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.

 

Lemon Marmalade

When life gives you lemons…

I’ve made marmalade in the past, from oranges, grapefruit and even lemons. I turned to trusty Uncle Google for a recipe, and there seemed to be conflicting messages about lemon to sugar to water ratio, and also how to extract the pectin. So I’m going it alone. Let’s see how my recipe works:

1kg lemons

2kg sugar

2l water

I sliced and removed the pith and pips from the lemons, and put them in the water to soak overnight. To extract the pectin from the pith and pips I placed them in a small sieve in a small container of water. Most of the recipe books say “place the pith and pips in a small muslin bag” but who has those lying about the house? I mean, really? Hopefully this will work instead. And yes, the water is included in the 2l of water mentioned above. 

The next day, I added the pectin-rich water to the mix, and boiled the whole lot up for 1½ hours. At this stage it’s wise to put a saucer in the fridge for your set testing. I then added the sugar. At this point I put the jars into the oven to sterilise. Then I returned it to a fast boil for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan; and started testing for a set by putting a small amount on the saucer, letting it cool, and seeing if it wrinkles when you push it with a spoon – the classic way to check that it will solidify when it’s cooled. After three goes, it set, so total cook time was 2¼ hours. 

I let the mix cool down a bit before putting it into jars, which is always a messy business…for some reason some of it always dribbles down the outside of the jar. It made six jars. 

Crowded House

Crowded House last performed in Wellington in 2021 in a concert delayed by pandemia, after reforming a couple of years before (checks notes) back in 2019. We went along to see them then. Their second album since reforming, Gravity Stairs, was released earlier this year and they are now touring this album. They’re playing the TSB Arena in Wellington, so of course we got tickets to go see them.

 

Did I say “got tickets”? Therein lies a tale. Normally, the process for getting tickets is: go on ticketbastard, buy tickets, download tickets to Google wallet…job done. But Crowded House have, both this time and last time, issued souvenir tickets for you to stick in your scrapbook or whatever. They look like this: 

All well and good, but on the morning of the gig, I received the customary “important information about your concert” email from Ticketbastard, and I thought I’d better download my tickets, forgetting that they were sent by mail. I found this out as I checked my account. And, on the morning of the gig, no sign of any tickets! Contacting Ticketbastard is necessarily hard, as they don’t want you bothering them once they’ve got your money, but I persisted with their dreadful hold music until I got through to someone. They assured me that the tickets had been sent, and that they would email me a copy anyway, and if that didn’t arrive in time I’d be able to pick up ordinary tickets at the box office at TSB Arena by giving them my receipt number. OK then.

Here’s what actually happened: the email never arrived. The tickets did, in the Saturday morning post, which is cutting it a bit fine if you ask me, given the reliability of NZ Post. Anway, we had tickets.

I’d booked dinner at Bin44 as I’d been a bit remiss about booking things early. It’s an OK pub-grub style diner, with burgers and the like. I had a Korean chicken burger and Nicola went for the prawn risotto.

Across Queen’s Wharf to get to the TSB Arena and we arrived in time to watch the support act, Mel Parsons. She’s actually been around for quite a while, releasing six albums in the process. She performed a half hour set to sporadic polite applause.

Then on came the main event, preceded by Bowie’s Five Years over the speakers…because they reformed in 2019? Maybe. The set list contained quite a lot from the new album, naturally, and also some from albums I don’t have so there was a bit of unfamiliar material in there as well. But they soon got down to the classics and gave us all the old faves as well. 

And, as ever, when they came back on for an encore, they gave us a proper encore – five songs in total, four classic crowd-pleasers and one from the new album, and of course finishing up with the inevitable Better Be Home Soon. This may have been due to the fact that they’d deviated from the original set list when they started playing requests from the crowd towards the end of their performance, as some of those encore songs were probably scheduled before the break. The set list in full can be found here.

 

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!   

