Talented and transfixing are two words to describe the hilarious and captivating performances in the Bitches Box and Mel Parsons at Repertory house, Invercargill last night. 

This double bill show had the best of both worlds, beginning with South Island star and musician Mel Parsons. Self-written songs are sung from her first two albums and stole hearts as she strummed her guitar.  When her mouth opens, our mouths drop! Her personal and powerful voice creates an atmosphere of awe and amazement!

Songs include a vast variety from her own life experiences, family events, love and a heart breaking tragedy with the death of her friend. This classic country singer lights up the stage with her down-to-earth personality and larger-than-life stage presence.  Flawless and fantastic.

The shows second half is a story set in the South Island that every Southlander should see. From beginning to end it has the audience in stitches with a tale through the eyes of two ‘bitches on heat’. It’s a dog’s life!

The hour long production brings creative characters to life and with quick vocal and physical changes the dynamic duo Emma Newborn and Amelia Guild play several canines each. There’s our heroines Red, the aged and dignified bitch, and her opposite, Twink, the new and excited pup.  Their narrative begins with their kennels side by side on their farmland home.

With a quick slap-on-a-hat, two Jack Russells (appropriately named Jack and Russell) appear with force. These canine commentators give an overview and fresh perception on their caged friends, bound for breeding. The audience’s favourite seems to be the hilariousJames Clive Reginald Montgomery Smith, the elder pig-dog, who makes appearances to roars of laughter.

This now international success is setting off across New Zealand in their literally Woolshed Tour. The energetic entertainment includes witty remarks, clever jokes and elements of song and dance. Fast paced and spot on comedic timing makes this show a festival highlight! Through the perception of our pets, you’ll never look at them in the same way again! 

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The Bitches’ Box is delightfully doggy: life on the farm but not as we know it! 

A simple set of corrugated iron and chicken wire gates, dressed with small scraps of sack cloth which float in the early evening breeze, sits before us in the stunning Italian Renaissance garden’s Medici Court while a rural soundscape spins from speakers. The Court is full tonight, and I cannot help but feel like I am about to trip back in time, sat in this small amphitheatre in the balmy open air. There are no fancy lights, just the soundscape pairing beautifully with the vine creeping up the wall and luscious green all around us. 

As a dog lover, I’m excited to see how these two young Kiwi actors will answer the question: what would life on the farm look like through the eyes of two bitches on heat, locked in a bitches’ box? 

What unfolds is a pearly, endearingly funny, exceptionally well executed view of a sheep dog’s life and place amongst all of the enduring characters who fulfil the various roles of dogs on the farm.

We meet the diesel dogs, Jack and Russell, who ride with the farmer and hang around the yard but don’t work the land. The enduring mongrel pig dog James, one-eyed and slobbering, delivers sturdy words to the troops about life ‘in the field’. The bounding idiot house dog, Fenton, lives inside and is quite an adorable, rapping simpleton. And our heroines, Twink and Red, along with all the boys in the gang, are the working dogs on the farm.

So, Twink (Emma Newborn) and Red (Amelia Guild) find themselves locked up else they should get knocked up, as is the way on the farm. This affords them the time (twenty days) and the luxury of being able to reflect upon, dissect and therefore play out every aspect of their life on the farm.  

Wow. From the very start the pair’s chemistry is remarkable. They bounce banter off each other which is rapier sharp and super quick, with an easy fluidity that I can clearly see comes from genuinely knowing this piece inside and out. I love it when I see two actors so spellbinding together.

It is not long before I stop seeing two players and see only dogs. This seldom happens for me and is such a treat! More impressive is that I can see that with the complexity of the choreography, the music (yes, they sing too) and dialogue as demanding as this is, it would be easy to see lesser craftsmen make a dogs’ breakfast of it (forgive the pun). Not so here. 

Sliding seamlessly in and out of the various characters, I am pleased to see each is played authentically. I have spent my fair share of time out on the land with dogs and I find every depiction so adorably accurate, I get the sense that even if I was I not a dog person I would still be able to see and love every aspect of this delightful piece.  

The Bitches’ Box is tragedy, comedy, singing, dancing, sniffing, barking and so much more. The truth of the characters and the flawless execution make this a perfect example of a well-worked show. It’s easy to see how these two played to packed houses at The Edinburgh Festival as this work is nothing short of spot on. 

The concept is not new; we Kiwis are familiar with a certain talking dog and his mates through the work of Murray Ball. What makes this so unique is that this piece is all dog/bitch, and is played so well that it stands as enduring nod to the plight of the simple sheep dog.

The audience is on its feet for a standing ovation and I feel a stab of jealous admiration as I imagine what it would be like being as talented as these two young actors. A sensational addition to the Hamilton Gardens’ Arts Festival, I suggest you see this show.

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Well before you’ve entered the Assembly Rooms’ box in George Square, you’re able to hear Fred Dagg playing inside. John Clarke’s archetypal New Zealand accent could not be in a more appropriate setting. The Bitches’ Box is a throwback to a kind of comedy that is uniquely Kiwi.  

