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?

Promise And Promiscuity

As you might expect, the New Zealand International Comedy Festival, which is in full swing at the moment, is mainly focussed on stand-up comedians with the occasional double act or group thrown in for good measure. But there are also some other things going on. One of these is a new musical by Jane Austen (and Penny Ashton) called Promise And Promiscuity, performed at the Circa Theatre. With a title and pedigree like that, how could we not go?

As you might expect, the show, a one-woman performance by Penny Ashton, is loosely based around the novels, manners and mores of characters from the works of Jane Austen. It features Miss Elspeth Slowtree and how she finds a husband. Penny Ashton also plays all the other characters in the production, including her mother and sister, her snorting cousin, aunt, and other incidental characters. Many of the lines and scenes from Austen's novels are worked into the narrative, although sometimes subtly changed, such as the use of Lower Huttington Grove, the writer Wilbur Smythe, and the absolute authority on manners, Miss Kimberline Kardashian. There are also many references to modern-day issues such as pay inequality, "but I'm sure that won't be the case 200 years from now" as Miss Slowtree frequently quips, in asides to the audience. Interspersed with the narrative are several humorous songs and at one stage, audience participation is required from an unfortunate chap in the front row.

The show lasts about 70 minutes with no interval. In the programme the notes read: Writer/Performer/Publicist/Producer/Production Design/Concept/Bonnetter: Miss Penny Ashton (I'm quite tired).

If you know your Austen, you will enjoy this production. If you don't know your Austen, you'll still enjoy this production! If the closest you've got to Austen is Bridget Jones's Diary, you'll still appreciate it.

 At the end of the show, Penny gave a quick speech about the production, and exhorted us to tell all our friends. This is running at Circa until 21st May, so if you get a chance go and see it. Later in the year she's taking it to Canada and Edinburgh,

Afterwards she was available for photos and also selling her fridge magnets, which we thought worth the $5 cost:

Quarter Life Crisis

Another cheap Wednesday, another comedy night. This time it’s to the Cavern Club on Allen Street, there to see newcomer Louise Beuvink with her show, Quarter Life Crisis.

As is traditional, we went out for dinner first. This time we headed up to the 7^th floor of the Copthorne Hotel on Oriental Parade, to dine with views out over Wellington Harbour in their One 80 restaurant. Generally speaking, hotel restaurants are mediocre, but Wellington does boast a handful of decent ones: Hippopotamus at the Museum Hotel is the standout, but One 80 has always provided us with above-average fare, and we’ve been back a few times since I first sampled their Ostrich burger during Wellington On A Plate 2013. (Artisan would also join that list if they could get their wait staff to do some actual service.)

We walked back to the Cavern Club with a bit of time to spare, and grabbed ourselves seats near the back. Louise Beuvink came on stage, and immediately offered us directions to the toilets, as these are located…behind the stage. She then started telling us about her life. It probably comes as no surprise that she is 25 years old, and has made the heroic presumption that she will live to be 100. This, she admitted, was only because it gave the show a catchy title: 30% of the way to 83 doesn’t quite trip off the tongue so well.

One of her key messages was how she’d had to re-learn some of the things she’d been taught when younger. Her childhood ambition to be a Spice Girl having been thwarted (she read us the letter she sent to the Spice Girls, aged seven at the time), she gave us a short version of her life at various schools and how she ended up at Otago University. The “start again at a new school” story was particularly vivid, as she improved the School Ball experience for just about all present. She also confessed her fear of the noise made by plane toilets, then digressed on to the Mile High club, which provided quite a bit of amusement, as the only two audience members who would publicly admit to membership were gently coaxed to give a few more details:

Louise Beuvink: “Was it with your partner, or a random person?”

Mile High Club Member 1 (male): “Random”

MHCM2 (female): “Random”

LB: “Which airline?”

MHCM1: “Emirates”

MHCM2: “Yes, Emirates as well”

LB: “When was this?”

MHCM1: “Last April”

MHCM2: “Last April”

LB: “Where were you flying to?”

MHCM2: “Don’t say Dubai, don’t say Dubai”

Fortunately for her, it wasn’t Dubai.

Now, I don’t know how much of that was set up in advance, but it was pretty good.

Other highlights were telling us how she’d rejected various careers based on the advice of her father: “there’s no money in that.” Eventually she ended up at an advertising agency, and hated it. Setting herself free and becoming a stand-up comedian was another behaviour that she had had to re-learn.

The finale of the show was a long and winding tale about how she met her boyfriend, and how he puts up with her shit. Including, presumably, her telling the story of how he puts up with her shit. Now we all know. If you want to find out what kind of shit he has to put up with, go see this show!

Brine Storm

The International Comedy Festival is upon us once again, and we’ve booked to see a number of performers. There’s the usual mix of well-known TV presenter-type comics performing – Rhys Darby, Urzila Carson and all the 7 Days regulars; but as we’ve enjoyed seeing people who’re a bit less well-known in the past (Worst German Ever and Eastend Cabaret last year, for example), we (I) decided that we’d go see a few unknowns. A while back I booked Guy Williams, who’s pretty well-known these days for his antics on Jono And Ben, but the rest, well, a theme started to emerge. You may spot a pattern over the coming weeks.