East Coast

We made an early start on the final leg of our Tasmania adventure, heading back to Hobart via the Freycinet peninsula. We’d been recommended a vineyard called Devil’s Corner, so plugged that in to Sattie, and followed her lead. We arrived shortly after 10 o’clock and checked out the tasting room. No-one there. We looked at the price list, and everything seemed to be designed around actually drinking the wines rather than tasting. Still no-one seemed inclined to talk to us so, after a quick climb of the viewing tower which gives views over the bay to the Hazard Mountains, we departed and headed to Coles Bay instead. 

We arrived at the Visitor Centre and talked to the staff there. Unfortunately, the short walk from there was closed due to a tree fall, so instead we drove out to Cape Tourville, there to admire the lighthouse and walk around it. We also stopped off at Sleepy Cove, which should really be called Death Stairs Cove. We spotted a lizard and a grey fantail, but that was about it for wildlife. It’s very picturesque as well.

We headed in to Coles Bay town centre for fish and chips at The Icecreamery, because one of the top 10 things to do in Tasmania is eat fish and chips, apparently. It’s well-known that fish’n’chips was invented in New Zealand, and after being exported to England in the 19^th century, then spread around the world from there. Then we had ice cream.

The final leg took us down the east coast before heading inland and making our way to our final night’s accommodation, Lenna of Hobart hotel, a heritage hotel on the outskirts of the Salamanca waterfront. But inside it’s nice and modern, and has working wi-fi! After resting awhile we headed down to the restaurant and bar area. It was, however, Saturday night, so the first couple of places we liked the look of were completely full. We ended up at La Mensa, an Italian restaurant which was slightly at the budget end of expectations.

So that’s about it for our Tasmanian adventure. We fly back tomorrow.

 

Woolmers Estate

The rain had set in overnight and looked like it was going to stay for the rest of the day. Our objective for the day was to find out about Woolmers Estate. This involved going to the Visitor Centre. Called the Gregory Bob Nigel Peck Centre, this serves as reception for the cottages, guided tours, restaurant and gift shop.

It opened at 10:00am, so we drove round (because rain) even though it’s literally at the bottom of the cottage garden. But there’s no way through on foot. We went on the guided tour with Paul, as the only two guests – unsurprising for the time of year and weather conditions. Paul took us through the outbuildings, then into the main house, explaining the history of the family who built it.

Thomas I's bedroom

Marjorie (Mrs Thomas V) redecorated in pink and florals

Two brothers arrived from England and, under the system in place at the time, each established a farm next to each other across a river. Thomas Archer was granted (i.e. given, for free) 800 acres of prime land, allocated 8 convicts on assignment as workers, and the government helped with clearing the land of those pesky people who’d been living there for thousands of years. He named it Woolmers Estate, after a similar estate in his home county of Hertfordshire. Thomas Archer the First (there were six in total, all called Thomas Archer) built the original house in the style of an Indian bungalow – highly inappropriate to the Tasmanian climate. The second phase of building began 20 years later in 1840, and made the house into an Italianate style, with impressive reception rooms, designed by Thomas II.

 

Dining room. Queens Victoria and Elizabeth both dined here 

Marjorie's (Mrs Thomas V) golf clubs

A remedy for snake bites. It doesn't work

Medicine cabinet

Thomas II died of scarlet fever before he could inherit; the house passed to Thomas III, who took little interest in it, and also managed to piss away most of the money. Thomas IV didn’t do much either, and it was under Thomas V the house was restored – principally by his wife, Marjorie, who had the whole place redecorated, plumbing put in, and eventually electricity. It is in her style that the house remains today. For a long period before she arrived the house had stood vacant on the land. The final Thomas, VI, was her only son, and he never married, living in just two rooms in the house and not changing anything in the rest, which is how it comes to be so well preserved today. He bequeathed the house to what is now the Woolmers Foundation, which owns and runs the estate today. 

A Texas longhorn chair

Drawing room. White mantelpiece indicates it's for ladies

An epergne

After the tour we revisited the Visitor Centre, and had a hot chocolate. As the weather remained inclement, we eventually had lunch there, then, in a brief break in the rain, inspected the rose gardens. We chatted to the staff there who gave us recommendations for places to eat in Longford of an evening (there aren’t many). Unfortunately the place recommended had a sign in the door saying they were fully booked, so we ended up getting a Chinese takeaway.