Hudson and Halls Live!

[00:00:00] Before reality shows like master shaven evening thought of New Zealand's own Hudson halls whipping up very questionable cooking and making audiences around the country laugh, considered trailblazers at the time Peter Hanson and David halls also the original great gay love story at a time when most homosexual couples keep their relationships very quiet. can pitch Kim Chapman and Chris Parker bring the would be girl mons to life again. With the asylum theater show Hudson the halls live opening at Hanna Playhouse and Wellington tonight, the GO will be up to the elbows and Turkey stuffing as they take the audience back to an 80s TV show. For Asus TV sit Robert for opening night. Music I said this time always present in Hudson and halls. See [00:01:10] if I could see [00:01:16] all the things you say. [00:01:20] I'm asking you this question [00:01:51] somehow [00:02:20] Vidya [00:02:34] all the things you say [00:02:40] this question is all [00:04:06] Teen across with a song from the show at Halton Hills live Joining me now. Kip Chapman and Chris Parker didn't know who to call the ektron. Who's the writer compete with the original with [00:04:16] the writer, the writer? Yes. [00:04:19] A lot of the dialogue in [00:04:21] a lot of improv and rehearsals, that's for sure. Trying to work it all out. It's a lot of there's a lot of stage admin, a lot of pots, hot pots, it kept us right whenever you wanted to any way to organize it all because it didn't really line up. [00:04:34] Yeah. And you never quite sure you've got it. And you've got to make the mistakes work. Yeah. So that there was a lot of improvisation during the rehearsals that sort of found its way into the show. [00:04:44] So you know, this is a sort of show that probably evolves as it goes on. Would you say? [00:04:50] Yeah, absolutely. And this is an immersive show. So we're acknowledging that the audience is there, like we said in the 1980s TV studio, so the audience members that kind of image In this TV studio world, and so if an audience member sees something we're going to react to it. And so we're really interested in blurring the lines between the audience and the performance. So yeah, it's a it's a really a live experience. How [00:05:13] many episodes Did you watch? [00:05:15] Well, it's really spread. there's so few episodes out there, because then from the archives, it was all done on VHS, and they just had dubbed over [00:05:24] because I just watched something a few minutes ago, and everything was the apart from the musical items by the gifts, which I guess they didn't have the rights to put out. Yes, probably. [00:05:32] Yeah, that's why don't even see it on screen. I've watched that one, about 30 times they tried to [00:05:37] emulate integrated steep cross in terms of your mannerisms. [00:05:40] Absolutely. That's 100%. The job of this show is for the actor, it's to kind of I mean, is that kind of bringing the emotional intensity of the of the relationship but also, you have to hit that nostalgia for the audience. So it's about getting the speech impediment that he had that mannerisms. So I've had that holes and so he kind of talks like he's got the sort of lyst pair. And it's kind of Cockney, but it's also quite formal as well. They kind of slips between these modes. He was English, he was English. Yeah, they lived here for a move here to design shoes. [00:06:14] They really, they set up a shoe store called Julius Garfinkel [00:06:18] was that [00:06:18] that was in the archives and queens, [00:06:21] of course, it was queens, RK queens archives, or else and it didn't mean anything to you. I think I think they just liked the name. Yeah, [00:06:27] that's where he made peace out what he was back in New Zealand as a shoe designer. And then he made patron and I started a shop together. [00:06:34] I was like, [00:06:36] well pages sort of talk like this. And Peter, I think would like to have been seen as the more responsible member of the team, [00:06:45] but from a wealthy side of Melbourne so they're kind of have it sort of RP sort of, you know, [00:06:51] but was very secretive about his past. Like we've spoken to lots of their friends over the last couple of years as we've been developing the show and showing it and Most of them have no idea about Peters past and we really couldn't find out [00:07:04] that much. So what did you do? I mean, did you worry about that? Or do you just try and sort of dramatic license? [00:07:08] Well, kind of like what we did with Apollo 13. Like with the enemy, because our job is to explore feelings and show feelings on stage. Our job isn't to give them Wikipedia entry of who Peter and