Some of the best comedy arises from tragedy and Kevin: The Musical is no exception.

A tragic accident has left Kevin the cleaner (Steve Wrigley) – yeah right; Bats has a full-time cleaner – with no option but to stage his favourite musical himself, thanks to his happening to have the karaoke CD (score by Mark Dennison) to replace the deceased show band.

But first the front-of-house ticket-taker, Kristine (Cyan Corwine), has to appraise us of the situation and our legal positions. Despite going on to claim she is not an actor or singer when Wrigley’s Kevin asks for her help, Corwine delivers this in a hyper-acted kooky style (she’s from New York City) that clearly announces we are in for comedy with a capital K.

Having looked at the excellent 5-panel ‘backdrop’ depicting the main intersection of Kevin (pop 127), featuring a floral roundabout emblazoned with ‘KEVIN’, I had assumed the place Kevin would rhyme with Levin. It doesn’t.  

In essence, Darren* has failed to make it in the city and is obliged to return to his “horrible home”, land-locked Kevin. The Mayor, who has portraits of Kiri Te Kanawa, Dave Dobbyn and Neil Finn in his office, has a problem: towns need to have a population of 300 to get on the map, except if they have traffic lights they must buy law appear on Land Transport maps …

Darren gets a job in the local Fish ’n’ Chip shop only to discover its evil proprietor – ironically played as a puppet – has found a dastardly solution to Kevin’s lack of proximity to the sea. His wife Karen (Corwine) becomes Darren’s ally … and in bringing the tale to its heroic conclusion, a new way is found of putting Kevin on the map (courtesy of a surprise nightly Guest).

The modular set – created together by Corwine and Wrigley – is fantastic, with turns of the five tall boxes taking us from the intersection into the Mayor’s office; Darren’s bed (provoking a fabulous duet between him and his alarm clock); the visionary Metropolis Karen dreams of escaping to; and the Forbidden Forest … Star of the props is a Kiwi made from rubber gloves and plungers (for unblocking drains).  

Ebullient and engaging in his multi-character performance, Wrigley belts all the songs out with little modulation but the lyrics are clear and largely a hoot. The complexities of trying to do it all with one performer and an assistant add to the fun.

At one point the excellent Nell Williams (on lights and sound) tells them they only have 15 minutes left, which given them an excuse to rush through some expositional story-telling and get on to the climax and resolution. But the show is so good I’d like to see it fully developed for a longer (e.g. 90 minute) slot.  

Not willing to rest on his laurels as a master of improv and of stand-up, Steve Wrigley has again set the bar higher with a cleverly conceived comedy show.

*Is this a same Darren Sanders whose adventures as an Office Boy were such a hit in 2009? And what about the Darren who was one of The Mullet Brothers in 2006?
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Jovial local comedian Steve Wrigley – a regular fixture on 7 Days – has decided to extend his vocal range this year.

He plays janitor Kevin, who, by tragic circumstances that require too much explanation for this review, winds up as the star in a musical (also called Kevin) playing multiple personalities and professing his love to Kiri Te Kanawa within the first few minutes of the production.

A comedy festival creative grant helped him compose an hour of passionate musical numbers, and build an elaborate set that takes him from the bus to the bedroom, and the fish and chip shop to the roundabout in swift manoeuvres. [More]
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Steve Wrigley is quite possibly one of the most creative comics on the current Kiwi comedy circuit and Kevin: The Musical is the best Kiwi musical you’ve never seen.

Kevin was apparently a once great Kiwi musical, written in the 80’s as a movie that alas, went straight to VHS. Resurrecting the musical onstage for the very first time, a tragic accident sees the cast and crew mangled on the road outside the theatre, leaving only Kevin the theatre janitor (and quite possibly Kevin the Musical’s greatest fan) to perform the show for us.

Along the way we meet a few of the residents of the town of Kevin: the Mayor, keen to “put the town of Kevin on the map” by funding a set of traffic lights for the town centre; Darryn, an unemployed, depressed kiwi bloke, who may be destined to save the town from a power-mad fish & chip shop owner and hopefully win the girl who just so happens to be married to the fish and chip shop owner. Plus a chorus of thousands of Kiwi birds.

In this show, Wrigley expands his one man band ethos to include musician Mark Dennison, and Wrigley’s real life fiancée Cyan whose innovative, transformative set and puppetry creates many of the theatrical moments of delight.

Unfortunately, her somewhat unpolished onstage performance is eclipsed by Wrigley. It’s not so much that she isn’t good, just that she’s nowhere near as strongly committed to the performance as he is.

His energy is breathtaking; masterful use of both language and delivery. There’s no one better with a throwaway line or a cheap visual gag, and it’s all in aid of the progression of the multi-levelled story and characters. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a crowd genuinely laugh quite so loud for quite so long.

The music is highly functional to the story, more descriptive of plot and action than driving forward momentum, but maybe a little overly singular in the harmonic line, so songs come across like an eight-year-olds vision of what a musical should sound like. But here, again, Wrigley proves he has the chops to carry a tune with relish and never misses a beat.

Sound levels of the pre-recorded music seemed rather high, losing some of the excellent writing at the heart of the score, compounded by the levels of the finale – including “actors” hand-picked from the audience – being a little misjudged by the operator and getting lost through the laughter of the opening night audience.

Despite the frantic energy, the production almost loses a little steam late in the piece from its heavy reliance on set and props and the need to keep the stage workable. The two performers even leave the stage bare for a moment for a costume change and, despite trying to retain pace with ‘noises-off’, the forward through-line set up early-on sags a bit. I would also have liked to see a little more commitment to the reality of the framing story at the beginning to pull us in.

Someone in the production team certainly knows their musicals and coarse theatre gags but it’s all delivered with a level of wit, stylisation and intelligence not often seen on a local comedy stage. It is refreshing to see a show in this festival that isn’t essentially stand-up with a theatrical after-thought tacked on.

Kevin really is a stand out production within this years’ Comedy Festival and deserves a tour of the country. So see him now while you can – Steve Wrigley’s a busy, talented fella and I would suspect overseas is calling right about now.
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