Hospices profit from writer's banana cake

Helen Brown doesn't need a recipe for her banana cake. Picture / Wanganui Chronicle

Over the past 28 years Helen Brown has gathered a following of thousands addicted to her columns. Brown's continuing theme is home life: pets, friends, kids, relationships.

No subject is sacred. A child's seasickness, a son's colostomy, Brown's own romances and heart-breaks are picked up, wryly examined by the writer, then worked into 1000 sharp-edged-yet-heartfelt words that make you smile as well as wince.

Now, at the age of 52, Brown has taken her view of the world to the stage.

The new career began in 2003, when singer Malcolm McNeill asked her to write a show and perform it with him at Christchurch's Court Theatre. Their show was called Words and Music - "he did the music, I did the words". It ran for a sellout week in New Zealand and three nights in Melbourne, where Brown now lives with her son, two daughters, bank manager husband and 23-year-old cat.

"Then, the next year my old school, New Plymouth Girls' High, asked me to do a one woman show," says Brown. She renamed the production A Slice of Banana Cake, found a backing pianist, and despite the nerves, got on with it. Brown got a standing ovation, the school got $10,000 to upgrade their drama hall.

In 2004 the Wanganui Hospice asked Brown to stage a performance which sold out two weeks before it opened. "The mayor came, the local MP came. It brought in $10,000 in one night. This year eight hospices got together and talked the reluctant performer into a full fledged, eight-town, North Island tour. Apart from expenses, Brown gets nothing. The hospices hope to make $100,000.

This time Brown is working with Wellington jazz pianist Terry Crayford, of Fair Go theme fame. "The show is my life story, based on my banana cake recipe," she says. "I wrote it in the bath."

Brown needs no recipe to make her banana cake - and can tell while she's mixing it whether it's going to be moist enough. "It's like life," she explains. "We all get the same ingredients - it's how you put them together that makes the difference. The recipe for our show is a lot of lightness, a bit of sadness, that feeling for the land all New Zealanders have - and a tribute to everyone I've known and loved."

A Slice of Banana Cake by Helen Brown and Terry Crayford

When: July 14, Waipuna Lodge, Pakuranga; July 15, Hamilton; July 18, Rotorua; July 19, Palmerston North; July 21, Wanganui; July 22, Wellington; July 23, Upper Hutt; July 24, Lower Hutt.

Bookings: (09) 298-5280

Details: www.helenbrown.co.nz