David, our job was to go. This was the vibe. This is what it felt like to be around them, but [00:07:24] its personality type because he didn't want to reveal who he was tells you quite a lot about him. [00:07:29] yet. It's quite interesting when I was working with Colin Holloway on The Voice recently, and Colin was able to delve straight into it and see, oh, he keeps a lot of secrets, doesn't it when he was watching this episode, and even by keeping the secrets concept, well, that's how you'd hold your body. And by holding your body, that's how the voice comes out. So everything is completely connected. [00:07:51] And I think watching my kind of YN was watching the episode over just the same episode over and over again and kind of obsessing over at getting really deep into it and you begin to see the relationship in a new way in terms of how they worked on camera together [00:08:06] so all the sniping was that for the audience [00:08:08] all for the well some of it is and then there's a difference is the ones that they know a fun as funny and as their brand that kind of bickering in the kitchen. And then there's a few digs which are just take a little bit deeper. And that's kind of that loving the relationship coming through [00:08:23] but a dominance in the relationship as well from one or the other. [00:08:25] I think they both gave as good as they got. [00:08:29] I mean, I show is super camp, unashamedly camp, really fun. And when we put it on, we were a little bit nervous. Oh my God, I've gone too far. But all their friends like with MIT, David's God daughter with MIT, some of Peter and David's best friends, the producers of the show, [00:08:46] and the one note we kept getting back when we did our season last year was you haven't gone far enough. [00:08:52] They're really bigger than I have to say the feedback I've had from friends at Auckland kept was a lot of the older gay community were furious and haters, others who weren't involved so much in the gay community got the humor? What's your reaction to that? And why do you think that some people might have some Men of a Certain Age particularly may have reacted that way? [00:09:11] Look, I, I can't speak for them all I can say [00:09:15] give me that feedback at the time. Um, [00:09:17] look I a few, a few people that walked out, but I didn't hear any hear anything from them. All I can say is we're coming from a point of view of celebration. Chris and I both game in my husband who can see if the show is a game in and looking at Peter and David, they are heroes, [00:09:35] but your generation is so different. You've grown up in a period where nothing in terms of sexual relationships is illegal, whereas when hadn't who were making the show? Well, [00:09:44] it was still illegal. It was illegal when I grew up. It was illegal until 1986. And so the age of six when sexuality is beginning and a child, it was [00:09:53] actually an added level that doesn't add up. That's what I'm saying. [00:09:55] Well, we still still live against resistance on a daily basis. I'm interested to look at Brian Atomic, a guest today to be like, it's still going. I mean, no, it mean, it's different for everyone at different points in their life. But I think as well, it's really important to acknowledge the fact that we're also reintroducing these people to a whole new generation of people who never met them. [00:10:14] And this is not a criticism. This is just not if you grew up in the 1950s or six days, and you, you know, had to fight for your rights. Maybe I [00:10:22] did grow up, I didn't grow up, you know, I was 22 when I came out. And the reason why I didn't come out was because it wasn't socially acceptable at the time. So I came over when I was 22. There was in 2002. And 2004 was when civil unions were introduced, I was on the lawn of Parliament going, Oh my god, we've actually got some rights, but it was sit, but it was a separate but equal law wasn't until 10 years later, when marriage was made legal. I got married this year to my husband, that's, I've been part of this journey. And these guys, you know, 30 years ago we're at, we're at the absolute cutting edge of that five [00:11:00] ship in terms of why they made it so public was that, you know, that was a political statement. Was it just because of who they were that they didn't like to hide there? [00:11:09] I don't think it was political at all, because they never really fought for the politics of being gay. I think what their fight was was against the blandness, in the business of New Zealand culture. And I think that's why this story is so important today, we live in a culture where our national color is black, like