Well thanks very much Theatreview, "he handles the audience like a pro.." so he does my boyfriend.

Original Review


Dunedin Fringe 2012
GUSH: Love and Other Filthy Habits
with Penny Ashton and Matthew Harvey

at Fortune Theatre Studio, Dunedin
Until 23 Mar 2012
[1 hr]

Reviewed by Patrick Davies, 23 Mar 2012

A frequent visitor to Dunners, Penny Ashton always raises a good crowd and this was the case again last night in the Fortune Studio. A lot of repeat offenders wrangled their kin and friends to come and enjoy the titillating temptress who is never afraid to let rip on sex, love and boobs.

In Gush she has teamed up with her boyfriend Matthew Harvey to present an evening of poetry, song and fun. In this Fringe it is good to see a comedy show that has a bit of difference from the mainstream stand-up formats on offer. (No doubt there should be a forum on it: the place of stand up in Fringe festivals. Innovation? Experimentation? I don't think so.)

Anyhoo, resplendent in their finest nunnery, Ashton and Harvey take the stage to start a slide into the heavenly delights of love and the serious sins in our minds – well, their minds, the show's about them really. This is Harvey's first overseas Fringe and he handles the audience like a pro. His poetry is seemingly simple in construction but is laced with pun, metaphor and wildly hilarious observations about the world, him and his love: Penny.

Penny is at the top of her game. She easily slides in and around the audience poking a well placed nod at everything from the ones who are left behind to those c**nts who still think size matters. She plays us like a drunken slapper and we love it. Her patter is so sweet she takes us on her journey and before you know it we are surrounded by rhymes as we realise we're into another poem.

I have never heard so many geographical locations used as an aphrodisiac! This is not to say there are no still moments; her poem ‘Awesome' is a real spine-tingler that lets us into her heart.

Interspersed with their ol' ukuleles, a banjo and a guest instrument, the songs are just as whacky and funny, and both are in fine voice. While the topics range from our filthy habits and things Ashton and Harvey hate, they are always well constructed and beautifully performed poems that make us laugh and think about it at the same time.

The two highlights are each performer's love poems about the other: quite marvellous. The joy these two are having with each other spills onto the stage and gushes all over the audience.

If you like your comedy a little different, a little risqué and always fun, then this is a fabulous show to grab a group together for. Have a few bubbles and laugh your arse off, especially at the finale (Matthew – that was very courageous and brilliant)! Go see it.
_______________________________

I find when I am trying to stop an evil child kidnapping dictator, it's best that I writhe on the sand half naked... Charlie Sheen might want to date me too.

12 Years ago, I had short hair, some more pounds and was a Gynecologist. Follow my story arc.

Shortland St is 20 years old this year, here's my three days involvement's worth.

This is awesomely amazingly weird.

As yet another themed improv show approaches my thoughts once more return to the charming world of Jane Austen. We have performed Austen Found: The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen numerous times in the past 3 years in climes as varied as Adelaide, Wellington and Whakatane. And on Friday we shall be daintily treading the boards again but this time in a far more hostile environment.

This time there will be Zombies.

As they said on True Blood last night “Zombies are the new Vampires” and it’s true as they seem to have slimed up everywhere. Whether is be in Zomburlesque last week in Wellington, to taking over America in the Walking Dead to enmeshed in the pages of Pride and Prejudice by Seth Grahame-Smith.

If you weren’t aware the latter is a booked penned by Mr Smith which is 85% Jane Austen’s original P&P words and 15% Zombies. This idea of his has spawned a book option and the movie is in the pre-production stages with actresses from Emma Stone to Scarlett Johansson to Natalie Portman supposedly vying to wear Elizabeth Bennett’s bonnet complete with hidden samurai sword.

Many Janeites (as Ms Austen’s rabid fanbase are called) are up in arms at this prospect BUT we thought it was freakin hilarious and decided to adapt it to the stage dahhhhlink.

And our rehearsal yesterday was hilarious but it did get me thinking.

As a Regency woman of good breeding your life was totally fucking boring. You couldn’t say things like totally fucking boring, you had to align yourself to a man in order to survive due to entailment laws based on patriarchy, you were expected to cross-stitch and accomplish yourself with other accomplishments like learning French (which is curious as they were constantly at war with them), you have to play the pianoforte even if you had no musical aptitude, you had to learn musical aptitude, blah blah blah blah blah.

