it’s all a laugh, if only in parts. Don’t take it too seriously.

 

 

* Known as “crossing the floor” elsewhere, i.e. joining a different political party.

Ailments

It seems like an age since we last saw Hayley Sproull live on stage. A quick glance back through my blog reveals that it was 2018! Since that time, Hayley has been, well, busy! She’s starred in Golden Boy, Educators and Funny Girls, hosts her own show HYBPANZ, co-hosts New Zealand Bake-Off and ZM Radio’s breakfast show, is a regular on shows such as Seven Days, Patriot Brains and HYBPAA, and is generally everywhere. No wonder she doesn’t have time for standup!

 But she’s managed to make a hole in her schedule to return to her home town, Wellington, and perform her new show, Ailments. This is a musical show about, unsurprisingly, her ailments. And there are a lot of them! After doing a quick lap of the auditorium to say hello to everyone, she starts with a song (with a very long intro – so she can get her breath back) which basically lists all the things that are, or have ever been, wrong with her. This is a rich source of comedy as she shares, and overshares, her number of kidneys (below the accepted average), the shape of her uterus, and the effects that her recent diagnosis of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) has had upon her body, including weight gain which has led to her having proper boobies at last! Yay! But also bingo wings (boo!); hair growing everywhere, except upon her head, where it falls out instead. She throws light on the treatments for hair growth and how there’s always “extras” added to the bill…like you’re going to leave your toes hairy after doing your legs. Yup, that costs more. She interspersed her musings with a handful of songs, and left us wanting more. It’s an our-long show but feels like it’s longer. Definitely worth the wait, don’t leave it so long next time!

 

Skyduck

Skyduck is subtitled as a Chinese Spy Comedy. Sounds fun? You bet. It’s on at Circa until the end of the week, so we popped along to see it.

Nicola was on ushing duties again, so we decided to dine in at Circa’s restaurant, where they do a mean dumpling with spicy sauce. Only they mixed up our order (how? It was two plates of dumplings!) and brought us steamed vegetables instead. So sorry, here, have the vegetables on the house, we’ll bring your dumplings in 10 minutes. Anyway, we felt much healthier after eating the free vegetables, and enjoyed our slightly delayed dumplings.

The show is written and performed by Sam Wang. Around half of it is in Chinese, but fortunately, there’s subtitles. This is all part of the multimedia experience of the show, which also includes visual effects, music, puppetry, and loads of other DIY theatrical effects. It basically documents the efforts of a team of Chinese spies (Yan and Chang, both played by Wang) to steal the code for a US flight simulator game in the 1990s. Opposing him are the American CIA agent Commander Kendrick, (voiced in a bad imitation of Donald Trump), and the leader of the Australian Air Force’s Aerobatics Display Team, all played by Wang. The performance is peppered with 90s music and references from Top Gun, The Matrix and Inception. He also showcases some extremely complex machinery that he’s built that perform multiple functions in the show. It’s all a jolly jape, so if you get the chance, give it a go!

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!

 

Cocked And Reloaded

Back to BATS Theatre, this time to see Cocked And Reloaded. Oo-er, missus, that sounds a bit rude! Well, yes it is. From the same people who brought us When Booty Calls, this is a tale from the Wild West.

The show didn’t start until 7:30pm so we decided to risk it and not book a restaurant, and instead see what there was on offer around the lower Courtenay Place area. We soon settled on Indian Alley, a somewhat upmarket Indian restaurant. We had fairly standard fare there, but it was well done, and with Kingfisher on tap to wash it down it was very acceptable.

We then trotted around the corner to BATS, a little early as it happened, so we sat in the bar doing the crossword for a bit. Some of the cast came into the bar in costume, and we reckoned they might be selecting victims willing participants for the play, so we scurried into the theatre and took seats where we were unlikely to be called on. Turned out to be an unnecessary precaution, but we were handed a numbered envelope by Daisy, on arrival. When I say numbered, they were just 1, 2 or 3. We were told to hang onto these until directed to open them.

The action unfolds in Madame Fiz’s bar in the Wild West town of Spork, where there is a shortage of non-alcoholic beverages. Indeed, all the beverages have been replaced by…beans! Madame Fiz and Daisy set out on a mission to find out who's behind it. For this, they need to locate Spork's missing sheriff, whilst Mandy Mayor keeps the peace in town. Fiz (short for Efizabeth) enlists the aid of town drunk and washboard player, Moonshine Porridge, to assist in their quest. With no horses, they have to walk through the desert, and they are waylaid by bounty-hunting triplets. There’s fights, physical comedy, action, a lot of whipcracking, contemporary jokes and breaking of the fourth wall, as the protagonists work out their issues and discover the truth about their pasts, on the path to true love. It’s a rollicking good ride and well worth the wait at the end, when we find out what’s in the envelopes, and what we’re supposed to do with them.