Moles busk a ride

Press, 17 June 1980, Page 6

Moles busk a ride

PA Wellington Red Mole might have decided never to dance down Bugis Street again, but yesterday the troupe danced on the ferry Aranui.

It also toured the ship, sang, acted, made music and entertained about 200 Wellington-to-Picton travellers. . ' " '

In an odd variation of “singing for supper,” the 12 Moles were “busking for berths.” :

New Zealand Railways and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council had arranged for the theatrical troupe to cross Cook Strait for the South Island leg of its New Zealand tour. The arrangement was that Red Mole, its equipment and dog, “Slim,” got free passage across the Strait in return for entertaining the passengers. And entertain the troupe

did. Almost all of the ship’s 220 passengers crowded the main lounge when the performance was announced, and the show began. It was a shortened and modified version of the troupe’s act “I’ll never dance down Bugis Street again,” which has just finished at the Majestic Cabaret in Wellington. The full Bugis Street show is a satirical look at the life and death of Martin Johnstone — “Mr Asia.”

The Aranui adaptation showed the Johnstone family making an excursion on the Picton ferry as a twenty-first birthday treat for the young and somewhat gormless — “do they speak English in the South Island?” ■— Marty.

Billing itself as the “Wahine Memorial Players,” the troupe had, the audience enthralled —

from grannies to . toddlers they tapped their toes and clapped their hands, >- :The Red Mole coordinator, Nance Shatzkin, said it was the first time the troupe bad performed at sea and it had been great to get such a wide ranging group of people for an audience’. '

?? “I guess it was an audience we would not normally get to,” she said. 7 Red Mole will be in the South Island for? three weeks, performing .4 .at Christchurch, Lincoln, Queenstown, Invercargill, Dunedin, Hokitika, Greymouth, Westport, Motueka, and Nelson.

Its return trip on the ferry? will alsp be .sponsored by the Railways, and the players said they had enjoyed their performance so much yesterday they would probably repeat, it on the way back.