After touring through rural New Zealand, like the Topp Twins once did with a tractor and a gypsy caravan, The Bitches’ Box headed to the big smoke for a critically acclaimed sell-out season at the Auckland Fringe. Now it’s Edinburgh’s turn.  

Twink and Red are the first characters we are introduced to. They bring a typical cabaret dynamic to the world-weary woman and the bright-eyed pup undergoing changes she doesn’t fully understand.  

The Diesel Dogs are a sort of canine Ken and Ken (the Topp Twins again), and James Clive Reginald Montgomery Smith is the farmer’s retired hunting dog. His drooling seems a bit much for the younger audience members in the front row, but the rest of us love watching his saliva pool on the floor.  

Fenton the housedog is the final addition to the pack. Not too bright, and a self-proclaimed rapper, he reminds me of Derek the white guy from Sione’s Wedding. 

The energy between Amelia Guild and Emma Newborn is extraordinary. The piece is full of the choreographed movement and quick-fire line delivery that one loves to see in a double-act, and the transitions between characters are immediate and total. Newborn’s shift from the limping, eye-patched hero of the “Boar” War (geddit?) to the sultry Red is especially impressive.  

The jokes are sometimes a little too far in the gutter for my city-folk sensibilities, but it’s difficult to resist a few crass jokes in a play about farm dogs. The use of music is equally lacking in subtlety, as it should be. The music is often part of the joke. The Velvet Underground’s I’m Waiting for the Man plays for quite a while as the two dogs in the bitch box anxiously wait around to “get knotted”. 

The play has a hint of story, with Red’s love life and Twink’s coming of age, but the Bitches’ Box is primarily an excuse to share a group of characters. Thankfully both Guild and Newborn make them characters worth sharing, and the series of (sometimes completely isolated) scenes that comprise the Bitches’ Box are a success. In this Edinburgh season, the piece is especially successful thanks to its overt Kiwi charm. 

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After forty-two shows across the country in their (literal) Woolshed Tour, actresses Emma Newborn and Amelia Guild finally bring their two-woman show to Auckland for the 2013 Fringe Festival. “Born out of a dream and desire to provide rural audiences a chance to have a truly unique night out with their neighbours”, if the show was received as well on tour as it was on its opening night in the City of Sails, it could only have been an unreserved success. 

While the overarching story comes to a somewhat abrupt end, the show is cannily driven through the perspective of several canine groupings. There’s Red and Twink, the bitches box veteran and newcomer respectively; the aptly named diesel dogs, whose narrative function gives a perceptive overview of the world of the play; James Clive Reginald Montgomery Smith, the aged pig-dog inspiring his fellow breed in a Churchill-esque address; and Fenton, the house dog with a penchant for rap. The sequence of scenes is brilliantly interspersed, allowing for a steady progression of characters and non-contrived reveals through the plays narrative (including a genuinely sorrowful story plonked right in the middle of this upbeat comedy). [More] 

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After touring Nationwide, The Bitches’ Box now graces the Auckland stage to reveal the multiple layers and the inner psyches of ‘man’s best friend’. 

Walking into the intimate space of the loft theatre at Q, we hear farm animal sounds (baas and moos) and a farmer whistling as he goes about his duties.

The set is minimal with two makeshift kennels and a red curtain backdrop. This show has been performed in many wool sheds up and down the North and South Islands, so I assume they just use the resources they have, with basic props.

In walk Emma Newborn and Amelia Guild who gallivant as the two bitches on heat, Red and Twink respectively. Red is mature and experienced with ‘knotting’, which means having sex in dog language. Twink is virginal and innocent, so listens intently to the wise words of Red, who also throws in a few facts like how many times dogs are mentioned in the bible, the sleeping habits of puppies and – something I didn’t know, until now – the colour of Dalmation puppies at birth.

Red demonstrates flirtation tactics by ‘shimmy’ dancing, and moving her body seductively to attract the male talent, being Quid, Fenton or Bruno, who she lost her innocence to, falling for a ‘working’ dog as opposed to a ‘house’ dog.

By putting black-and-white caps on, Red and Twink transition into males of the species, known as diesel dogs and referred to as Jack and Russell. They speak graphically and candidly about the bitches being on heat and smelling like “Geese farts on a muggy day” or “Sheep’s afterbirth on the radiator”.

Fenton, a rapper, is played by Amelia Guild. She moves in a gangsta way and sings in an Eminem-style that has the crowd cheering and applauding.

James Clive Reginald Montgomery Smith, performed by Emma Newborn, is a more sophisticated and mature dog, with an eye-patch and slumped body movements, slurring and dribbling as he speaks.

All the differing personalities of the bitches and dogs in the six transitions involve have something entertaining to offer. At times it is difficult to hear everything being said, as there is an overload of text. But both Amelia Guild and Emma Newborn are extremely talented in their bitch/dog performances.

The Bitches’ Box offers the a unique experience of seeing humans scratch their bottoms on fences, lick each other’s faces, coat themselves in (imaginary) faecal matter, roll around the floor and parade around in doggie-style. 

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