This is the New Zealand Premiere of Don’t Spit The Water, an intriguing sort of sensational live game show from Chicago, America. The idea is kind of a tame version of the odd conceptual contests on TV’s Distraction. An all-local cast of character-driven comedians compete in their quest to get the audience-picked players, whose cheeks are filled with water, to squirt it out by causing them to laugh uncontrollably.  

Emcee Te Radar’s versatile capabilities seem to easily stretch to Gameshow Host; in his grey knit suit, black shirt and white shoes he’s a bit like the two Ronnies put together. His mysterious Japanese assistant Yamamoto keeps time and score, plus he gets his chance by and by to share his darker secrets… 

First up out of the audience is Daniel, a Bachelor of Arts student assigned the task of mopping the inevitable spillages – possibly good practice for the sort of work he’ll probably find himself in with such a degree?

Tonight’s three actual contestants, all selected at random from the front row, are Cindy the credit controller, Taylor the software engineer and Stacey the commerce student. The comedians charged with causing a wet response are introduced as Anti-smacking Bill (Millen Baird), a dangerous aggressive psychotic bloke with no arms; Bad King Duncan (Mark Scott), a tragic, weedy, pathetic live action role-playing nerd with an enormous over-compensatory sword; and the Old Guy (Mike Boon), a stereotypically cantankerous old guy. 

The first rounds are played: one minute per comedian per player, throughout which only Stacey the commerce student loses her liquid, once after 15 seconds of just being stared at by the Old Guy.   The second round they get two whole minutes to get them to crack, and points are scored according to how many seconds they keep it in.

The highly skilled comedians’ characters remind me faintly of other broad character-driven theatrical artforms like commedia dell’arte and wrestling. 

By the end of the show there hasn’t actually been a whole lot of water for Daniel the BA student to clean up; not that the competitors weren’t amused or struggling, but mostly they managed to hold it in. 

I’m sure they were all playing fair but I thought a couple of rules would help: Firstly, for authentication, successful contestants ought always to spit the water into a bucket instead of just swallowing it. Second, just to make it that little bit harder to retain the fluid, they should not be allowed to cover the mouth with their hands. 

Radar and Yamamoto’s banter was a bit staged but everyone’s had a good time generally so no wuckers. I gather the comedian line-up is different each night so if you go and see it based on this review, it’ll be completely different anyway. 
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