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The audience does a double take when Lorae Parry, who is sitting in the front row of the Pacific Playhouse, also appears on the television screen that looms over the stage of the south London theatre at the premiere of her new play Kate & Mrs Jones.
The formerly Wellington-based actor and writer is making a cameo as Prime Minister Helen Clark, a role the 53-year-old made her own on TV programmes such as McPhail and Gadsby in the 1980s and the more recent Facelift (2004).
"I've had the opportunity to meet Helen on numerous occasions and I think she's a great woman," says Parry. "I didn't take an active interest in politics but playing Helen has upped my awareness."
The play centres around Francesca Jones, a fledgling politician who begins an affair with Kate Lawrence, a high-profile television presenter who hosts a Close Up-style current affairs show, after desperately trying to garner some publicity for her struggling election campaign.
Parry acted as her partner Gill Greer's campaign manager when the erstwhile NZ Family Planning Association executive director ran unsuccessfully against United Future leader Peter Dunne for the Ohariu-Belmont seat at the 2002 general election.
"I didn't intend to do it but it was a gap that needed to be filled by somebody and because I'd produced so much theatre, I thought I could do it," she recalls. "You're out there every day, working out the schedules. Helen Clark came and joined us for a few meet-the-local-people meetings and supported Gill as Labour's candidate.
"It was hilarious; the convoys through the electorate, constantly blowing up red balloons and getting abused as well as the good things _ like when people said, `It's really interesting what you're doing'. It was full-on but it was great."
Parry moved to London in 2006 when Greer was appointed director-general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She directed the first British staging of her 1998 play Eugenia for London-based New Zealand theatre group Shaky Isles last year before establishing her own company, Shebang Productions.
"I wasn't intending to get as involved in theatre here as much as I have," she says.
"Certainly not at this level, but our arrival coincided with Philip Thwaites opening the Pacific Playhouse, which is a great space.
"So I thought I might as well do another one this year and it has turned into a fairly big venture on a shoestring budget."
Originally, Parry planned to revive her first solo play, 1989's Frontwomen, but as she revised the text, a new work emerged.
"I thought Frontwomen is still relevant so I'll just tinker with it to bring it up to date.
"But the tinkering became a total rewrite as I threw away characters and changed entire storylines until it became a different play."
Like Frontwomen _ and indeed most of Parry's oeuvre _ Kate & Mrs Jones explores gender issues and continuing inequality in the workplace. "It's about two women who are each going for top jobs," she says.
"There's been a lot in the papers here about the glass ceiling and how there are fewer women in the FTSE 100 who hold top jobs in Britain. I also thought about the New Zealand top jobs that have been held by women over the past 10 years."
The performance is introduced by New Zealand High Commissioner Derek Leask, who alludes to how the country is finally overcoming the cultural cringe.
But while Parry hopes to attract ordinary Londoners as well as expat Kiwis and members of the city's gay community, the numerous specific New Zealand references, particularly to MMP and the list, could seem parochial to British audiences.
"I tried to keep it more generic," says Parry. "We've made the seat that Fran is running for a bit mythical although we do Courtenay Place and various things that are real. But the themes are fairly universal."
Most importantly there are many snappy one-liners, mostly concerning the various characters' turbulent sex lives, that had the opening night audience highly amused.
The cast is excellent, evenly divided between expat Kiwis, including Berlin-based Dulcie Smart as Fran, one-time Xena sidekick Alison Wall as her campaign manager Angie, newcomer Salvador Brown as her extrovert dope-smoking son Nick, and British actors such as Samantha Smith, who impresses in her first stage role as Kate.
"When I wrote the play, I thought that it doesn't have to have all New Zealanders; in fact, it's desirable if some of them are from Britain," says Parry. "In the end, it's about finding the best actors you can for the parts.
"It's a comedy, not a comedy drama. My hope is that the underlying themes will get through to people under the lighter moments and what the play is doing on the surface."
Kate & Mrs Jones runs at the Pacific Playhouse, 62 Southwark Bridge Rd, London SE1, until October 18.
