Give us Winston – The Musical
It’s a risky business being a minor party in a coalition government, the major party tending to suck up all the oxygen, leaving the minor feeling emasculated. Just when coalition partner NZ First was flagging in the polls under such an arrangement, the very gravid Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern went into labour and Winston Peters became the acting prime minister.
Having the legend that is Winston at the helm has so far been a breeze. Sure, he might have promoted slightly uncordial relations with the Chinese Government, found opportunities to take shots at Fonterra, and undermined Auckland Mayor Phil Goff’s tweet in support of curtailing the speaking rights of visiting hardRight commentators. But that’s nothing in the high drama that is Winstonia.
Peters getting his own spin-off series, albeit for only six weeks, seems to have put the populace in their happy place. Watching the acting PM achtung-ing the press gallery night after night on the television news has a nostalgic, familiar ring to it.
Like an old school standup comic, we get to see Winston go through his set pieces. He gets shirty with the assembled press, all the while pretending to be full to the brim with dudgeon, before his shoulders bounce up and down and he breaks into the legendary grin.
If Peters did have a TV series (called simply Winston) funded by NZ On Air, it would probably be a dull and worthy once-over-lightly docudrama made to screen on Sunday night.
But really it should be a stage musical. I’m thinking a show-stopping foreign affairs duet of Winston clinching it with former secretary of state United States Condoleezza Rice, and a bouncy Happy Talk Rodgers & Hammersteinstyle number set in the South Pacific called Vaovasamanaia, named after the chiefly title bestowed on Peters (meaning beautiful, handsome, delightful, awesome and joyful).
There would be no shortage of signature props – wine boxes, galloping racehorses, and a chorus of warbling pensioners waving giant Goldcards aboard a Waiheke Island ferry.
This may be a flight of fantasy, but we have just emerged from enduring lengthy exposure to ACT leader David Seymour concrete-footing it and holding up play (fair) on Dancing With The Stars. Audiences couldn’t get enough of the twerp turning a twerk, with AM Show host Duncan Garner lavishing ‘‘noice’’ guy praises upon Seymour’s head for his abasement of self, all in the name of goodly works.
Furious with Peters for being late for his early-morning AM slot, Garner banned the acting PM from his show for the rest of his six-week gig. Like an enraged parent trying to dig his groggy progeny out of bed to get to school on time, Garner tried to call the cult legend to heel.
Anyone could have told him good luck with that, and indeed fans of l’ecole Winnie would have tuned into the Breakfast show where they could gaze upon Peters exclusively.
However, Peters isn’t just a comic turn, and has dealt wisely with the nurses’ strike. The prime minister, too, has been sage in keeping out of his business while he’s in charge.
NZ First has beefed itself up in the interim and the polls will show that, with Winston fans enjoying seeing him in this, his last opportunity to play PM.
That is unless our PM becomes pregnant again. There’s just enough time to squeeze another birth in before the next election date of November 2020. If one was uncouth, one would advise Jacinda to lie back and think of the coalition.