The Pink Hammer delivers blow of good-humoured comedy

Writing and producing comedy is no laughing matter. A subtle alchemy is required if it is to work – a strange magic involving both the playwright, the director and the cast.

One slip and the most blithesome of comedies becomes either ponderous sludge or hopelessly contrived and blunt-ended. There are certainly those New Zealand comedies which have fallen forever into these pits of despair. But The Pink Hammer is not amongst them.

It isn’t the perfect comedy. The ending, for example, while unexpected, perhaps requires an agile mind to fully accept. But it is sharp-tongued, breezily goodhumoured and, most importantly, funny.

Anthea Williams’ new production of the late Michele Amas’s play at the Court Theatre benefits from a script from a skilled playwright and a seasoned cast.

The setting is a workshop/man cave owned by redundant builder Woody (Tom Eason), a laconic and un-reconstructed chauvinist. Woody’s wife has just left him, which explains why, in the words of another character, he’s as ‘‘jumpy as a colt before gelding’’.

Enter four strong women who have enrolled for a women-only course in carpentry and joinery, run by the recently departed Mrs W. Siobhan (Kathleen Burns), an engagingly lippy young Irishwoman; the lonely Helen (Lynda Milligan) who prefers the company of horses to that of the human species; the vulnerable Louise (Eilish Moran) and the brisk but emotionally brittle Annabel (Amy Straker).

Together they persuade a highly reluctant Woody to run the six-week course. At that precise point, you know that his neatly ordered sanctuary will never be the same again.

Individually and collectively, the four women dominate the play with perfectly delivered one-liners and some excellent moments of ensemble acting. Burns plays her role with an energetic ebullience, which is perfectly complimented by the combined polish and panache expected from Milligan, Moran and Straker.

They are all used to being on stage alongside each other – and it shows in this production.

Despite an initial stiffness, Eason quickly warmed into his role to become the perfect catalyst.

Together, this cast of five nailed a comedy which, despite all its outward affability and talent to amuse, reveals something deeper about human relationships.

‘The Pink Hammer’ reveals something deeper about human relationships.