You could at least show a little cleavage unlike the Victorians to come BUT if you flashed an ankle you were the world’s biggest slut, to be overly educated was frowned upon as you might show up how dumb the boys were, Balls were the only thing to really look forward to, you had to marry people you didn’t like because class meant everything and the most galling to me, you had to have a chaperone.

I mean what the fuck. A chaperone!!! As a single girl I wanted a male chaperone quite a lot, especially after a few sauvignon blancs, I would have liked to be chaperoned quite hard, but to not be able to go out alone as the independent girl I am, well that would have earned a few “totally fucking boring”s at my beleaguered Pappa as I flashed my ankles and wore Capri pants to boot.

I like to think I would have been a trail blazer for women’s rights if I had been alive 200 years ago, and yes this was ONLY 200 years ago, but who knows what stifling constraints would have suffocated me. BUT I fancy the addition of Zombies to a Regency Lady’s life complete with Oriental Training, stiletto daggers and decapitation training would have meant things were a little less boring for a while.

And I know it will be very non-boring onstage.

Austen Found: Zombie Time. 9pm, Q Loft, October 21^st. Book at www.qtheatre.co.nz

A little something from 2003.

Occupy Sesame St



Brought to you by the Letters, W T and F.

Today I discovered a magical place. A place of luxurious lace stockings, slippery Saturdays, peek a boo panties and pink-sugary candy cotton bods.

No I didn’t disappear into the Playboy Mansion high on LSD and food colouring, I discovered the Twitter feed of one little Ms Courtney Stodden.

For those in the don’t know, Stodden makes up half of a newly wedded couple in domestic bliss. The other half is Doug Hutchison. An actor who has been around a while and has starred in Lost, The X Files, The Green Mile, 24, China Beach, Diagnosis Murder... blah blah blah.

Interestingly whilst he was playing Eugene Victor Tooms in the X-Files in 1994 his now wife was doing something else entirely. She was being born. Yup Doug is 51 years old and Courtney just turned 17.

Personally I too like a younger partner. My boyfriend is younger than me and it makes for virile times. SO he's only two years younger but hey so what. Two years, thirty-five years what's the difference?

Uh the difference is that if my boyfriend proposes he doesn't have to get a letter signed from his Mummy to say he can get married (Which they happily provided, WTF). If my boyfriend wants a legal drink he doesn't have to wait 4 years. And more importantly my boyfriend is mature enough not to tweet the pure and utter dribbling rainbows of concentrated crap that this chick tweets. OK so he doesn't always hang up the bathmat BUT his Facebook feed is intelligent and doesn't use the words "joyously join me in sweet conjunction." Thankfully, or I would be joyously taking my ass in the opposite direction faster than you can say negative IQ.

It is so tempting to blame the girl for being a total bimbo when the ADULT in this equation is the man..... but it's just so easy when she writes shit like this:

"Lubricating my limber legs with a creamy lotion that electrifies my luminescent captivation, lustrously. It's Slippery Saturday! XOs! ;-)"

That's SO what I do on Saturdays too. That and look up words that start with L.

or

"Saturated within a superb Sunday as Gods love beams brightly! "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear ... " 1 John 4:18"

Yup I see her vulva bulging through her bikini pics and I immediately think of John 4:18 too.

or

"Having a mysterious Monday morning by motioning myself to magnetic sensual melodies as I prepare for a brand new beautiful day! Mmmeow! ;-)"

Arrghhh she's alliterating to the point of justified homicide and ummmm is "motioning myself" code for taking a crap?

And just one more before you go to bed...

"As the day concludes... I salaciously caress the key that seductively unlocks nothing else... but the powerful pleasure... of the night. ;-)"

Adverbs must shake and tremble when Courtney starts to write, they get a bigger workout than her abs. And I presume she means she's masturbating here? What would John 4:18 make of that!

I tell you what though, boy is it catching. I can feel her starting to take over as I am tremulously typing my titillating truisms and tenderly tweaking this treatise on the towering tidal wave of totally turgid trash this tramp turns out.

