It’s Christmas. And daily Australia steals extra of our Kiwi children.
However you, form caller, can cease this! Donate at this time to the Jingle Bellethon Telethon and we are going to ship a parcel of Christmas kiwiana to remind our Kiwi children of simply what it means to be a Kiwi!
Created by Janaye Henry (Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) and Bea Gladding (Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi) with co-writer Jamaine Ross (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu), the 2023 Basement Christmas Present is a theatrical Favourites field. The Jingle Bellethon Telethon presents a pleasant mock of the basic telethon format because the hapless staff endeavour to bribe Kiwi children with Christmas parcels in an effort to maintain them in New Zealand, however finally the manufacturing struggles to stability all of the shifting components contained in a very satisfying method – one too many Cherry Ripes for this reviewer.
The motion is centred on the filming of the telethon and this generates the same old quantity of interpersonal drama. Batanai Mashingaidze because the Ground Supervisor is effervescent – the position is delivered with refreshing vocal and bodily vitality. The quickly revealed mild rivalry between Mashingaidze as Ground Supervisor and Jaackie Black because the Stage Supervisor elicits understanding laughter from the viewers. Ducking between them is Janaye Henry, who’s working sound and toting an outsized and overstuffed material growth mic; Sean Rivera is stationed to stage proper, nearly fenced in by a keyboard, synths, hanging chimes, a saxophone, and bins of different attractive devices; Talia-Rae Mavaega and Jake Arona glitter because the hosts for the airing; and Brady Peeti dials it to eleven as resident diva ‘Ria Karaoke’.
From this pool of expertise a couple of additional characters are produced because the leisure segments for the telethon – together with a cruise ship comic who has seen higher years, and a motivational magician. All the performances make for partaking viewing however there’s a lack of stability within the utilisation of the solid’s abilities. Particularly the hosts have barely any airtime and turn out to be nearly out of date over the course of the play’s motion. It is a actual pity given the nice rapport Mavaega and Arona possess, and the methods through which their characters may need been used so as to add to the exceedingly cheerful, and at occasions absurdist, tone of the piece.
This imbalance extends to prop and design choices. Some parts are ingenious and pleasant -for instance the outsized material props (goodness is aware of what number of hours of stitching went into establishing these) -while others appear to have fallen by the wayside. The central ingredient of a telethon, the telephone, is a piddly iphone on a pedestal behind the stage. With the often less-than-desirable Basement mainstage sightlines additional obstructed by the cabaret type festive seating instead of the entrance rows, this black-screened hand-held gadget would instantly disappear from view if interacted with. The same distinction in measurement, and thus producing the identical ‘one tiny telephone’ gag, may have been achieved by merely making a tiny material rotary telephone and sticking the occasional highlight on it.
However maybe I’m simply being a Grinch. There are many laughs available, there’s an outstanding but harrowing reminder of Chriscos previous, a smattering of visitor stars, and it’s value paying for a ticket simply to listen to Brady Peeti sing – they need to have given her the mic extra usually!
Jingle Bellethon Telethon performs the Basement Theatre from the fifth to the twenty second of December 2023
