Still Crazy
 2117 Arapuni Road, Pukeatua, Rd, Te Awamutu.
7.00pm
Phone 0800 461 559 to book
Still Crazy, a music and comedy show, is coming to the Out in the Styx café on Friday and Saturday night, November 5 and 6. The show is a revue-style entertainment featuring songs in theatre, jazz and other styles, plus skits, poems and stories.
Still Crazy, performed by the Paekakariki-based duo Gilbert and Brandon, is earning plaudits from critics. “People are raving about the show, “ wrote Tracy Puplowski, CEO of the Wairarapa Museum of Art. “Gilbert and Brandon charmed and dazzled,” according to the Poetrycafe website. “Brandon grabbed the audience with every number…What a night!" wrote Lee Hatherly of Hen’s Teeth, in a review of a Wellington café concert.
“The show has quite a lot of satire,” says writer-pianist Gilbert Haisman. “We spent months finding material on spin-doctors, lawyers and consultants, and working on a sequence called ‘Winston Peters Reloaded and Hallelujah Bananas’. The show’s mainly in the vernacular, including some hard-case folk stuff, but there’s a few poems set to music that get pretty close to art songs and even the daft bits have a whiff of seriousness between the lines.”
The show's singer, known only as Brandon, is resuming her performing career in New Zealand after extensive experience in London, Europe and the USA. "Watch out, Nina Simone!" wrote a critic for the UK Guardian, reviewing a season when Brandon co-starred with Simone at Ronnie Scott's famous London club.
Brandon is also a seasoned actress, and was a member of two professional theatre groups in London. She remains a member of 'The Sisterhood of Spit', a vocal group with whom she performed recently in Chicago at a festival of women's music.
Gilbert Haisman began performing as a pit musician with student revues with Roger Hall, Cathy Downes, Dave Smith and others. He has led jazz groups, appeared solo in poetry evenings, produced many school and professional shows, and performed for several years in Wordsongs, a two-person show with singer Val Murphy. His stories, poems, articles, reviews and columns have been published in Landfall, Takahe, Other Voices, Leaves, School Journals, Stretto, Nee Zealand Engineering News, The Dominion Post and other periodicals, and he was runner-up in two literary awards.
Brandon teamed up with writer-pianist Gilbert Haisman last year, and they developed the Still Crazy show for festivals, theatres, house concerts and functions. Their website (www.stillcrazy.co.nz) has more information.
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