The Basement's Christmas fundraising tradition is as scruffy and silly as a present wrapped by toddlers using tinsel and a gluestick. This year, the kids gifting the hokiness - even more of it than usual - are playwrights Thomas Sainsbury and Chris Parker.
They are all at sea in long socks and Roman sandals, "putting the naughty into nautical", starring as "Tom" and "Chris" in their own shipboard comedy whodunit.
Every night, they offer up egregious puns, lots of leg and long-repressed memories of Kiwi culture (McDonald's Young Entertainers, anyone?). All perfectly suited to Sainsbury's great trademark deadpan New Zild accent.
The aim is quantity rather than quality of humour; the light, inoffensive jokes are more mindless than memorable, but their overwhelming number genuinely keep the laugh quotient high.
And of course, they're completely appropriate for a target audience who have had a few bubbles. Natural glow is used to dust for fingerprints; Chris wants to prove he has "the pernacity and the ganache" to work at a gossip mag. The most subtle it gets is a shout-out to the traumatic Thingee eye-pop incident of 1994.
As is the custom, the dynamic duo are joined by an unannounced, rotating cast of eight, mostly playing national "celebs" ("Sally Ridge" is full of ideas for reality TV shows "starring a mother and daughter who are roughly the same age"). At some point in the season, the real Antonia Prebble will turn up, as will Michael Hurst, Oliver Driver, Jennifer Ward-Lealand and 43 other actors (I confess I did not recognise all of the opening night cast). On opening night, Barnie Duncan stole the show as gender nonspecific "Kelly Tarltons" (sic) in fishnets and a body stocking, showing off the outrageous comic talent that won him this year's Edinburgh Fringe Genius Award for Most Original Show for Calypso Nights. Rose Matafeo did a commanding performance of diva Kiri Te Kanawa. Sight lines are suspect - get in quick for a seat in the middle. Enjoyably shambolic.
Theatre Review
What: Hauraki Horror
Where and when: The Basement, to December 20.