They're Topps

The Topp Twins know the score when it comes to keeping an audience happy. FRANCES GRANT visits the set of their new game show.

The audience at the taping of the Topp Twins' new game show, Mr and Mrs, is ready to go. The instructions given by host Camp Mother (Lynda) and her assistant, Camp Leader (Jools), meet a warm reception.

"If they get the answers right I want you to clap and cheer and go crazy, whatever emotion comes just let it out," says Camp Mother. "Remember, at any given moment you could be on television."

The crowd at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna needs no encouragement. They're ready to hoot themselves silly over the latest antics of their favourite pair of Kiwiana characters.

"We've come all the way from Takanini," my seat neighbours, Ian and Lorraine Jamieson, tell me. Lorraine watched every episode of their series, Topp Twins: Do Not Adjust Your Twinset.

Mr and Mrs is a quiz show in which couples have to answer questions to demonstrate how well they know each other. It's an imported format but the Topps have tuned it into their own distinctive vehicle.

"Have a nibble on a rumball, if you need it," Camp Mother reassures nervous contestants. The questions begin. "Where's your favourite place for making whoopee?"

Camp Leader, as usual, does the donkey work - looking after the guests, escorting them in and out of the soundproof booth, announcing results and prizes, and being the entertainment. During breaks in filming she keeps the audience warm with a run of risque jokes.

"What I want to know is, where the hell did you find all these jokes?" says Camp Mother, not overly thrilled with her assistant's success.

At the end of the show Camp Mother lurches into the audience for a spot question. "I want you to just relax, I can feel some of you tensing up," she says before plonking down on a poor bloke's knee. "What are the colour of your partner's eyes?"

Lorraine whispers that she'd have trouble with that one. "When it comes to getting that close the lights are usually out," she confides naughtily.

Camp Mother gets up off the squashed one and goes back on set for her finale: "Remember the words of that love song? 'Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, get down tonight'."

Backstage, the pair are on a post-performance high but, ever the professionals, they're ready to talk about their latest show.

Camp Mother: The game show we are trying to do now is not only a game show, but an entertainment show, and you used to get that many years ago. It's In The Bag - people flocking to halls.

Camp Leader: We're trying to create a time warp with our game show, aren't we Camp Mother? It's the score that counts, not the prizes.

Mother: You see, the big prizes in that era were whiteware. If you won a fridge, washing machine or stove you had it made. Well, if you put that on television, you'd be killed. So we've gone the other way, romantic evenings, little gifts, little bits of money.

FG: Camp Mother, you're no longer the "lady in pink." Why have you changed your colour?

Mother: Well, I thought long and hard and I suppose to some people I'll always be the "lady in pink." And deep down underneath, I can tell you, I am wearing pink. I love to have pink close to my skin. But Camp Leader and I sat down and we did think that now we're moving into the game show era we have to glam up a bit.

FG: But Camp Leader is still in that daggy cardy.

Mother: That's one of those things which you just can't lose.

Leader: It's a part of me.

Mother: It's almost grown on to her.

Leader: It's a wool graft.

Mother: The thing is, too, when we got rung up and they said, "The set's ready ... would you like to have a look, Camp Mother and Camp Leader?" we bowled down there in the Bambina and I got out and I just looked at it and I panicked for a moment. I thought, in all my pink outfits I'll just blend in. The host must stand out.

FG: Camp Leader is shining in her role as beautiful assistant.

Leader: It's very exciting for me because I really feel as if it's a big chance for me, isn't it Camp Mother?

Mother: It's quite a load off me, too, because I've got quite a lot to think about.

FG: This is Camp Mother and Camp Leader's show. But will any of those other characters, like the Kens, be making an appearance?

Mother: Oh goodness, no. They'll all be home watching it on television ... The other thing is that those characters might even have the chance to get their own programmes. There's always that possibility, spin-offs and all sorts of things. I can see Ken and Ken doing another version of Country Calendar or something like that. But of course, I don't know the man at all, Mr ... What's his name, Camp Leader?

Leader: Ken Moller.

Mother: That's right, I've never met him.

Leader: I have, he's ugly.

FG: I hear this game show is some kind of world first.

Leader: It's the first game show ever hosted by two women.

Mother: I think Cilla Black has her own one.

Leader: But it's the only game show ever to be hosted by two yodelling lesbians of New Zealand.

FG: Have you checked that out thoroughly?

Mother: I'm completely convinced that probably somewhere in Germany, deep, deep in the country somewhere, there's been a show put together by a couple of old German women.

Leader: I suppose the Two Fat Ladies, they've got their own show, but it's not a game show.

Mother: We've been looking - are there two women out there running another game show? - and we haven't found one yet.

Leader: We're probably the only two sisters to run a game show.

Mother: There's got to be a first in there somewhere. I think we need to research that, Camp Leader.

Who: The Topp Twins

What: Mr and Mrs

Where: TV3

When: Wednesday, 8 pm