BUT as I say she is 17, she has some growing up to do if cocaine and Charlie Sheen don't get her first. The dude is the deplorably despicable dickwad who indulges his delusions in her peek a boo panties and is a dinosaur doofus who deserves derision most definitely.

OK there I have said my piece, I am off to wash my mind out so those tweets don't settle and make me any more stupider and my Alliteration Levels can return to normal.

Canadian Politician Criticized For Showing Too Much Cleavage

This from the Jezebel Blog. Best I not go into Politics then, My cleavage is likely to swallow Prince Edward Island all together.

Imagine, if you will, that my mother was walking down the street when suddenly a group of yelling, pissed idiots with their faces painted called her a f**king wanker then spat on her.

You would be outraged for her would you not?

And yet that is exactly the type of behaviour displayed by numerous NZ'ers last weekend towards our neighbours and closest allies, all in the name tossing about a bit of pig-skin.

No I don’t mean a circumcision, I mean rugby.

My mother you see is Australian. That’s right she harks from Northern Queensland where strolling barefoot is an adventure sport, crocodiles are for riding and the phrase “Awww struth mate, me thong is up me arse” is not code for a wedgie, but something all together more exciting.

As such I have visited the world’s largest island numerous times, initially to see family and latterly to perform at various festivals. And guess what? They’re not a pack of flaming dick-head c**ts. OK so sure, there are some, I may even be related to some, but all I need to say is Michael Laws to prove we have our own special needs citizens.

Even more proof is the pack of dickhead c***s who spat on Australian fans and told them to “all f*** off back to Australia” who were reported in the NZ Herald. I mean really. I am so sick of all this bollocks. I had it growing up constantly with my Aunts and Uncles giving my Dad shit and him dishing it back three times as hard. Bloody Kiwis this, Bloody Aussies that. It was enough to make me run away to Auckland BUT I would never have done that because Auckland was a TERRIBLE place to live according to all other Cantabrians.

So instead I went to London to listen to the Scottish and Irish whinge about the English, and as tedious as that is too it made a bit more sense. So tell me, when did Australia slaughter a whole lot of NZ’ers and try to break their national spirit. When did Australia steal the Stone of Bolger and crown King Kevie on top of it to add vegemite to injury? When did the ambiguity of a cream meringue dessert’s origin cause mortal enmity? When did American’s mistaking Crowded House as Australian mean World War Three. (And let’s be honest 2 out of 3 band-members being Australian means they almost are, even if the NZ element wrote most of it.) And when was the bowling of one underarm ball an open indication of the imminent slaughter of all your first born?

Uhhh I’ll tell you when, never.

Instead we see a country who OK, may sometimes be condescending towards it’s smaller neighbour but they do have 5.36 times the population we do. After all Fiji is 4.79 times smaller than us and we have been known to judge Captain Bananarama. BUT more to the point they send help in earthquakes, they send mining equipment and expertise when asked, they send delicious pineapples and they sent my Mum.

So seriously leave the poor green and golds alone and stopping acting like dick-heads New Zealand. Let's rise above like a giant Pavlova, whilst playing Better Be Home Soon and tossing about a ball however we choose.

SO there.

PS However if someone does knee Richie McCaw in the head, well then maybe boo a little. Not that I care about sport anyways.

PPS The intra-parochial bullshit is dumb too, Auckland after all, is rather nice. More on that later I expect.

Nigella says what we have always thought she was thinking....

The funniest thing I have seen today. Check your music tracks people, check them well.

The Lovely NZ Suffragette, Kate Shepherd.

I was recently told when recording a voice over for a TV ad for a financial company, that it was lucky to have gotten this job. To be honest I always feel lucky when someone pays me to read words into a microphone. Voice Over work is brilliant. I stand in a small padded room whilst ad execs listen to my dulcet tines through their black clothes and tell me to smile more, be more friendly or, in the case of chocolate commercials, imagine you're lady parts are being pleasured quite emphatically.

Sorry where was I?

Oh yes, voice overs so I already knew I was lucky to be at this voice recording but when I was told why, I was less impressed.

You see when this enlightened marketing executive had told her Australian counterparts they were using a woman to sell their products those Fair Dinkum Dunderdoofers (scientific name) had exclaimed in an aghast fashion; "Oh but you can't use a female voice-over, people don't trust women."

