Stuff I Forgot To Tell My Daughter starring Michele A’Court
Produced by Notorious
For 2013 NZ International Comedy Festival
Written by Michele A’Court
At Q Theatre Vault
Saturday 27 April, Tuesday 30 April and Saturday 04 May 2013 at 8.45pm
Duration: 1 hour
Reviewed Saturday 27 April, 2013
Published at http://www.theatreview.org.nz
Last year, Michele’s daughter Holly got a job and went flatting. She was almost 20.
With no kid in the house for the first time since 1993, and with a few extra hours on her hands, A’Court began reflecting on those things that she forgot to tell her daughter as she was growing up. The result is her first solo show in seven years – and we got to hear it first.
Michele A’Court is a household name in New Zealand and has been for well over the twenty years of Holly’s young life. Young adults will remember her as the brilliant host who fronted What Now in the earlyish days sharing the limelight with those other stars of the small screen – and almost every other medium you can think of – Frank Flash (Alisdair Kincaid) and JS Danny Watson. Her solo career saw her named Female Comedian of the Decade 2010 by the New Zealand Comedy Guild and she’s been in our faces in one way or another for quite a bit longer than that.
This was my first show in the Q Theatre Vault, a rather outstanding, downstairs venue reminiscent of small, basement performance spaces the world over. The walls are covered with posters that give the place a lived in feeling – until you realise that they’re posters for Ben Hurley and Steve Wrigley, Steve Hughes, Dai Henwood, Urzila Carlson, Stand Up for Kids and The Boy With Tape On His Face and all are from this year’s festival. It doesn’t matter because, by the time we get to the five minute call and the venue is full, the heat in the place has become so oppressive that I feel we’re in for bikram comedy. Please don’t be daunted by this as there are great fans – on the walls as well as in the audience – and eventually they kicked in and the show wasn’t especially affected.
A’Court is hot, but I can assure you the heat of which I speak was not her fault.
I should, at this point, own up to the fact that I worked intermittently with Michele during the What Now days providing occasional sketches and songs for the show. I was a fan then, have remained so ever since and nothing in Stuff I Forgot to Tell My Daughter gave me cause to change this stance because this show is simply fabulous.
Being talented is one thing but it’s not much use unless there’s craft, experience and intelligence to back it up. Add supreme performer integrity and you have, well, you have Michele A’Court.
The show begins with a beautifully judged slide show – where would we be without Powerpoint – of Holly from day one to year twenty. It could be kitsch but it’s not. It’s tasteful, proud and work-a-day, like holiday snaps shown in anyone’s lounge and the whole thing is backed by the sounds of the late Mahinārangi Tocker singing ‘When I Grow Up’. It’s a delightful pastiche of emerging maturity and introduces those of us who don’t know Holly to the subject matter of this hour long show, the silent voice, and it’s pretty obvious early on that she’s there, in the house. I wonder, momentarily, what this must be like for her – and for her mother – decide it must be really special, then forget about it.
This, I decide, is another show with life as its theme.
A’Court begins by reminding us that parents need to know everything or they lose their authority. She’s already exerted hers and we listen obediently as she gives birth to the show reminding us that the creative process is like having a baby, both give you a sore vagina.
There are great gags, some intuitive, some spontaneous, most carefully contrived – and scripted – and everything is delivered as though this supreme artist has been making it all up. It’s hard to tell which is which, such is her craft, and I feel, in retrospect, that I’ve been having an intimate personal chat over a nice pot of green tea.
She talks about marriage equality and being a lesbian and I feel on safe ground with this. Then it’s how to defrost bread without electricity and I’m all at sea again – hysterical with laughter but at sea none the less as I don’t cook and both bread and electricity are profound mysteries to me, clandestine information that I know I will never understand. A’Court is a genius at creating the seesaw that bounces us from laugh to laugh and is so in tune with her audience that it’s as though she knows each of us personally and is reaching out to touch us.
Then it’s on to ginger, a personalized response to middle age and a poignant moment around her Gran’s compact – I become increasingly aware that the audience is largely women and that the show isn’t all laughs – but then it’s on to body image and what all boys do with their penises and all without any semblance of a pause. The house erupts with eloquent laughter. I do too, but from a slightly different perspective.
Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore visit, then it’s on to the audio visuals – a video about sexual safety and contraception fronted by a younger but no less beautiful A’Court and made in 1990. Unlike Holly who apparently hated it, I loved her hair.
Then it was feminism.
Now, I’ve been invited by Auckland Council to be on a panel discussing what feminism means to me and to share this occasion with some amazing women including the brilliant Marama Davidson whom I adore, so I was pretty keen to hear A’Court’s take on this critical topic both historically and from a contemporary perspective. So I should have been, as it was incredible and deeply personal. Cleverly placed to give our ribs a rest, the feminism set is a beautiful balance of laughter and information. I learned heaps, laughed a bunch and, somewhat surprised, shed a tear or two.
Just when it seemed time to wrap it all up we were treated to Lauren Porteous, singing live, Guy Clark’s ‘The Cape’ and suddently we’re back, deep in the dream that this show truly is. She’s the ultimate theatrical trickster is A’Court and she has an armoury of comedic tools at her disposal that is second to none. She uses them all and seemingly at will, and they transport her messages – and her experiences – deep into our collective psyche and I get that there is no single notion of womanhood, a third wave fact for which I will be eternally grateful.
There’s more – quite a bit – but I won’t spoil any of the wee treasures that populate the last few minutes of this theatrical gem by listing them here. Suffice to say, you should experience Stuff I Forgot to Tell My Daughter for yourself and if you don’t make the effort you’re quite simply daft.
There are, happily, a couple of classic ‘What Now’ shots of Frank, Michele and JS Danny in the final sequence that are like misoyaki sauce to the memory and I’m really spiced up by the whole experience. If Michele A’Court told me to eat my broccoli I’d probably comply which would be no mean feat as it’s not my favourite veg. Confused? Don’t be. See the show and you’ll catch my drift.
She’s a very wise woman is Michele A’Court, and well worth listening to. She nails the laughs at an incredible rate but Stuff I Forgot to Tell My Daughter is about much more than the laughs, it’s about life and living and in particular living as a woman in the 21st century. It’s an absolute classic and I feel privileged to have been present at its birth. You should attend as well. As often as you can because its damn good medicine – and we can never get enough of that.
Note: Early in the review I refer to JS Danny Watson. The JS is an abbreviation for Jun Shihan, a black belt rank in traditional karate. JS Danny holds a 6th dan, black belt rank in Seido Karate, a style I also train in but at a much more junior level. It’s protocol to refer to black belts by rank regardless of where and when they are referred to. I am simply complying with this tradition.
dykiegirl 