On a mission today, looking for textile jacket and trousers for biking, mainly for Louise – I’ll look for mine once I know we’re staying.
In the car to MotorMart (BMW dealer) and TSS Red Baron in the Hutt valley then on to Wellington to check out Leather Direct on Cuba St. Lovely staff!
I parked the car up by the Southern Cross Apartments on Abel Smith St again, after dropping Louise halfway down Cuba St so she could get to the shop without so much walking.
The shop was boiling, or at least when you’re trying on full wet weather textile clothing complete with quilted inners it is! Louise did find a 100% waterproof jacket and trousers though, so she’s sorted now! She also found that entering the UK debit card as a credit card allowed the use of the UK banks too (with a pin) – Result!
I’d asked Louise to be ready enough to stay in Wellington for the evening – it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow after all!
We stopped at the Hotel Bristol in Cuba St for a few wets and then for a meal. We had the wets outside watching the world go by – Cuba St is a nice place to do that, lots of variety. We had the meal inside though – Louise had a seafood basket and I had an open steak sandwich. Both meals were gorgeous and we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy.
By now, Louise was getting “a little bit interested” in what we were up to. I’d returned to the car with the shopping earlier (while she got the first drinks), so she had nothing to occupy her mind….
I spilt the beans on the way down Cuba St, we were off to a show called “Busting Out” at the Opera House. I wasn’t really sure what we were in for, but all the reviews had said it was hilarious! We stopped outside the Opera House for a coffee, mainly cos I’d planned to be there early to pick up the tickets. If you’ve ever been to a London show and picked the tickets up on the night, this can be quite a long wait and a lengthy experience.
Ok, so two minutes after walking in through the doors, we were outside again with tickets in hand and it was still only just gone 7pm…..that’ll be an excuse for a latte from the theatre cafe come bar then! Quite a surprise to find that the drinks weren’t all that expensive for a theatre either – London theatres take note please!
Rather than give a blow by blow of the titillating experience of the evening, I thought I’d just quote a review of the show and let you look it up yourselves if you want to know more.
Busting Out! was created by Emma Powell, evolving from a one woman show she wrote for the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2006. Performed with Bev Killick (the blonde one), it is a mixture of stand up, skits, music and even a bit of dance.
The third presence on stage is the BreastCam operator whose job is to film the things that then appear on the big screen upstage. Before the show began she turned the camera on the audience much to their delighted discomfiture. Andy Warhol was right: we do love our few minutes of fame.
Seriously folks, this show is hilarious. You can’t help but laugh even if you are shocked. Bev Killick opens with about 30 minutes of stand up comedy. She covers life with a teenager and a toddler, growing up in Townsville where the men outnumber the women 10 to one, the advantages of big pants over g-strings and how Tina Turner could advertise tinned tuna.
She does all this at the top of her lungs in an accent that could remove rust at 100 metres, and a ribaldness of terminology that only a fair dinkum Aussie would dare to use. But bless her, she goes right to the heart of the matter. Especially about the undies!
The second part of the show is Busting Out! Emma and Bev do things with their boobs that make women wince and men gasp. My personal favourite is Emma’s heartfelt rendition of a song called “Mammaries” that doesn’t sound even remotely like a certain hit song from Cats (yeah right!) during which Bev appears in a cat suit and provides a counterpoint of genuine cat behaviour; the kind T S Eliot chose to ignore.
Powell is a talented singer and has been in several musicals, and my friend commented that she would have enjoyed a whole concert of just listening to her fabulous voice!
The other comic highlight for me was the shadow puppetry. Projected onto the back screen were depictions of things it’s nearly impossible to imagine started out as two women and four breasts!
This show is not for the prudish. It’s not the bare breastedness of it, it’s the unabashed Aussiness of the humour that reached into my Presbyterian Scottish ancestry and pulled out a disapproving, “What do you expect from convict stock!” It is this element that will barely pass or totally fail some Kiwi’s tastefulness test.
But I confess I was a little ashamed of my inner Scot, especially when a Scottish primary school friend of mine was spotted on stage at one point demonstrating how fast she could remove her bra without taking her top off. (But she did come from Glasgow, from mammary, oops memory.)
Which reminds me, there is audience participation but it is quite safe and no-one has to bare anything they don’t want to, not even their soul!
The nearly full house thoroughly enjoyed themselves and there was plenty of laughter throughout.
This is a clever, funny piece of theatre with a popular appeal that goes far beyond the usual theatre going audiences. So tuck your colonial forebears in with a cup of cocoa and head to it without them, they won’t miss it but you probably shouldn’t.