Cynthia and Gertie stamping the city boards once again

Helen Moulder and Rose Beauchamp have known each other for years and so have their characters, Cynthia and Gertie.

Their long-running show The Legend Returns now has a sequel, Cynthia and Gertie Go Baroque, and it will premiere at The Dark Room in Palmerston North.

Moulder said their characters have become a part of who they are. ‘‘Rose and I were in Hen’s Teeth, a women’s comedy troupe from about the late 80s for 10 years and we had a short sketch in that. After 10 years we thought, ‘hang on, we should enlarge our two characters’. They were pretty popular, so we created The Legend Returns.’’

The show was recorded on Radio New Zealand and was highly requested, so four years ago, they started working on a sequel, Beauchamp said. ‘‘As a performer you need challenges and everyone thought it was awfully funny, but as a performer you start to get a bit bored. I said ‘I’m not going to play that Rachmaninoff anymore’.’’

Beauchamp plays Gertie, who accompanies Moulder’s variety of operatic characters on the harpsichord ‘‘in Baroque and unbaroque style’’. Moulder said the show melds classical romance with futurist New Zealand.

‘‘Including doomed lovers, haywire puppetry and a super yacht. Cynthia gallantly holds the evening together even when Gertie’s infatuation with all things Japanese threatens to disrupt the performance.’’

Director Jeff Kingsford-brown came on board early to work closely with Moulder and Beauchamp. ‘‘These two work so well together. Gertie is kind of like a Greek chorus to Cynthia but sometimes they collide.’’

Cynthia and Gertie Go Baroque is on at The Dark Room from September 20 to October 1.