everyone just was black puffy jackets, look, if you [00:11:31] come to bands by the [00:11:33] complete opposite, and it's like, thank God, we have people like riding [00:11:36] around a chain lay, you know, license, you completely unlicensed, just going, just living the life to the fullest. And I think, like, I look at them, and I am inspired by it. And I think you sort of think like you're carving your own way, but you actually acknowledged that someone's already done that for you. And these two men have, in a way, sort of carved a path for me in order to live my life to my fullest. [00:12:00] laugh with the more [00:12:02] I think this is I have to lie. I think this [00:12:07] show and our show hopefully it's celebrating. And the I know that the audience is [00:12:15] busy, busy man, this could [00:12:17] be you know, this was exactly what what happened in the episode I was watching. I was [00:12:22] terrified. Yeah, and we have cooking spilling all across the table, I think in terms of whether they are laughing with us or at us, I i and this is something I feel quite strongly about is the style of camp. And I think it's an empowered art form that some people like to think that it's kind of at a Nick and this is kind of New Zealand's sort of manly sort of [00:12:46] over the top, very quietly, sort of lots of bitchiness that sort of [00:12:49] came as a style like is a style. It's a performance style Graham Norton plays to what he turns it up and is empowered. It's a choice for that performer. They had those innate qualities in them, but they turned it off. [00:13:00] So it was a much conversation when you originally put the show together about that campaign style and how you would use it today. [00:13:06] I don't think there was any getting away from that. I think that it was just, it's so innate in the personalities that that's the only way you can [00:13:15] fake TV as well, I believe [00:13:18] is a choice. would love it. All right, I should have my cabinets on stage because I'm up. I know people like it. And I like giving it it's not there's nothing I'm ashamed. [00:13:28] So we have a deep relationship. I mean, these two guys, they move to back to England. And the show was picked up by BBC, I think they were together, you know, the big part of their lives. And when one of the guys Scott cancer Who was he was sick. [00:13:44] Peter died of cancer at about the age of 62. [00:13:47] And David took his own life. Listen to his later [00:13:50] about, yeah, I think 14 months later, and can you imagine not being able to talk in public because he was interviewed many times after the death of Peter, not being able to say my love of the Two years my partner my soulmate. So how did he refer to? Or I think they I think I watched one terrible interview where they said or your friend passed away in this year and I'm and that is just makes my skin crawl. And so you can imagine how hard that must have been for David. It's just, [00:14:18] yeah. dreadful. We're talking to Kip Chapman and and Chris Parker about this show hadn't halls live which is everything but said, Yeah, you haven't really gone into that side of it. This is about doing a show live on stage as they did it live for the [00:14:34] way we celebrate them. As you know, it's not this isn't a kind of museum paste. This is like when we're bringing the life back. We're kind of reintroducing the way that the country saw them which is through this outrageous cooking show that was on TV. These men were kind of making cream cheese suits while drinking a champagne and with the other hand, you know, while also bickering with each other. It is just kind of nothing like it and when you watch it on anything on screen, On the stage, you hardly believe that it happened, but it did. And it was that big. [00:15:04] Do you think they would have scripted anything when they made the show? Apparently they scripted nothing. But what they did with the day before the episode that they'd bring the floor manager around to the house where they'd perform the show in front of the floor manager was drinking heavily. And then the floor manager would have [00:15:22] both of them drinking heavily. Absolutely. I think [00:15:24] they went through like a case of rum. And Sherry once a fortnight, it's like, it's ridiculous law [00:15:29] managers would say, you know, you had a few drinks while over there, have you sort of go home a little bit drunk and sort of forgotten the order of the show? was probably part of their grand plan in the scheme of things, you know, just having a few drinks and enjoying what they do as well, [00:15:43] because it's a party in the kitchen. [00:15:45] Oh, it's an absolute