Let's repeat that for fun; "People don't trust women."

Gee, the last time I looked 50% of "people" were women. Unless they were adopting that Canadian stance from pre-1928 that deemed women were not people and actually had to be changed by law. (Oh and while we're on the subject women in Quebec only got the vote in 1940, Switzerland in 1971 and Lichenstein in freaking 1984!)

SO in essence this man (and yes it was a man) was saying that we all distrust half of the world. Gee and just when I think we have come a long way along comes someone to make me go all Emily Pankhurst again. I guess that's why they didn't want us to vote all those years ago, in case we couldn't be trusted not to all vote for the McGillicutty Serious Party, or even worse ACT.

I wonder if this guy ever ran to his mummy when he scraped her knee? Or maybe he screamed when she approached, assuming her concerned expression was mocking laughter and the savlon she was waving was arsenic death paste. I wonder if he lets his girlfriend have her own eftpos card in case she causes another global recession. (Though that is highly unlikely, the last time I looked most of the "people" who fucked up the economy were men. It is also unlikely he has a girlfriend too I expect.)

Thankfully the Kiwi Marketing exec was more influenced by NZ's history of suffRAGE and went with me. Women here got the vote in 1893 in NZ and so I can do financial voicevers.

Though it's hardly all equality roses and no-sexist sunshine here. In the latest "Most trusted Poll" of NZers, there were only 4 women in the top 20. Still in the bottom ten there was only one woman too, depressingly suggesting that many people just don't bother to think about half the population at all.

Well hopefully when they turn on the tele and hear me, they'll appreciate a nice lady voice even if just for 30 seconds, and we can start to chip away at all those gender bullshit stereotypes.

So there.

SO on Friday night I hosted Carousel Burlesque in our fair Capital City and I thought some people might be curious to know what goes on backstage.

For those in the "don't know" Burlesque is an ancient art form where luscious ladies generally disrobe in a variety of permutations until their jugs are jubbling about unhindered. It usually involves some sort of saucy 50's style soundtrack with flirty looks and peeling of stockings. There is also often the flinging of breasts about afterwards, sometimes rather excitingly in opposite directions.

But the Burlesque genre is a many and varied beast-ess with hundreds of women taking off their clothes in their own special way and Friday night was no exception.

I was invited to host the show by Ms Venus Starr, Burly-Q Meistress and producer of the sell-out event. She was not performing this month however due to carelessly allowing her partner to impregnate her. (Though looking at her you would never think she gave birth 12 weeks ago, hell I look more pregnant than she does.) BUT there were other nudie rudies to titillate the crowds with their... well tits.

The backstage Burlesque world is one infected by sparkles, hairspray, false eyelashes, sequins, garters, suspenders, wax and um, tampons.... Now let me clear up something right now. I am not a Burlesque performer. I love all of those things I mentioned right up to wax BUT that is where I draw a line in the erm... gland. I waxed my legs once and it hurt so much I vowed to never do it again. Also the chicken skin spots that reared up were about as sexy as measles so the very thought of waxing my dewey portal to happiness is one I will not entertain. And as such there will be no stripping for me, well unless the act involves a forest of Daddy Long Leg Spiders.

I also walked in on one fair maiden (WARNING WARNING LADY LEAKS AHEAD) tucking in her tampon string so as not to get a wet-spot on her G-String gusset. (Isn't gusset a wonderful word.) That's right it wasn't her portal renovation period, she was just keeping things nice and dry. I did think to remind her that there was a toilet cubicle right next to her lunging form but hey, I can cross seeing that off my bucket list now.

But once lips were plumped, hair was curled, nipples were stickered, glitter was smeared, heels were slipped into and strings were tucked, we were off like knickers at Hugh Hefner's.

We had an act who pierced herself with needles attached to birthday candles (I believe she also does children's parties), we also had an aerialist on a hoola hoop, a balloon popping act , a fan dance and the crazy and hysterical Magenta Diamond who basically fondled a man into an erection onstage. And through it all I kept performing limericks, songs and poems and saying fuck a lot, coz I am clever like that.

