Never a dull moment
Theatre needs to be modern and innovative and it is a recipe that seems to be working for New Zealand actor and director Kip Chapman, Rebecca Fox finds.
Aspace mission, a rocking suffragette and bantering 1980s television cooks have kept Kip Chapman so busy he needs to take a break.
‘‘We’re going travelling around the world next year. The last three years of my life have been about creating a massive amount of work so I need to go away and discover fresh ideas.
‘‘I need to recharge that creative energy.’’
But not before one last season of Hudson and Halls — it will be its 125th performance on opening night in Dunedin.
Chapman wrote the first draft of the play while on residency at the Robert Lord Cottage in Dunedin in 2014.
‘‘I loved it so I look forward to coming back.’’
The idea for the play originated after his husband, actor Tom Emerson (they married in 2016), whose recent theatre credits include Massive Theatre Company’s The Brave and Bullet Heart Club’s hit Kiwi musical Daffodils, had become inspired after doing a cooking show.
‘‘We were at this industry party and Rima Ti Wiata was talking about Hudson and Halls, wondering why there hadn’t been a story about them.’’
Peter Hudson and David Halls, aka ‘‘Hudson and Halls’’, were television cooks in the early 1980s as famous for their onscreen spats as they were for their recipes.
As Chapman had never heard of them — ‘‘at 37, I’m a touch too young’’ — it took a bit of explaining but then he was hooked.
‘‘The rest is history. They are such unique characters they almost write themselves.’’
It came with challenges as the pair were so attuned to each other.
So with Emerson and Chris Parker (whose solo work No More Dancing in the Good Room earned him the 2015 Best Newcomer Award at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival) on board — both great improvisers — he put them to work on the show.
For this season of the show Chapman steps into his husband’s shoes to play Peter Hudson. Emerson is a regular on television show Westside so has other committments.
It is not a big jump for Chapman, who is an actor by trade, having worked on the likes of Hillary, Hope and Wire and Top of the Lake.
He also enjoys the fun and laughter the show generates, whether the audience can remember the duo or not.
‘‘It’s a fun show to watch and also to act in.’’
Joining Parker and Chapman on stage is Anya TateManning, who plays Ngaire Watkins. TateManning, who performed in The Devil’s HalfAcre, also directed My Dad’s Boy at the Fortune earlier this year.
For Chapman, 2015 was a big year for making work — he had Hudson and Halls on the go, an earlier show Apollo 13: Mission Control was touring and That Bloody Woman about Kate Sheppard was in the works.
That Bloody Woman recently showed at the Fortune and was well received.
‘‘It clearly resonated with the Fortune crowd.’’
The three works are an example of how theatre needs to be ‘‘modern and innovative and not staid and boring’’.
‘‘Theatre can be wild and crazy. It’s all about the courage of the audience. I’m so stoked it went well in Dunedin. They clearly got into it.’’
For Chapman, the audience is the most important part of making theatre.
‘‘I’m interested in exploring heaps of different things. I loved the idea of a punk rock musical just as I did a 1980s live cooking show — they have the same theatrical potential.’’