But first, the ever-important before-party: dinner at Boulcott Street Bistro. I’ve been to BSB many a time, especially in 2013 and 2014 when our offices were temporarily relocated to a building directly opposite: we’d organise impromptu lunches (and, indeed, some promptu ones) to take advantage of their $20 lunch deal. BSB is also the home of the T Rex Burger, the winning entry in 2012’s Burger Wellington competition. But we’ve not been there in the evening for mumble-mumble years, so, armed with our rapidly-expiring 2015 Entertainment subscription, we headed there for an evening of full-on debauchery. I mean, dinner.

First up, to the cocktail list, and my eye was immediately caught by the Heisenberg Martini. Given my current facial hirsuteness (in imitation of Walter White), how could I resist? The cocktail contains some of the standard ingredients of a martini (gin and vodka both) but also a dash of sherry and white chocolate, which gave it an interesting taste. Garnished it was, with three blue cheese-stuffed olives. An interesting cocktail, and one bound to cause uncertainty wherever it goes. I veered from the usual with my starter – a goat’s cheese and beetroot salad, then stuck with tradition and went for the eye fillet, followed by chocolate mousse – very Paris Hilton (rich and thick). Nicola had the seared tuna starter, arancini balls and banana caramel crepe.

After moving the car to a more convenient location, we walked the short distance to BATS Theatre, there to see Alice Brine perform Brinestorm. Alice informed us early on that she suffered from ADHD, and after about 15 minutes of being distracted by various things, got around to telling us what it was actually like to have ADHD, and her adventures with Ritalin. She was diagnosed late whilst at school, because she didn’t fit the usual pattern of ADHD, as she (a) wasn't male, and (b) didn’t throw chairs at teachers. Finally, she was prescribed Ritalin (or “methamphetamine”, “speed”, “P” as it’s known to everyone else) and learnt all the jargon about being neurotypical or otherwise. “If you haven’t heard the term “neurotypical” before, it means you are”.

At this point she unveiled her “brinestorm” – a large confection of cardboard on which she’d written down some of the things in her head. There were a lot.

She then regaled us with tales of her childhood, university life, flatting with 6 other women – a big piece on use of the bathroom mat here - and living with ADHD for the 40 minutes in the morning before the effects of the drugs kicked in. We found out about banjo strings in ways that we really didn’t want to know, and what people from the Hutt do when they’re in trouble. It was all delivered in a rapid-fire stand-up style, with the occasional haiku thrown in for good measure. Her definition of the haiku stretched a little beyond the conventional, it would be fair to say.

Alice Brine is relatively new on the stand-up scene, but I hope she’ll be around for years to come. If you get the chance, get to see this show.

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? ;-) ).  

The Stranglers

Logan Brown, texture like sun

Lays me down, with my mind she runs

That’s an early draft of the song which went on to become The Stranglers’ paean to heroin use, Golden Brown. Well, no it isn’t…I just like the confluence of the lyric with one of Wellington’s premier eateries. Where else could we go for dinner before seeing The Stranglers?

The gig didn’t start until 8:30 so we were able to relax and do the full a la carte, no need to be rushed into the pre-theatre menu. I had Bluff oysters and the fillet steak, whilst Nicola had pāua ravioli and crispy skin gurnard. What can I say? They never fail to be anything other than excellent. For pudding I had the apple tart with accompanying cocktail, a gingembre mandorla, made with brandy, ginger and amaretto:

We then walked along Cuba Street to the Opera House, to see The Stranglers perform. They do so without the assistance of Hugh Cornwell, former singer and guitarist who left the band in 1990. Original members Jean-Jacques Burnel on bass, Dave Greenfield on keyboards, and Jet Black on drums, are now augmented by Baz Warne.

The support act was Ed Kuepper, apparently an Australian punk rocker (The Saints) of similar vintage to The Stranglers. He played some of his songs which were, no doubt, familiar to his followers.

At around half past nine, the lights went down again and The Stranglers kicked off. And I do mean kicked off. They came out fighting with Toiler On The Sea, Straighten Up, and (Get A) Grip (On Yourself). At this point Baz stopped for breath and said "hello Wellington", and invited us all to get up off our arses, before observing that we'd already done that! Very unusual for a Wellington Opera House audience, I thought - they usually sit still and politely applaud. After that "old school" start, I figured they were going to get some of the classics in before hitting us with the "N" word. But in fact, they didn't do any such thing. Whilst not a  "heritage" act, they didn't distinguish between new material and the older stuff. True, the set leant heavily towards the 70's with over half the songs coming from the first four albums, but there were representative songs from pretty much all their intermediate albums, including the most recent. A lot of them were the singles, particularly the early stuff, but there was a lot of album tracks as well - standouts such as Tank, Curfew and I Feel Like A Wog. Early singles were well represented - Peaches, the inevitable Golden Brown, Nuclear Device, Nice 'n' Sleazy, and Duchess; but later singles such as 96 Tears, Strange Little Girl, European Female didn't make the cut. Apart from slowing down for Golden Brown and Always The Sun, it was pretty well a high energy, high octane set. 

The first encore was the two cover versions with which they've had single success - Walk On By and All Day And All Of The Night. The second encore was the anthemic Go Buddy Go, and they finished up with No More Heroes.

We spilled out into the night (this party had gone on past 11 o'clock!) and headed home, slightly deafened by the still-reverberating chords from Jean-Jaques' bass-playing. Definitely the best gig I've been to this year! (Checks blog...only gig I've been to this year.)