party, and they knew what made good TV they knew that when they're bickering that you can see that little glisten in their eyes. When you watch the Newseum on screen episode. They know that they're making some, you know, amazing TV. We don't have TV like that. Now everything is so manufactured and homogenized our presenters adjust so bland and just follow right these guys were themselves and it's just [00:16:11] and then spontaneity is what you're trying to capture. Even though you've now got basically a scripted show, I would presume after doing it last year. [00:16:19] It's kind of like Apollo, like with with the policy team, which is an interactive show. It was a highly scripted show, but by being highly scripted, it allowed us times to to engage with anything that was live or spontaneous and this is the same this is the exact same [00:16:35] thing heart control what the food's gonna do, you'll be acting on stage looking at Kevin you think someone's been in [00:16:41] somebody's making? Well, [00:16:43] I want to be struggling with the most is the hot GC. [00:16:47] Tata kettles [00:16:48] yeah Todd you played not fun to my part. Well, [00:16:51] I remember them for a fun day. [00:16:53] They don't have is cream of chase which was traditionally Civ cold, cold, cold cheese, [00:16:58] cheese. So it's actually [00:17:00] just like a cheese. It's just like a cheese sauce. But I'm [00:17:04] calorific value. We've got a hot keratin raisins salad, [00:17:08] Spanish style peas with with steamed lettuce. [00:17:12] And what are you drinking? What's on the side? [00:17:15] that's available champagne Sherry rum by brandy grow money. [00:17:23] And lots of white wine. [00:17:25] And I'm not sure the humor comes from that would be that sort of simulated drunken that's kept you think? [00:17:30] Yeah, well, it really it really amps up the stakes of the show, because during the show, things start to go not quite as well as the two would have hoped. And so their coping mechanism is more brandy, and which leads to more and more disasters. So the show sort of starts to derail at about the 40 minute mark. [00:17:50] Appropriate I suddenly thinking about the Hannah Playhouse originally set up as a restaurant theater. [00:17:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does have that kind of vibe to it. But we don't want probably any audience in just ate the food. I'm not quite sure giblets [00:18:02] would they want a place that we cook. [00:18:04] It's quite ancient you can really smell smell the cooking said is live cooking on stage the whole time. So we've got pots going the whole time. And by half time you really get that sense that you're in your grandmother's house and 1980s was sort of boiled vegetable. Yes. [00:18:19] Lots of butter and carrots and onions. [00:18:21] I'm at the door halfway [00:18:23] fast English at the ready. Yeah, [00:18:24] I just gonna ask you finally, do you know how when I meet you the first clip you're working on your original which went on to have an amazing life started off with think of bits theater, yeah, seven or eight years ago. [00:18:37] So the last time I spoke to you, we were about four days away from opening opening that show and we were just we hadn't slept in about six weeks. But it was it was gonna hold Yeah, we had phones gaffer tape to these consoles that would painted by hand. Well, it just people really responded to that style of theater, a style of theater. That is not just people Sitting passively in a seat and just watching the show, [00:19:03] as a result went on to have an amazing life both in this country and overseas. Yeah. My question is, do you think how did a horse live would travel? [00:19:10] Look, I hope so the response we got from the Open Season is was amazing. We sold out every single every single night. We've got a great long season here, which is great. Next year, we've got a big tour of New Zealand, which we're really excited about. And I think overseas, it's got a real shot it. It's full of joy. It's super funny. And I think it's got quite a British sensibility. So [00:19:32] I'd love to travel. Yeah, [00:19:34] Chris has told me he's prepared to travel. [00:19:36] I've packed my case and I'm ready to go. [00:19:39] Well, I know you're gonna have a great night tonight. It's really lovely to see you again. Congratulations on all these shows, which seemed to have broken through into different sort of style of theater. Yeah, she must be very happy about I'm really excited about it. Yeah. And enjoy yourselves tonight. Thank you, Chris Taka and Kip Chapman. And the show is called How to the holes life happening in your house. Wellington let's say goodnight