1920s roars through Tairua

The annual Tairua Heritage four-day fundraising festival featured actors performing 1920s-themed skits. Photo / Supplied

The annual Tairua Heritage four-day fundraising festival kicked off in style with an evening devoted to the Roaring Twenties.

Featuring most of the cast from last year’s “Jewel by the Sea” show, and again written and directed by Auriol Farquhar, this year’s presentation was an evening of music, song, dance and skits.

Introduced by celebrity chef, Jo Seager (who also hosted an afternoon tea and evening cookery demonstration during the festival), the evening got under way with The Gangsters, two hapless thugs hoping to pocket the audience’s valuables, until being chased away by the equally hapless Keystone Cops. The gangsters were played by Whangamata duo, Nathan Midwinter and Don MacKay, complete with wooden machine guns, knocked up in “Trevor’s shed”. Yeah, mean!

Next up was a tribute to the Silent Movie era, with actors, some miming the action, and others speaking the dialogue from the sidelines. Designed to go wrong, it did so, spectacularly and hilariously! The Silent set then featured an excellent recreation of a classic Charlie Chaplin skit, with Sam Midwinter playing the Tramp, trying to deprive Don MacKay of his banana.

Alison Smith and Anita Von Doorn then took to the stage for a demonstration of the Charleston and followed this up by inviting the audience to try a few steps. The whole audience of around 100 had already entered into the spirit by dressing up in their finest 1920s gear, so it was no surprise that most of them took up the invitation and took to the floor. Tasty canapes were also served throughout.

The centrepiece of the evening was a two-parter, “The Upper Classes”, a hilarious look at the lives and lusts between the floors of an English country house, where the lady of the house was trying to organise a séance, as well as seduce the butler, while her lecherous uncle Algie chased after the pretty, young maid Maud. The séance duly succeeded in exposing the fraudulent medium, Madame Marguretta – and revealing her “unmentionables”.

The final skit took place in an American Speakeasy where two party girls (Alison Smith and Rowena Brown) were looking for “giggle juice”. The Gangsters returned, closely followed by the cops, before the skit, and the evening ended with everyone singing “Bye Bye Blackbird”.

Throughout the evening, music was provided by a trio from Tairua Music Club, and several great songs, all written in the 1920s, were sung by John Fox, Bayly Hunt, Brielle Cottier and Nathan Midwinter.

While all of these items had an American or British flavour, a Kiwi twist was provided by readings from a number of radio and magazine articles, showing how much – or actually how little – has changed in the past 100 years or so. It turned out that the first ever New Zealand wireless programme had been broadcast on the very same date, November 17, 1921.

The 20s were also known as the decade of slang, with terms entering the language such as flapper, sugar daddy, bubbly, blind date, back seat driver and even “the bees’ knees”. It was clear that everyone had a sockdollager of an evening, had time to iron their shoelaces (go to the bathroom), and there were no bluenoses (spoilsports), but a great many Oliver Twists (good dancers).

Funds from the evening will go towards a Tairua Heritage Centre.