The audience was rearing to go, a comedy gift of an audience who laughed at everything I said. There was even a Ginger Grizzly Adams in the audience leading the rock n Roll charge and the hysteria mounted to palpable levels. There must be something about tits that drives people crazy. I obliged by wearing mine very high and sticking them in men's faces.

Thankfully for their faces however mine remained in my corset. I just know that if I were to get mine out I would take an eye out in the front row with my attempts at twirling. It wouldn't so much be saucy swirling as mammary bashing with another one coming right after. One good thing though, it could be a very useful renewable energy source. Get me winding up onstage and I might just be able to power Levin with the wind energy generated.

HHmm I might just ring Jeremy Wells and talk to him about it.

GO and see the next Carousel Burlesque in September I dare you. There will only be one dry seat in the house.

Arty B&W Shot of Pashing

Hosting Carousel Burlesque in Wellington

Excitable Punter Gets Excited During "I'm So Excited".

A lucky man in the audience feels the full force of mother nature.

Svetlana Sings the Blues

Rohypnol Girl sung in a Duvet.

Wow so apparently a female columnist at The Guardian, of all papers, thinks that women should support Michelle Bachmann purely because she is a woman and we need more female representation.

Never mind the fact that she thinks women should all do what their husbands tell them to do, even studying tax law despite hating it because her husband told her to, as "she had to be faithful to what God was calling her to do through her husband".

Incidentally I wonder what else he tells her God has said to do; "Oh honey I know you don't feel like pleasing little Ronnie Reagan tonight but God told me to tell you to get busy or yet another Arab Country might go all Islamy".

I wonder what would happen if she was elected to the highest office in the USA and suddenly it was crunch time. Her finger poised over the button (giving her husband's little Georgie Back-Bush a break), trying to decide whether it's time to blow Canada up once and for all. When suddenly she skips off to boot up a Skype conversation with Mr Michelle to ask him what he thinks from his Jacuzzi that he told her to buy for him.

He would answer with "Well Stephen Harper seems pretty gay to me, and Pro-Canadian which is clearly Anti-American, let's cure him baby" then go back to rubbing baby oil into his caddy's pecs.

To suggest we should support a woman who thinks that public education is creating a child holocaust and that slavery meant a better nuclear family for black children is right up there with suggesting Gary Glitter as the next president of the PTA because their diversity is lacking a Glam Rocker.

So Angela Cummine (Cummine seriously.... as in hey Michelle the Lord won't like it if I'm not Cummine), you can take your pseudo-feminist stance and shove it where your tampon doesn't shine. Though no actually that's a very nice place, a warm inviting fun place saved especially for a nice partner who asks to go there. So instead you can throw it in a sewer where it belongs.

It is insulting to my feminist sensibilities to abdicate reason in the face of statistics. Yes I would like more female representation obviously, but I'm not going to vote in Myra Hindley as Minister for Children just because the ladies loos are underused.

I will instead tell my niece as often as possible that she is very clever and can do whatever she wants, despite what any man tells her to do.

(Excepting maybe her Daddy til she's about 18.)











No he isn't a closet case at all, as Steve Gray has pointed out!

Here is an old poem I just stumbled across that I rather like...

Don't Get Caught Out in the Rain

In the year 2000 I was going to be 26

Incredibly old

Probably married

……..no babies though

Gross

I was going to celebrate

In grand style

With a huge number of friends

On an island resort

My husband and I would dance to Copacabana

We’d be drinking Pina Colada’s

Our lives and arms intertwined

As we drank from coconut shells

Little umbrellas fending off

The non-existent rain

As it didn’t fall

From the non-existent clouds

I was successful

In the year 2003 I remember

The angry black clouds of the Millennium

I remember sparks peeping through

The thick firework proof blanket

I remember holding my friends vomiting head

In a Grafton Bridge gutter

I remember dancing on Mission Bay

Bowing to my Tongan Queen as he was typically fabulous darling

I remember quaffing Lindauer

With my non-existent husband

As non-existent little umbrellas

Were demolished in the storm

But…..I am successful

I don’t want my 1984 dreams

They would make my 2003 dreams non-existent

I‘d be married to Simon Le Bon

My 2003 reality would be non-existent

I would be non-existent

And who wants that

Instant Kiwis is the website to see all the details!